At a U.S. Senate hearing last year, Barbara Boxer pointedly asked Brig. Gen. Michael Walsh to address her as “senator” rather than “ma’am.” The exchange lives on the Internet and likely will be replayed for voters this fall. “When you’re in the Senate will I be able to call you ‘ma’am?’” a smiling Irvine Congressman John Campbell asked Boxer challenger Carly Fiorina at a fundraiser in Shady Canyon. Fiorina told the Lincoln Club attendees they could call her Carly or even “hey you,” and added, “If you raise enough money for me you will see that ‘Call Me Senator’ ad over and over and over” …
Fiorina returns to OC, this time with new Massachusetts Sen. Scott Brown, for another fundraiser Thursday at the Island Hotel … Creative guy Curt Lyon (Lyon Studios, Newport Beach) spent time in New York with Bullseye the Target stores dog, whose schedule included personal appearances, a commercial, a super-model shoot and ringing the bell at the New York Stock Exchange. Says Lyon, “I guess this dog-eat-dog economy finally has a mascot!” …
Tax lawyer Rick Weiner has left the Busch Firm to set up his own practice in Irvine. In the interim he played golf at Whistling Straits in She-boygan, Wis. He sympathizes with Dustin Johnson, who days later on the same course lost his bid for the PGA Championship when he was penalized for grounding his club in a rag-tag bunker. Says Weiner, “The first thing the caddie told me was, ‘We have a lot of waste bunkers. If there’s no rake in the bunker you can ground your club” …
Steve Friedlander, Irvine Company’s manager of golf operations, says Weiner’s caddie was wrong. Friedlander should know: In his prior gig as golf director for Kohler Co., he helped build Whistling Straits and hosted its 2004 PGA championship. He’s still trying to sell his “big old custom log home” near the course. He went back with his yoga instructor wife Marie for the PGA tourney and experienced deja vu at the breathtaking views of Lake Michigan. But, the Minnesotan-turned-Corona del Mar resident says that what the dazzled TV viewers didn’t have to experience was the “hot and sticky” Midwest summer … Friedlander says there is little chance of idyllic Pelican Hill hosting a major tournament because there aren’t 35 acres nearby for the operations and TV compounds. That is, unless one of the two courses were used as the staging area (similar to what Pebble Beach did for this year’s U.S. Open). But the wear and tear would mean restoration costs and roughly a year of lost revenue. Pelican might host a smaller pro event, he says, something it last did with the Diners Club/Hyundai matches in 1999 and 2000. While the Pelican courses are a bit short by pro standards, Friedlander says the greens are more challenging than Whistling Straits.
