BIG SPENDING DEMOCRATS REJECTED NATIONALLY
Nationally, Republicans campaigned against arrogant big government: Obamacare, the IRS cover-up, the Benghazi cover-up, threatened executive orders, and other abuses of governmental power by Democrats. Republicans won substantial majorities in the House and Senate.
Now, Republicans need to pull the purse strings tight and rein in the federal government.
Republicans also made big gains in state races adding governors and state legislators throughout the country. Democrats lost their majorities in both houses of the California legislature.
BIG SPENDING BY NEWPORT BEACH CITY COUNCIL REJECTED
In Newport Beach, the big spending city council and the candidates they had hoped would become their handpicked successors suffered resounding losses.
Mayor Rush Hill lost by more than 2 to 1. The four candidates opposing Newport Beach’s big spending past swept the council elections.
Newport Beach Council member and former mayor Keith Curry lost his State Assembly race to Matthew Harper. According to OCPolitical.com, Curry didn’t even win a majority of votes in Newport Beach.
Losses of this magnitude remind me of Custer at Little Big Horn or Gorbachev at the end of the Cold War.
Voters judged the overpriced city hall and imposed accountability on the council. Voters understand that politicians like this will bankrupt our children’s and grandchildren’s futures if we don’t stop them.
LEADERS OF THE CITY HALL DEBACLE STILL DON’T GET IT
In spite of suffering defeat, Rush Hill and Keith Curry still don’t appear to have received their election messages.
Hill told the Independent, “I guess it proves big money and nasty politics can shape the policy of even the great cities of the world. Too bad it has now begun in Newport Beach.”
Hill initiated nasty politics by slurring his political opponents with profanity from his perch at a December 2012 city council meeting. His campaign opponents were more civil. Voters held him accountable for his big spending.
Hill claimed in a Nov. 7 article in the Daily Pilot that his oppone nts “did an excellent job of running a negative campaign they sold based on misinformation.”
I saw videos of Hill promising to cap the city hall project costs.Hill didn’t keep his word. Hill won’t accept that his opponents campaigned against his record.
Hill tried to belittle his opponent Duffy by telling the Daily Pilot, “I find it quite amusing that someone who is not interested in government other than the harbor pulled that kind of lead . . .”
It appears that more than 2/3 of voters who voted for Duffy and against Hill weren’t as amused as Hill. They also wanted to cut big government.
Curry suffered a double blow: his Assembly bid and his big spending city council majority.
The quotable Curry reacted to his losses by telling the Daily Pilot, “It remains to be seen how people with a highly hyper-partisan agenda would approach things, but I don’t think the community is going to tolerate it very long.”
What several communities, including Newport Beach, didn’t tolerate was Curry’s big spending voting record. Curry accusing others of being “hyper-partisan” is hypocritical since he is on the Lincoln Club board and lobbied partisan politicians for their endorsements all year.
Hopefully, the rejected councilmembers will stop acting like Obama and recognize the causes of their overwhelming defeats. Newport’s citizens would benefit.
I believe it is a mistake to conflate Newport’s chastisement of the city council with a Republican resistance to big government. People are apathetic about pubic wastefulness. But they were firmly opposed to development in Newport Center, and enraged by the council’s transparently deceptiveness.
I we’ll be very telling to see if “Team Duffy”, at the first counsel meeting move to sell the new city hall complex, “to pay off their children’s debt” and move to move back into the old city complex. The truth of the matter is that “Team Duffy” is only interested in turning the counsel into a replica of Costa Mesa.
Good luck and God speed!