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AD72 Leader Travis Allen interviewing in Little Saigon
Picture credit: Orange County Register

Travis Allen, a Huntington Beach business owner, is achieving something rare in Orange County politics — coming from about nowhere to lead in the closely contested race for the redrawn 72nd Assembly District.  Once politically obscure and not known as one of the good old boys in the insular Orange County GOP, Allen looks like he’s solidly positioned to defeat his opponent Troy Edgar, Mayor of tiny Los Alamitos.

As Troy Edgar touts in his own campaign and stump speeches, his inventory of endorsements means something — so the loss of one of them, especially as important as OC Republican Godfather Mike Schroeder, is devastating.  It also raises the question of who will be next to drop Edgar, particularly as he’s been nailed by R. Scott Moxley at OC Weekly for some very serious Federal campaign reporting anomalies.  A complaint has been filed with the Federal Election Commission.  Schroeder noted this in changing his endorsement, and more importantly, called out Edgar for NOT signing Grover Norquist’s ATR Tax Pledge as Edgar had committed to him that he would:  “Troy Edgar stated that he would take the no new tax pledge when I endorsed him, but he refuses to sign it.”  The Register writes:

It makes our Editorial Board uncomfortable that Mr. Edgar has not signed the same pledge despite being asked to; he said he refuses to sign on principle becameause making a pledge with his “district is more important.”

It’s not the first time that Edgar’s been caught in a lie.  He’s continually misled audiences during his campaign that he won’t raise taxes, yet as the Register said:

Mr. Edgar authored Measure DD in Los Alamitos, an expanded city telecommunications tax that we have opposed as being deceptively written. Although Mr. Edgar has argued Measure DD is not a tax and would lower the tax rate by 1 percent on landlines, its scope is incredibly broad and the text needs more than 300 words to describe all of the technologies theoretically subject to its taxing power, including text messages, cellphones, private phone networks, voice-over Internet, faxes, paging systems, routers, electronic billing, video conferencing, among many others.

For a rookie, as Allen’s been labeled by some, he knew to form very strategic partnerships in Little Saigon.

Pho fan Travis Allen

The Register reported just yesterday:

Today, [former opponents] Pham and Dovinh are backing Allen’s candidacy. [Van] Tran, the former

assemblyman, is Allen’s senior campaign adviser. Michael J. Schroeder, a former California Republican Party chairman, is the most recent to endorse Allen… 

But the same story described Edgar as a divisive figure in Los Alamitos, where the council is deeply divided and Edgar is part of the majority vote. At the most recent meeting, Councilwoman Gerri Graham-Mejia called him “a bully.”

With the campaign on its last lap, Edgar’s looking desperate and Allen’s looking victorious, especially where it counts in Little Saigon.  The Register’s endorsement confirms who’s right for this job, and brings the financial experience to it that’s so important to fight in inevitable tax increases the Democrats are going to want.

Troy Edgar, a Democrat until 2006, is too dangerous a man to put into this position that’s only one or two seats away from a Democrat super majority and the vulnerability of Proposition 13.