*Update: They just announced Papi Pulido beat out Michelle Martinez for the SanTana mayoral seat. Not much cheering. Everyone's busy bumping and grinding.
*Update 2: A mean trick played by accident on congressional candidate Steve Young led him and his campaign team to believe, for a brief, exultant moment, that he'd beat incumbent John Campbell. A television blip around 10:30 p.m. flashed Young and Campbell's numbers in reverse. Champagne was popped and victory cheers were unleashed but it was all short-lived. By the end of the night the 48th Congressional District race had gone decidedly to Campbell (R-Newport Beach), 129,436 (55.4%) to Young's 95,683 (40.9%).
Loretta’s doing the shimmy-shimmy and high-fiving black guys on the dance floor. Patricia Arquette just announced that there’s a press person here from Dubai; an old Vietnamese couple was just bumpin’ to the “Obama Obama” A Milli remix and Wee Man (of Jack Ass fame) said to me not too long ago, after inhaling a big dose of oversized election-night-balloon helium: “It’s going fucking awesome!”
That's how important everyone feels right now at the drunken-hot-spot-club-party masquerading as the Democratic election night celebration. This late night entry confirms one thing: it’s definitely a party over here. No one’s paying attention to whether animals will be allowed to roam around on their farms cage-free or whether or not gay people can still get married (there is the occasional pause at one of the big screen T.V.s, a nervous sigh or two, and then back to dancing). Obama’s won and that’s all that matters right now.
For a lot of the evening gobs of Democrats with teeny “I Voted” stickers on their sweaters spilled drinks on each other as they stood, nearly crushing each other, at two different entrances waiting to get into Sutra Lounge (the lounge factor is key here, and says a lot about the confidence and yes, more than just a little smugness, the OC Dems felt going into tonight's election).
During Obama’s acceptance speech Wee Man’s friend almost got into a fight with someone who apparently pushed him. Leave it to alcohol (which people are imbibing like Moses’ tribes in the desert) to collapse the politics of unity. Anyway, the Dubai reporter (who I haven’t spotted because it’s hard to move in here) is apparently here covering not only the biggest news in U.S. presidential history, but also, and possibly more importantly for every Democrat who seems convinced of it here tonight, OC's transition from red to blue. You could hear it earlier after Obama’s speech ended, after Loretta Sanchez took the stage and you can hear it now: a collective, drunken sigh of relief. Steve Young has won. [Or so his campaign thought because of a television blip: see update above.] And, not surprisingly, so have Loretta and Jose Solorio. Debbie came not quite as close as everyone may have hoped, but the big news is that thousands of new Democrats have been registered in the county while only a handful of Republicans were registered.
“We’re opening the party all the way out to the courtyard!” Loretta screamed a short bit ago. And then, not-so-unpredictably: “I’m gonna be out there first, selling my book…!” A Vietnamese television station just interviewed Mexican Jose Solorio about the ascendancy of the country’s first black president. In Orange County? I hate to bring up the word “change” but, well, there you have it.
KCAL just did a short live broadcast. Someone's shoving mini-burgers, martinis, champagne, and the official Democratic drink of the night: a kind-of synthetic deep-sea blue mystery shot, in my face. “I’m Bringing Sexy Back” is rattling election signs off their balcony posts. At this point, everyone's reaching across the aisle, exclaiming the one resounding message of hope: “Your place or mine?”
