Irvine Auto Center agreed. They knew that scummy media types (ahem) would take pictures of it. So they made it go away.
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Mike Munzing, a clean-cut and friendly candidate for an OC GOP Central Committee seat, was one of the tea partiers who asked the F*ck Obama guy to stand down. He and a few others negotiated with the sign holder–a disgruntled-looking business dude wearing a wireless ear piece–and got him to hand over the offending banner.
“We're not an angry mob,” Munzing explained to me. “We just want to get our message presented without vulgarity.”
Today, one year after the tea party movement first caught headlines with their 2009 tax day protests, the sell-proclaimed patriots gathered again to show off their colonial garb, anti-big government sloganeering and, yes, occasionally inflammatory signs. The Irvine event brought big-name political candidates–Chuck DeVore for U.S. Senate, Steve Poizner for California Governor, Bill Hunt for Orange County Sheriff and John Eastman for California Attorney General–as well as a contingent of locals who overwhelmed what little public parking there was nearby. We're not going to estimate the crowd number, because, hell, we have no idea. Let's just say the Nissan lot was well-populated but not jam packed.
Speaking of Nissan, the general manager of the car dealership was hoisted on stage at one point to speak. I expected to hear a hearty pro-business, anti-taxes speech. What we instead got was a pitch: He was offering 8.75% off cars–one day only! “I'm ready to make some deals,” he said, before being presented with a certificate of appreciation from Irvine city councilman and state assembly candidate Steven Choi.
