A bus that represents Republican U.S. Senate nominee Carly Fiorina's outreach to Latinos was scheduled to park right now at the Santa Ana intersection of Main and 17th streets–home of Norm's, bus stops and the Weekly's former world HQ. But, as a wag over at the Orange Juice blog has noted, it's been a long, strange trip and it's unclear where the bus actually wound up.
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The bus, marked “Vota Tus Valores” (“Vote your values”), is filled with conservative Hispanics and members of the National Organization for Marriage, which is all for marriage as long as those getting married do not belong to the same sex.
Since the tour is aimed at winning over the hearts and minds of homophobic Latinos, the bus has been followed to each spot by members of the Courage Campaign for marriage equality. Locally, the Progressive Interfaith Alliance OC and the Orange County Equality Coalition urged supporters to swarm 17th and Main at 10 a.m.
“Why are we doing this? It is a matter of faith,” explains a page from the coaliton's Facebook page, ripping a page from the Christian values playbook. “We must stand against
any organization (NOM/VTV) that comes to Orange County which uses faith
to promote an anti-gay and an anti-woman message. These groups are
specifically targeting our Latino/a brothers and sisters proclaiming a
message of fear and injustice.”
But as Vern Nelson writes in an Orange Juice post titled “The Latino-Homophobe Bus Tour is a Big Silly Waste of Carly's Money. Come Protest Them in Santa Ana Anyway!” the VTV/NOM was supposed to begin 2:30 p.m. Sunday at the Ritz-Carlton in Dana Point. But that event was canceled, probably once Carly's organizers figured out that the only Latinos to reach out to were working in the kitchen, housekeeping and banquet rooms of the ritzy resort.
Next it was on the to Huntington Beach Pier at 4:30 p.m., but as Nelson reports, the bus picked an out of way spot, probably due to the massing protesters. With little going on, the bus headed back to Dana Point for some ritzy rest any working-class Latino can relate to.
Today's Main and 17th location is actually an alternative to a previously announced stop at Fourth and North Spurgeon streets. Some surmise the Latino outreach bus is purposely changing up locations at the last minute to throw off counter-demonstrators.
It's due to arrive in Oceanside at 11:45 a.m. Do yourself a favor and check the constantly changing tour schedule before setting out.
OC Weekly Editor-in-Chief Matt Coker has been engaging, enraging and entertaining readers of newspapers, magazines and websites for decades. He spent the first 13 years of his career in journalism at daily newspapers before “graduating” to OC Weekly in 1995 as the alternative newsweekly’s first calendar editor.