You Win Some, You Lose Some

The last two weeks were politically a little rough for me. Super Tuesday was almost two weeks ago, and I am still feeling the pain.

I had been working to get former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney elected for more than two years, and trust me: When you lose, it leaves a mark.

Looking back now, it is easy to see how it all played out. The conservative vote was split between Romney and former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee.

Former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani had lost in Florida the week before, so he dropped out of the race. With no other moderate in the race, Arizona Sen. John McCain picked up the plurality of votes and won most of the delegates on Super Tuesday.

My hope was that Romney could do well in California and take the race all the way to the convention. That did not happen. McCain won fair and square.

This week Romney endorsed McCain and thereby forced every conservative in the country to make a choice about whom we wanted in the White House.

In any political race you do not get to create your own candidate. You chose from the candidates who are on the ballot.

When I look at my choices now they are McCain and Sens. Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama. Though I cannot believe I am about to say this, I will support McCain for president. He may not have been my first choice, but among the three, he is the best choice.

On the local level everything I voted on came out my way except for Indian Gaming.

But I already knew those initiatives were going to pass when they started the “please help our poor tribe” ads six months ago.

One measure I supported that did pass was Newport Beach’s Measure B “City Hall in the Park” referendum.

Though this was passed by the voters, the issue is still muddled up with the Allan Beek lawsuit.

Mr. Beek sued under the argument that only the city council had the authority to decide where a city hall should be built and that the citizens could not make that decision.

It was reported in this paper that even though the initiative passed, he has decided to continue with his lawsuit.

The very essence of his suit is that the voters do not have the right to decide this type of issue. He wants his day in court.

Well, I am not a lawyer and can’t give a legal opinion of Beek’s lawsuit. But one way to solve this is to give Mr. Beek what he wants.

The council could vote on the City Hall in the Park’s location. This would solve Beek’s concern that only the City Council can make that decision.

Previously, four of the seven city council members did not support having the city hall at the park.

Hence, Bill Ficker and friends collected signatures and put it on the ballot. Now that the initiative has passed, I think the council vote would be quite different.

Mayor Ed Selich, who was one of the four who did not support the City Hall in the Park’s Avocado Avenue location, has said publicly all along that if Measure B passed he would go with the will of the voters and move forward to have the city hall built at the Avocado site.

I talked with Councilman Keith Curry, who also was not a supporter of the park location. He told me that the people have spoken and that no matter what happens with Beek’s lawsuit, he will now support the city hall in the park location.

That would now make it at least five of seven votes for the city hall in the park. Curry surmised that if a vote came forward he thought it would probably be 7-0 in favor.

Just prior to finishing this column I got a return call from Councilman Mike Henn.

Though he said he did not want to declare a vote in the newspaper, unless there was a prior decision in the Beek case, he would also support the will of the people.

Just as in the presidential race, some of us have to work with the choices we have, and not the choice we want. It is nice to see that the Newport Beach council is looking to unify the city and move forward on a location for city hall.