The Armenian American vote

[socaldem]

There is a bit of a Democratic Armenian-American machine in local politics in the Glendale-North Hollywood-Hollywood area. San Mateo also has lots of successful Armenian Dem politicians. It seems, though, that when in suburban or culturally conservative areas, Armenian politicians are more conservative and in liberal areas they are more liberal. But in conservative areas, the ethnicity seems to be played down (except for fundraising/community purposes).

LA City Councilman Paul Krekorian is really the most prominent Armenian-American politician who works to actively organize the Armenian-American voting bloc. He was a Burbank School Board Member, turned Assemblyman before he cashed in with a seat on the LA City council that pays $200K+/year.

(CA State assemblymembers--even those that were previously elected in other cities like district 2 councilman Krikorian (Burbank), district 5 councilman Koretz (former West Hollywood councilman and assemblyman), and soon to be district 6 councilwoman Cindy Montanez (former San Fernando City Councilwoman) all have hopped across the city borders and onto the gravy train at LA City hall...)

Additionally, San Mateo has a number of successful Armenian Dems. Both San Mateo-based congresswomen Reps. Anna Eshoo and Jackie Speier are part Armenian, as is the state senator Joe Simitian.

But even though the heavily Armenian areas are strongly Democratic, there is a history of prominent Armenian Republicans in CA politics, including, of course, CA Gov. George Deumejian (1983-1991). Meanwhile, gop judge and ex-state sen. Chuck Poochigian ran statewide in CA. And there was the tea partier ex-state assemblyman Kaloogian who was defeated by Bilbray in the special election in North San Diego County a while ago...