Hey, now! Guess what’s happening this weekend? Yes, it’s that time again. It’s the Strawberry Festival! Starting today, and continuing through Memorial Day Monday, Downtown Garden Grove will be berry, berry fun!

And guess what? It gets better! The Democratic Party will be at the festival, too! Look for the pretty booth with the big Democratic banner. Oh yes, and if you’re free this weekend and you want to help, the schedule’s still open!

Follow me after the flip for all the details…

Here’s the email I got from the Democratic Party of Orange County:

The Democratic Party of Orange County needs your help! We need volunteers to help staff our Voter Registration and Information booth at the 49th Annual Garden Grove Strawberry Festival.

Admission is free. This festival is the second largest city festival in the Western United States. It’s held at the Village Green between Main Street and Euclid Avenue in downtown Garden Grove. Festival opens Friday evening, May 25th with the ceremonial cutting of the world’s largest strawberry shortcake which is served free to over 2,000 people attending.

To volunteer to staff the booth for the Democratic Party, please contact the event volunteer coordinator, Marko Markovich at (714) 964-5514 or [email protected]

Come on, now! You know you want to come to the Strawberry Festival. Where else can you have such a berry good time? ; )

I just got this in my email inbox from Frank Barbaro, Chairman of the Democratic Party of Orange County:

Wal-Mart’s destructive impact on communities is well- documented. Local competition is driven out, noise and traffic increases, and local governments and taxpayers get a raw deal.

Wal-Mart is planning to open a 170,000-sq. ft. supercenter at Chapman Avenue and Brookhurst Street in Garden Grove and the only thing standing in their way is the City Council.

Come help to keep a Wal-Mart Supercenter out of Garden Grove. We will be walking door to door to educate residents and build support for the Main Street Coalition. We hope to see you there!

So how can YOU support what’s best for local small businesses and healthy communities in Southern California? Well, follow me after the flip for all the details…

OK, so we know that Wal-Mart isn’t good for workers. We know that Wal-Mart doesn’t provide its workers adequate health care… So they just dump the workers into taxpayer-funded Medicaid programs. We know that Wal-Mart’s “low prices” don’t do anything to alleviate poverty. And yes, we know that Wal-Mart loves to bleed taxpayers dry with all those subsidies… But they don’t even have the decency to pay their taxes!

So why the heck would Garden Grove want all this trouble in their city? We need to educate people in the community about why Wal-Mart doesn’t really save us money. We need to let folks know just how much money Wal-mart costs us every year! We need to get out and talk to our friends and neighbors in Garden Grove, and the OC Democrats are ready to team up with the Main Street Coalition to do just that!

Date: Saturday, May 12
Time: 10:00am-2:00pm
13252 Garden Grove Blvd.
Garden Grove, CA 92843
Meet in the Courtyard

Residents will be able to sign support cards, join the coalition, and receive more information about the campaign.

As we build in numbers in the community, the stronger our voice becomes to before the council. It is imperative the community become aware and involved in this campaign so that we can keep Wal-Mart out!

Yes, let’s keep Wal-Mart out! And let’s keep good jobs and good living in Garden Grove! Wal-Mart may be big and powerful, but we won’t let them take away what we like about our community. : )

So who are we to blame for yesterday’s loss? Whose fault is it that we have lost our one and only Board of Supervisors seat in Orange County? Some are blaming State Senator Lou Correa. Some may want to blame Santa Ana DINO Mayor Miguel Pulido. I was about ready to blame Garden Grove Councilmember Mark Rosen as the Democratic spoiler…

But you know who is really to blame? WE ARE!

Want to know why… AND find out how we can get our groove back in The Land of the OC? Then follow me after the flip for more…

I saw this as a comment on The Liberal OC, and it got me thinking:

One thing I’ve learned – until you take full responsibility for your loss, you won’t learn from your mistakes.

But you know what? Publius is correct. We need to take responsibility for our mistakes, and make sure that we don’t repeat them in the future.

Basically while we OC Democrats were focusing on taking down Carlos Bustamante in Santa Ana, we were ignoring what was happening in the rest of the district. The whole Janet Nguyen-Trung Nguyen Battle of the Absentee Ballots caught us completely off guard. I’ll admit that even I didn’t recognize this until the very end. Not until last week did I and others finally realize how we put ourselves in peril by avoiding any type of serious outreach in the Vietnamese community for this election. Some might say that we could not have won the Vietnamese vote against a Vietnamese GOP candidate, but I must still say that there was no excuse for us to just avoid the entire community and risk losing the recent gains we have made with younger Vietnamese voters for future elections.

Why did we pick a candidate who doesn’t particularly have a good track record of community involvement? Why didn’t we participate in more Vietnamese community functions? Why didn’t we get our potential supporters to vote absentee like the two leading Republican candidates did? Why didn’t we give Latino and Vietnamese working-class voters a reason to get out and vote for our person?

Hopefully, this disappointing and frustrating loss will teach us a serious lesson: STAY CONNECTED WITH ALL THE ETHNIC COMMUNITIES!! Last night, I spoke with Irvine City Councilmember Suhkee Kang. Apparently next year, he will be running for mayor when Beth Krom is termed out (as mayor, but NOT on city council). Already, the Irvine Democrats (Krom, Kang, and Larry Agran) are working on continuing the relationship with Asian-American communities in Irvine that has resulted in their long-running success in what’s supposed to be a “Republican city“. Of course back in Central OC, Loretta Sanchez wouldn’t still be in Congress today if it weren’t for her terrific outreach to the Vietnamese community. Lou Correa wouldn’t be our State Senator today if it weren’t for his team’s amazing outreach to the Vietnamese community. Perhaps we should learn from these two successful Orange County Democrats, and remember to stay connected with the voters in the district.

OK, so not all the news from OC is bad. I’m glad that the young Democratic
activists are reaching out to young people in ALL ETHNIC COMMUNITIES in Central OC… So why couldn’t we follow their lead? Why didn’t I see as much Vietnamese outreach going on for this election as I did last year in SD 34? Lou Correa and Loretta Sanchez have always had strong outreach programs to the Vietnamese community. Why couldn’t Umberg do the same? Hopefully from now on, we have learned the consequences of what happens when we ignore the working-class ethnic voters that we are supposed to represent. Lou Correa and Loretta Sanchez don’t, and that’s why they are trusted by the community. I hope we follow their example.

I know that we Orange County Democrats worked our patooties off to get Tom Umberg elected to the Board of Supervisors. Unfortunately, we came short. But still, we shouldn’t give up. Lou Correa showed us how to reach out to working families in Orange County. Loretta Sanchez showed us how we can build bridges among different communities to create a lasting winning coalition. If we Orange County Democrats want to get our groove back and start winning again, then perhaps we should pay attention to our two most prominent elected officials. If they can win, then so can we.