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Politics as Usual Was there ever a time when the OC Republican Party didn’t have dissention in its ranks? A power struggle is nothing new, but one dissident group in OC makes it interesting. Two years ago, an Iranian woman from Irvine, Frances Akhavi ( http://missionviejoca.org/html/article212.html ), tried to take control of the OC Republican Central Committee. She recruited a strange assortment of candidates, including some non-Republicans who changed their voter registration to run for GOP Central Committee. Her group won enough seats in the 2010 Primary to control or influence approximately one-third of the GOP Central Committee membership. Aligning with Akhavi’s dissidents were several other Central Committee members who had an axe to grind with GOP county leaders. Some in Akhavi’s group bragged they would shut down the OC GOP headquarters, but they didn’t have enough votes to do anything except disrupt Central Committee meetings. No one should underestimate their ill will toward the Republican Party. Conflicts developed among the dissidents, and they began fighting with each other. By July 2011, the group split, and those remaining loyal to Akhavi were allegedly on her payroll. A club in South County that Akhavi had been funding, SOC912, broke away – separating itself from her control as well as her money. Thus, SOC912’s fancy events and SOC912 member Mike Munzing’s “Conservative Happy Hours” ended. In addition to losing her rent-a-riot SOC912 group, Akhavi’s money appeared to be gone. A written report circulated in 2011 connecting Akhavi to a wheeler-dealer who was indicted for running Ponzi schemes ( http://articles.latimes.com/2011/oct/12/business/la-fi-namvar-prison-20111012 ). One of Akhavi’s loyalists told an entirely different story, saying the money came from “Iranian media – TV and newspapers.” The written report about Akhavi didn’t reveal why she attacked the Republican Party of Orange County or who paid her to do it. Akhavi’s Central Committee challengers lost last week, including Linda Barnes, who runs Akhavi’s operations in Mission Viejo. The entire SOC912 slate in the June 2012 Primary lost as well, including David Duringer, Kevin Richardson, Steve Magdzniak, John Drew and Nina Davar. Akhavi’s former associate, Mike Munzing, was reelected to the GOP Central Committee on June 5. He is the only person remaining on the Central Committee in South County with direct ties to Akhavi and SOC912, although he has had a falling out with both factions. Munzing was the one who bragged that he had recruited the candidates to run as challengers for the GOP Central Committee. In the race last week, 22 candidates ran for six seats – a stampede of unknowns, most of whom had no connection to the GOP. Voters had no trouble rejecting the unknown candidates, but Munzing slipped by them. This blog correctly predicted that no challenger would win a seat on the GOP Central Committee in the 73rd Assembly District. Below are the six winners. Despite tens of thousands of votes yet to be counted in Orange County, the order of these six is unlikely to change. Norm Dickinson (20,346) |
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