Author: Ellinorianne

It was instead the three am alarm clock that my husband had asked me to set.  He got home last night at around 9pm from a candidate forum in Fullerton.  He hadn’t eaten dinner and was trying to figure out what to have (He wasn’t much interested in what I had made for dinner, although it was nicely packed in a tupperware container in the fridge just in case he wanted it).  He also let me know that the people who had volunteered to put his signs out were unable to do so now.

So, he asked me to set the alarm for 3am.  He had spent the afternoon attempting to put signs up but with the traffic, etc., he said it took too long.  He was going to get up and do it when there was hardly anyone on the road.

You can’t knock him for not being dedicated.

Gary Pritchard, my husband, is running for the California State Senate in the 33rd district.  He first did this to put a “D” on the ballot and then decided he would do the best he could.  It was quite an undertaking for us but why not?  

It has proven to be quite a bit for us to handle but we are doing it.  Gary works full time, as do I and we have a five year daughter.  It’s been quite a juggling act.

Gary called on Wednesday to ask if I could pick up the stakes for the signs and find a way to assemble them.  Sure!  I panicked a bit but then called the South OC Democratic Club and they were kind enough to assemble his signs.  Done.

But this morning, Gary got up at 3am to put his signs out.  I tried to go back to sleep, I know.  What kind of wife am I?  Well, I’m the kind of wife who seems to be coming down with another cold and who has health problems that tend to get worse with lack of sleep.  He understands this.

Gary got back at about 5:30 am.  To say it was a restful night would be far from the truth.  My alarm went off at 6:30 and it was time to start my day.

After showering and getting our five year old up and dressed, I came down stairs to find that Gary had made breakfast.  Biscuits (Trader Joe’s is a Godsend, they were fresh from the oven) and eggs.  Charlotte was eating away and Gary had already packed her snack for school.

I could tell he was tired.  Gary still has to teach today but he said he could get another couple of hours of sleep in before having to be at school.  And then after that he would be putting more signs up.

The 33rd district covers a huge amount of area, including Anaheim, Anaheim Hills, Fullerton, Villa Park, Orange, Laguna Niguel, Laguna Woods, Laguna Hills, Mission Viejo, Rancho Santa Margarita, Aliso Viejo, Buena Park, Tustin, Silverado, Irvine, Santa Ana, Lake Forest, Coto de Caza and Foothill Ranch.  I like to call the district map, “Rexi”.  

Gary and I spent Saturday morning putting up some of the signs with Charlotte in the car.  Now when she sees them, she screams, “I was with you when you put those up, right?”  We saw a few on the way to school and on my way to work.  I managed some blurry photos from my blackberry.  I had to get the signs while they were still up, who knows how long they’ll last.

This was the first attempt.  Um, what sign?

Not fast enough!

Too soon!

Ah, there we go!

There are a lot of signs popping up all over the County, I’m glad to see some of them belong to Gary.  I’m proud of him and for how willing he is to work hard for this even if it means we don’t see very much of him at times.

I got this with my camera phone as well.  There have been a lot of local protests in favor of Prop 8.

But I try to remember the most important thing about all of this.  Gary is doing this for Charlotte, our five year old.  She’s bright, she’s daring and she’s sweet.  

Charlotte doesn’t quite understand why anyone would care about who someone marries but then again, I don’t think she needs to understand that right now.  I just attempt to answer her questions as simply and honestly as possible.  As much as I want to shelter her from things, I know that by making no question off limits, I will hopefully help her grow to be a compassionate and caring citizen who questions authority and loves her Country very much.  The two are not mutually exclusive!

So, that was our 3 am moment.  I’m sure there will be others, weve still got two more weeks of this to go and I have to say, I’m really looking forward to November 5th.

Gary and Charlotte!

CrossPosted

Gary Pritchard is running for California State Senate in the 33rd district.  The 33rd is located in Orange County, CA, birth place of Richard Nixon and home of John Wayne Airport and Ronald Reagan Federal Building.

The 33rd Senate District includes Anaheim, Anaheim Hills, Fullerton, Villa Park, Orange, Laguna Niguel, Laguna Woods, Laguna Hills, Mission Viejo, Rancho Santa Margarita, Aliso Viejo, Buena Park, Tustin, Silverado, Irvine, Santa Ana, Lake Forest, Coto de Caza and Foothill Ranch.

As you can see, the district is huge and covers a million people, more constituents than the State of Alaska.  And the local papers are not willing to even admit that Democratic Candidates exist.  Seriously, neither do the Republican candidates.

Republican absence kills UCI voter forum

October 8th, 2008, 4:45 pm · 1 Comment · posted by BRIAN JOSEPH, Sacramento Bureau Chief

UC Irvine planned to have a candidates forum this evening, but organizers had to cancel it when all of the Republican candidates said they couldn’t make it.

…

Quite a coincidence, huh? I’ve heard of Republicans in Illinois and Indiana ducking debates this year too. Maybe this is another example of how being Republican just ain’t a good thing this election year.

OC Register

The short article then went on to list every Republican who was invited and did not mention one Democratic candidate.  I posted the second comment to the story asking why didn’t they list the Democrats who agreed to come rather than just listing the Republicans.  My comment was removed or not approved.  It was polite and it was a very simple question.  But in admonishing the Republicans for not admitting that Democrats exist in Orange County they refused to admit their presence as well.  Talk about an uphill battle.

Local liberal blogger extraordinaire, Dan Chmielewski asked a very good question of the OC Register at the Liberal OC.  

Ever since Robert Novak was diagnosed with a brain tumor, the OC Register has been trying out a number of hard right columnists in spite of the growing purpleness of Orange County and the paper’s readership.  I’m on the record calling for them to add Paul Krugman of the New York Times as a worthy voice to the paper’s syndicated columnists.

In these trying times, wouldn’t it be good to hear from someone who’s beyond bright about economics?  Well, the Nobel committee this morning validated my rationale for my pitch to the Register by naming Krugam the recipient of the Nobel Prize for Economics.

Liberal OC

So what was the response?  Steven Greenhut had this to say,

Steven Greenhut, on October 13th, 2008 at 9:17 am Said:

Although I am not the columns editor, I might point out that we have a free-market editorial page, so we’re not likely to run a lefty economist. Our running Krugman would be similar to you – who operates a Democratic blog – to start including bloggers who were Republican partisans.

Is it just me, or does anyone else think there is a huge difference between a Newspaper opinion section and a local blog?  Yes?

No wonder no one wants to run as a Democratic Candidate in this County.  It’s just so frustrating for local Candidates that have a D on the ballot.  Gary chose to run this race because no one else was going to.  He’s a community college teacher, musician and father but he also knew that he couldn’t stand the idea of people not having a choice when entering their voting booths or opening their absentee ballots.  

So we keep going, doing what we can when can.  I work full time as well and we are not financially well off.  Many came to our aid when we needed to raise money for Gary’s ballot statement but we are a spot again since the Republican Candidate did not put up her own Ballot Statement.  That means we out the Registrar of Voters at least another $7,400.  That’s about 40% of what we’ve managed to raise so far.  The Republican Candidate has at least $200,000 on hand and will probably not spend another dime as many have already declared her the victor in the election.

So here I am, asking again for your help.  I’ve dedicated myself to a handful of projects to work for, one of them being our Five year old daughter, who is the most important of these things in our life right now, the other is getting Proposition 8 defeated, saving some dogs from being put to sleep by fostering and adopting dogs taken from high kill shelters and raising money for Gary’s election.

So here is Emma and Charlotte:

if you have no desire to donate to Gary Pritchard’s campaign, donate to this rescue to help save more dogs from being euthanized.

and here is where you can donate to Non On Prop 8 if you decided you don’t want to help Gary Pritchard.  Do something if you haven’t yet.

But if you do want to help Gary, you can donate at his Act Blue site or email me and I will be happy to send you a self addressed donation envelope.

and our other woozle, Kona.  A sweet and much older Dachshund mix.