In addition to Chuck DeVore dropping out of the race for Orange County supervisor, the Weekly has learned conservative activist Mark Bucher will challenge fellow Republican Todd Spitzer for the 2012 open seat.
Bucher is a successful businessman, a prominent–even outspoken–Christian conservative and longtime public-employee-union nemesis. He is tied to another union nemesis: Costa Mesa Republican councilman Jim Righeimer, arguably the most hated man in California politics from the perspective of union bosses and membership. The two men married sisters.
We’ll have to see what the switch in candidates means to the race. DeVore is a better public speaker, a thoughtful policy wonk and a veteran campaigner, but he needed to raise substantial contributions in a down economy.
Bucher, who is close to OC GOP boss Scott Baugh, brings his own advantage: He’s relatively wealthy–meaning he
might have an easier time working against the $1 million Spitzer has in his campaign account.
An official announcement for Bucher’s campaign is expected today.
Spitzer, who isn’t popular with some local conservative activists, previously served as a supervisor before he was elected to the state Assembly.
–R. Scott Moxley / OC Weekly
CNN-featured investigative reporter R. Scott Moxley has won Journalist of the Year honors at the Los Angeles Press Club; been named Distinguished Journalist of the Year by the LA Society of Professional Journalists; obtained one of the last exclusive prison interviews with Charles Manson disciple Susan Atkins; won inclusion in Jeffrey Toobin’s The Best American Crime Reporting for his coverage of a white supremacist’s senseless murder of a beloved Vietnamese refugee; launched multi-year probes that resulted in the FBI arrests and convictions of the top three ranking members of the Orange County Sheriff’s Department; and gained praise from New York Times Magazine writers for his “herculean job” exposing entrenched Southern California law enforcement corruption.
One Reply to “Mark Bucher to Replace Chuck DeVore in Todd Spitzer Race”