the irish lass

Third Congressional

We have an ugly race here in Sacramento for the open congressional seat. Doug Ose decided not to seek reelection and the fight is on between the congressman's sister Mary Ose, State Senator Rico Oller and former Congressman and Attorney General Dan Lungren. I have never met Mary Ose, so I have no opinion about her. I really like Dan Lungren and I think Rico is scary.

When Rico first ran for Assembly in 1996, he faced a popular (and extremely attractive) opponent in Steve Sax, former Dodger second baseman. Someone ran a really ugly whisper campaign against Steve (do I think the person running the whisper campaign was Rico?) complete with totally false and outlandish accusations. For example - on a particular date Steve was accused of being arrested for a DUI in new jersey - only the truth was that on that same day Steve played in a televised baseball game in a different state. When he was accused of being a coke head and having been in rehab, the Dodger team doctor wrote a letter stating that it was Steve Howe not Steve Sax who had that problem and that the person who had a child out of wedlock was Steve Garvey not Steve Sax. Sax dropped out of the race, telling us at the time that when they accused him of killing his dog it was the last straw. Politics was just too ugly for him.

After Steve dropped out, the leading opponent was Kirk Uhler. In a series of very hard hitting mailers, Rico publicized the fact that Kirk had provided liquor to minors ... never telling the public that Kirk was 20 at the time.


Two days ago, the Bee reported that the Governor had asked Rico to quit using his likeness in Rico's ads but Rico refused. It's pretty duplicitous for Rico to pretend he supports the Governor and that the Governor supports him and lie about the Governor's role in selecting Rico to carry the driver's license bill when just a few month's ago Rico told the Lodi Sentinel

Friday, August 08, 2003
The man who hopes to assume Ose's seat after Ose retires from Congress next year finds The Terminator a bit too liberal for his liking.

"He isn't my kind of guy," state Sen. Rico Oller, R-San Andreas, said of Schwarzenegger. "He's far too liberal in many ways. He supports, as I understand it, gay adoption, gay marriage and spending tax dollars for all sorts of social programs. It's not my view of government's legitimate role."

Just a couple days before the Bee had reported about the restraining order that Rico's wife got against him 15 years ago after he physically threatened her.

But the story that intrigues me the most is the one about bear hunting. In 1998, Rico and his campaign manager were charged by the Siskiyou County District Attorney with "failure to show a bear on demand, and waste of game, violations of the state Fish and Game Code" I know nothing about hunting, but my hunting friends say that leaving an animal is a terrible violation of the outdoorsman's code. My Montana friend says that once she and her sister had to help their dad look for an elk for 8 or 10 hours after the animal was wounded but not killed. I'm very curious -- did the jury trial ever take place? What would be the penalty for this type of crime? Why hasn't the outcome been reported. Is it because Siskiyou is a tiny rural county that doesn't have their newspaper or government records online? Would it be normal for an experienced hunter to do something like this? Is a bear really a pig?

I'm Baaaacckk

Back from the last crazy days at work and a fabulous week at the AT&T Golf Tournament in Pebble Beach. The vay kay was terriffic. It was pretty soggy at the beginning of the week, but by Thursday the weather was beautiful for golfers and spectators.

We saw lots of golf, some of it great, some of it just fun. A few tidbidts ...

Tom Brady was there - fresh from his Super Bowl victory. Someone was following him around on Friday wearing a football helmet.

Chris O'Donnell is a pretty good golfer and was paired with Scott McCarron who is from Sacramento. The two of them look like twins and one day even dressed alike. Apparently Chris's brother was on the UCLA golf team with Scott.

George Lopez played well and valiantly tried to take Bill Murray's roll as the chief jokester.

At one point on Friday Phil Mickelson and Charlie Schwab were in the lead for the pro-am. We were very happy because Schwab was always a great supporter of the Young Republicans back in the day. But alas, he didn't make the cut.

Apologies to Scott DeSano

The funniest thing was getting recognized as the Irish Lass! One of my first posts when I started my blog was about Peter Ueberoth's fundraising.

Thursday, August 28, 2003

Recall-itis

I have a theory on Peter Ueberoth's fundraising ... It's the AT&T ... at least 3 ams from the Pro-Am tournament -- Scott McNealy, Maury Povich and Scott DeSano have contributed. Probably the rest of the donor list is people who hope to be invited to play in the greatest golf tournament in the world. Ueby is one of the owners of Pebble Beach Golf Club.
Posted by: irishlass / 11:22 PM

Just after I posted about him, Scott was written about in the Wall Street Journal and other newspapers about his proposal to reform the New York Stock Exchange. Over the last few months a hundred or more people have visited my site googling for more info about him. It's ironic, because I barely know him, and I know alot more about other things I've blogged about than I know about this.

Anyway, Tuesday night at the Tap Room, he comes over to our table to chat and we're talking about the stock exchange and he said that his firm had offered him bodyguards. I get out my pen and write his comment down. He says what are you doing. I say I might want to report about you. He says "Do you write for the Irish Lass?"

So, here's my apology. He says he didn't give money to Peter Ueberoth to get invited to the tournament, but because Peter's a good guy and he thought he'd be a good governor. He also said next time Arnold has a fundraiser I can send him an envelope and maybe he'll contribute.

Scott, I'm sorry for my snarky comments. And Congratulations on your Top 10 finish in the Pro-Am!