Relax.
It's not what it seems.
New campaign-finance disclosure reports filed today in Washington, D.C., show that Irvine attorney Steve Young, a Democrat, has collected an impressive amount of contributions in his uphill bid to unseat Representative John Campbell.
Included in the $64,555 Young (pictured) has raised since July was a $2,300 contribution from Jason Luna, the San Diego man who beat 100 women earlier this year to become the first million-dollar winner on NBC's 1 vs. 100.
Young raised nearly $45,000 more from individuals than Campbell, but still narrowly lost the fund-raising war thanks to corporate support for the incumbent, who reported receipts for the period of $78,875.
Included in Campbell's haul were large contributions from political-action committees representing insurance, accounting, real-estate, banking and defense firms.
Entering the final weeks of the election, Campbell has a substantial cash-on-hand lead of more than $359,000.
Loretta Sanchez, Orange County's lone congressional Democrat, reported raising $211,213 for the period, while her challenger, Rosemary Avila, grabbed $26,162.
Sanchez now has $658,000 in the bank. Avila is sitting on $3,800.
Contributors to Sanchez include a slew of D.C. lobbyists, unions, the owner of a Malibu tofu restaurant, California Indian tribes and supermodel Kate Moss.
Avila got money from a self-described “Christian” lawyer, housewives, a webmaster and Donald P. Kennedy, the retired First American executive and a generous sponsor of exhibits at the Bowers Museum in Santa Ana.
The Federal Election Commission (FEC) in Washington, D.C., doesn't yet show reports in the Dana Rohrabacher/Debbie Cook race facing voters in Costa Mesa, Huntington Beach and Long Beach.
— 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.