Just to be clear...the Democratic Party of Orange County did NOT endorse Jason Sams. We cannot stop him from being a registered Democrat and we cannot stop him from running for office, but we interviewed him and recommended "no endorsement" in this race.
These are unprecedented times. Republicans are constantly winning races with highly unqualified candidates. Not to mention all the appointed positions we've been bombarded with. Democrats need to focus on winning elections and it takes an opponent for that to happen. I would like to see losses in as many races as possible in June and November. Go Jason!
I was disappointed that DPOC did not endorse Jason Sams. Since the question is, “would I rather have Lisa Sparks or Jason Sams?” It seems like It’s a no-brainer.
As a life-long voter, I have always made strategic voting choices - which candidate can win and also improve things - or prevent things from getting worse? Most of the time I was not thrilled with the candidate I voted for. Biden, for example, is not who I wanted to see leading the country. But he was the one who was most likely to win against Trump so he got my vote. I’m still mad at Biden but he did what needed to be done in his term in office - mostly.
In fact, Biden did more good in his 4 years in office than I expected. He rose to the occasion.
Jason Sams for OCBE will be an improvement, at the very least. That is why I am voting for him, and I encourage others to do the same. We need him to win that race!
My feelings exactly! Democrats are their own worst enemy. Right now in CA40 and in the Governor's race the strategy should be to WIN. We have a unique opportunity to vote out both Ken Calvert and Young Kim in CA40. Unfortunately, we have the spoiled spoiler, Esther Kim Varet, and the Dem Club Darling Vote Divider, Lisa Ramirez. I know Lisa could do great things for fixing immigration, but this is a now safe red district and the retired firefighter has a better chance of winning. He won the primary last time against the school board candidate and would've flipped it if less than half of the registered Democrats who didn't vote had done so. If it was Lisa against the divided votes for Kim/Calvert, maybe??? It's too risky. Lisa and Esther should endorse Joe and be done with it! We could end up with a Republican governor for the same reason - ego over party. So frustrating! Katie Porter was a fabulous Congress member. She should've stayed there until we get out of this mess!
I feel the same way about Biden. Tbh, I voted for him thinking he wouldn't make it thru the first term and we'd end up with Kamala. I was still a registered republican at the time I voted, too. (I had voted for her every time she was on the ticket anyway, so it wasn't a far stretch for me to do it again.) I officially switched parties in Dec 2020.
As a candidate who isn't being primaried, my site is still a work in progress and my team only *just* got my FB & Insta up. I stopped personally using those platforms (as well as TikTok) last January when fascists happily accepted Trump as their president. My team will maintain my pages and my website. My priority is meeting people in person.
I have money. I am currently entirely self funded. I can guarantee that's why Esther has what she has as well.
What’s heartbreaking is the supremely qualified candidate we had in that race 4 years ago. Sadly she wasn’t elected but she would have been a tremendous asset to the BOE.
It is hard to recruit credible challengers for the OCBOE because the races combine low public visibility with unusually high stakes: outside a small circle of insiders, most voters don’t know who sits on the OCBOE or what it does, while elections are scheduled for low-turnout primaries that amplify organized interests. In that environment, charter-aligned candidates benefit from a major money and infrastructure advantage (sympathetic media, messaging capacity, and allied institutions), and the board’s culture-war politics and litigation-heavy climate raises the personal and professional cost of entering the fight. Put simply, many qualified community leaders conclude they can’t realistically compete—or don’t want to pay the price of running—so fewer candidates step forward.
Jason Sams is plainly willing to run for an office that few people pay attention to—except those aligned with the charter school racket. But he also appears to have limited qualifications for the role. The real question, then, is comparative: is Sams meaningfully better than Lisa Sparks? Sparks has set a notably low bar on both competence and integrity, so even a modest improvement matters—but we should still judge any candidate against the actual demands of the office, not merely against the weakness of the alternative.
A straightforward remedy to the OCBOE’s abuses would be to have its members appointed by the OC Board of Supervisors. As a charter county, Orange County could revise its charter to allow this—an approach already used in Los Angeles County, which represents nearly one quarter of Californians. Such a change would trigger fierce opposition from interests that have benefited from the charter school undermining of local school boards and would be a hard sell to voters, but the stakes warrant it.
While the importance of one board seat on an otherwise completely OCGOP dominated board should not be minimized, the real tragedy is what recently happened with the candidacy of Dr. Jeffrey Cole. An Orange County Superior Court judge has determined that Cole’s expired administrative credential disqualified him to challenge Dr. Stefan Bean in this November’s election for Superintendent of the Orange County Department of Education. Bean wins by default.
This outcome represents another success for the OCGOP, Mark Bucher, and the California Policy Center—and for the broader charter school racket in Orange County—at the direct expense of the proper functioning of the OCDOE. The Superintendent of the OCDOE is an extremely important, well-compensated position. It is hard to understand how the CTA and other organizations devoted to education could allow Bean to go unchallenged. There is lots of blame to go around on this one.
Jeff, a much better use of your time and ours would be to spend just an hour looking into the current members of the OC Board of Education, where their campaign financing comes from, how they've sued the state of CA using tax payer funds, and their rubber stamping of charter schools (hint - that's where some of the campaign financing comes from). I could go on but it's your job to do the research and then enlighten your audience. Now THAT would be worthwhile journalism.
It’s so frustrating that these extremists who want to use our tax dollars for private schools and charter schools aren’t running against highly qualified candidates. Some are facing no opposition at all. It’s the same for school boards and city council seats. Maybe this primary will follow other recent elections around the country and have high turnout so we can vote them out, regardless of how qualified their opponent is!
The problem with this is the lack of people voting down ballot. I can guarantee in my district where there are 12k+ registered voters, maybe 20% of them will get past the higher offices.
I needed a laugh today. Thanks for this. Reminds me of a resume sent to NASA in the 1990's. Listed as a skill: "The most amazing, undiscovered talent in the Silicon Valley." We howled
I was taught that the first rule of successful speechifying is choose a subject about which you’re passionate. He may seek election, but that “speech” and his sad website tell us that he lacks any passion for the position.
This is exactly why Democrats lose elections. If there is one Republican running for office, they do not care if that person is a convicted felon (Trump), a conspiracy theorist (Marjorie Taylor Green) a GED High School graduate (Lauren Boebert), a serial liar (George Santos), a school board member who says the N word (Judy Bullockus) etc etc. They will vote for ANYONE with a R next to their name. In the next article, a Republican on the Board of Education called a teenager hot. I can guarantee if our Democrat “hologram” on the Board of Ed ballot gets elected, he will never ever, and I mean NEVER do that. He will fight against school vouchers, charter schools, book banning, attacks on trans people, etc. He will be the one voice advocating for supporting public education on the MAGA board. And the cringey misogynist will probably get reelected. Just like redistricting, we need to play by the rules Republicans use. They vote for criminals, horrifically unqualified and dangerous people. We can’t win if we don’t have a candidate. Be grateful we have one and if he ends up being a dangerous criminal, unlike Republicans we will hold him accountable. If Eric Swalwell had been the only Democrat on the ballot for governor, he would still be toast. Republicans don't care about how their candidate will govern or their moral character, they care about staying in power. The stakes are too high for us to lose seats anywhere! Voting is not a valentine, it's a chess move.
Just to be clear...the Democratic Party of Orange County did NOT endorse Jason Sams. We cannot stop him from being a registered Democrat and we cannot stop him from running for office, but we interviewed him and recommended "no endorsement" in this race.
These are unprecedented times. Republicans are constantly winning races with highly unqualified candidates. Not to mention all the appointed positions we've been bombarded with. Democrats need to focus on winning elections and it takes an opponent for that to happen. I would like to see losses in as many races as possible in June and November. Go Jason!
I was disappointed that DPOC did not endorse Jason Sams. Since the question is, “would I rather have Lisa Sparks or Jason Sams?” It seems like It’s a no-brainer.
As a life-long voter, I have always made strategic voting choices - which candidate can win and also improve things - or prevent things from getting worse? Most of the time I was not thrilled with the candidate I voted for. Biden, for example, is not who I wanted to see leading the country. But he was the one who was most likely to win against Trump so he got my vote. I’m still mad at Biden but he did what needed to be done in his term in office - mostly.
In fact, Biden did more good in his 4 years in office than I expected. He rose to the occasion.
Jason Sams for OCBE will be an improvement, at the very least. That is why I am voting for him, and I encourage others to do the same. We need him to win that race!
My feelings exactly! Democrats are their own worst enemy. Right now in CA40 and in the Governor's race the strategy should be to WIN. We have a unique opportunity to vote out both Ken Calvert and Young Kim in CA40. Unfortunately, we have the spoiled spoiler, Esther Kim Varet, and the Dem Club Darling Vote Divider, Lisa Ramirez. I know Lisa could do great things for fixing immigration, but this is a now safe red district and the retired firefighter has a better chance of winning. He won the primary last time against the school board candidate and would've flipped it if less than half of the registered Democrats who didn't vote had done so. If it was Lisa against the divided votes for Kim/Calvert, maybe??? It's too risky. Lisa and Esther should endorse Joe and be done with it! We could end up with a Republican governor for the same reason - ego over party. So frustrating! Katie Porter was a fabulous Congress member. She should've stayed there until we get out of this mess!
Kind of like what Jeff said about the Governor's race - if another Democrat has a better chance to getting into the top two - get out of the way!
I feel the same way about Biden. Tbh, I voted for him thinking he wouldn't make it thru the first term and we'd end up with Kamala. I was still a registered republican at the time I voted, too. (I had voted for her every time she was on the ticket anyway, so it wasn't a far stretch for me to do it again.) I officially switched parties in Dec 2020.
If Kamala Harris had done the right thing, she would’ve run for governor. 😡
As a candidate who isn't being primaried, my site is still a work in progress and my team only *just* got my FB & Insta up. I stopped personally using those platforms (as well as TikTok) last January when fascists happily accepted Trump as their president. My team will maintain my pages and my website. My priority is meeting people in person.
I have money. I am currently entirely self funded. I can guarantee that's why Esther has what she has as well.
Give the guy a break. That's my .02
What’s heartbreaking is the supremely qualified candidate we had in that race 4 years ago. Sadly she wasn’t elected but she would have been a tremendous asset to the BOE.
It is hard to recruit credible challengers for the OCBOE because the races combine low public visibility with unusually high stakes: outside a small circle of insiders, most voters don’t know who sits on the OCBOE or what it does, while elections are scheduled for low-turnout primaries that amplify organized interests. In that environment, charter-aligned candidates benefit from a major money and infrastructure advantage (sympathetic media, messaging capacity, and allied institutions), and the board’s culture-war politics and litigation-heavy climate raises the personal and professional cost of entering the fight. Put simply, many qualified community leaders conclude they can’t realistically compete—or don’t want to pay the price of running—so fewer candidates step forward.
Jason Sams is plainly willing to run for an office that few people pay attention to—except those aligned with the charter school racket. But he also appears to have limited qualifications for the role. The real question, then, is comparative: is Sams meaningfully better than Lisa Sparks? Sparks has set a notably low bar on both competence and integrity, so even a modest improvement matters—but we should still judge any candidate against the actual demands of the office, not merely against the weakness of the alternative.
A straightforward remedy to the OCBOE’s abuses would be to have its members appointed by the OC Board of Supervisors. As a charter county, Orange County could revise its charter to allow this—an approach already used in Los Angeles County, which represents nearly one quarter of Californians. Such a change would trigger fierce opposition from interests that have benefited from the charter school undermining of local school boards and would be a hard sell to voters, but the stakes warrant it.
While the importance of one board seat on an otherwise completely OCGOP dominated board should not be minimized, the real tragedy is what recently happened with the candidacy of Dr. Jeffrey Cole. An Orange County Superior Court judge has determined that Cole’s expired administrative credential disqualified him to challenge Dr. Stefan Bean in this November’s election for Superintendent of the Orange County Department of Education. Bean wins by default.
This outcome represents another success for the OCGOP, Mark Bucher, and the California Policy Center—and for the broader charter school racket in Orange County—at the direct expense of the proper functioning of the OCDOE. The Superintendent of the OCDOE is an extremely important, well-compensated position. It is hard to understand how the CTA and other organizations devoted to education could allow Bean to go unchallenged. There is lots of blame to go around on this one.
Jeff, a much better use of your time and ours would be to spend just an hour looking into the current members of the OC Board of Education, where their campaign financing comes from, how they've sued the state of CA using tax payer funds, and their rubber stamping of charter schools (hint - that's where some of the campaign financing comes from). I could go on but it's your job to do the research and then enlighten your audience. Now THAT would be worthwhile journalism.
It’s so frustrating that these extremists who want to use our tax dollars for private schools and charter schools aren’t running against highly qualified candidates. Some are facing no opposition at all. It’s the same for school boards and city council seats. Maybe this primary will follow other recent elections around the country and have high turnout so we can vote them out, regardless of how qualified their opponent is!
The problem with this is the lack of people voting down ballot. I can guarantee in my district where there are 12k+ registered voters, maybe 20% of them will get past the higher offices.
I have had a similar experience several months ago.
I needed a laugh today. Thanks for this. Reminds me of a resume sent to NASA in the 1990's. Listed as a skill: "The most amazing, undiscovered talent in the Silicon Valley." We howled
I was taught that the first rule of successful speechifying is choose a subject about which you’re passionate. He may seek election, but that “speech” and his sad website tell us that he lacks any passion for the position.
Word.
This is exactly why Democrats lose elections. If there is one Republican running for office, they do not care if that person is a convicted felon (Trump), a conspiracy theorist (Marjorie Taylor Green) a GED High School graduate (Lauren Boebert), a serial liar (George Santos), a school board member who says the N word (Judy Bullockus) etc etc. They will vote for ANYONE with a R next to their name. In the next article, a Republican on the Board of Education called a teenager hot. I can guarantee if our Democrat “hologram” on the Board of Ed ballot gets elected, he will never ever, and I mean NEVER do that. He will fight against school vouchers, charter schools, book banning, attacks on trans people, etc. He will be the one voice advocating for supporting public education on the MAGA board. And the cringey misogynist will probably get reelected. Just like redistricting, we need to play by the rules Republicans use. They vote for criminals, horrifically unqualified and dangerous people. We can’t win if we don’t have a candidate. Be grateful we have one and if he ends up being a dangerous criminal, unlike Republicans we will hold him accountable. If Eric Swalwell had been the only Democrat on the ballot for governor, he would still be toast. Republicans don't care about how their candidate will govern or their moral character, they care about staying in power. The stakes are too high for us to lose seats anywhere! Voting is not a valentine, it's a chess move.
P.s.-never thought of checking AI.