Wednesday, May 23, 2012

R. Scott Moxley on Tom Fuentes

I've got a secret!
     Ah, yes, it begins. Check it out!

Burying Tom Fuentes' Secrets (R. Scott Moxley; OC Weekly)
     [Moxley Confidential] The longtime chairman of the OC Republican Party passes away and takes some great dirt with him
     ...I'll never forget Election Night 1998, when he couldn't get [Bob] Dornan off the stage and away from the mic at 11 p.m. so that Los Angeles television stations could carry a live concession speech from then-U.S. Senate candidate Matt Fong. A rambling Dornan wouldn't stop blasting Chris Cox and Dana Rohrabacher for betraying him and Loretta Sanchez for stealing his congressional seat.
     An alarmed Fuentes tugged on Dornan's suit without success, retreated, paced in the background, tugged some more on the outgoing congressman without success, and looked about to go crazy when a bloody fistfight broke out on stage between Dornan's screaming family and Fong supporters. I was in heaven. Fuentes looked like he'd seen Satan. For a man who sneeringly ridiculed Democrats for being poor, his show had become intolerably lowbrow. When I saw him several weeks later, he said something under his breath and shuffled away quickly.
. . .
...In the wake of those unexpected statements, I might not have been fully convinced of his sincerity, but I enjoyed one of the oddest, interesting conversations I've ever had with an OC power player. He even shared some secrets. (Poor Dana Rohrabacher.)
     At the end of the talk, he reminded me that our discussion had been entirely off-the-record.
     In Fuentes' world, it's best to take some secrets to the grave.
Tom Fuentes Is Burning in Hell; Gustavo Arellano

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Thanks for the Gustavo article. The guy's a real lose canon. Thank goodness we didn't let him speak at IVC.

Roy's obituary in LA Times and Register: "we were lucky to have you while we did"

  This ran in the Sunday December 24, 2023 edition of the Los Angeles Times and the Orange County Register : July 14, 1955 - November 20, 2...