David C. Lorenzen, R.I.P.

Above, here I am with David and Robin Lorenzen at a party in Rancho Palos
 Verdes on September 5, 1975. The photo was taken by Assemblyman Paul Bannai.

It had been at least a couple of months since I last heard from David Lorenzen on Facebook. I was wondering what was going on.

I had known Dave for 50 years while I was active in the Young Republicans of El Camino College and the Los Angeles County Young Republicans. He assisted in getting the El Camino College Young Republicans chartered in 1973.

Naturally, we would post about politics and we would exchange thoughts on that and other topics.

This morning, I saw his name pop up on a post I made a year ago and decided to go to his Facebook page to see if there was any clues. There, was a funeral notice posted by his son Daniel. 

This afternoon, I did some more checking and found an obituary.

In the Ventura County Star, an obituary was posted and it read, in part:

May 19, 1952 – April 11, 2023 Dave left this part of his journey on April 11, 2023. Dave was born on May 19, 1952 in Glendale, California. He leaves his loving wife of 48 years, Robin, and 5 children, Daniel (Julianna), Cory (Nicki), Casey (Maryanne), Rick and Amber. And much loved grandchildren, Seth, Laura, Ryan, Garrett, Maggie, Grant, Zoey, Milo and Jax.

I am sorry to learn of Dave's passing. I had no idea if he was ill or not. My condolences to his wife Robin and the Lorenzen family. 

2013 Marks 40 Years Since Bannai Special Election

Above, Governor Reagan with the Bannai family during the special election campaign..

Forty years ago in 1973, the GOP took an assembly district that was considered "safe" to the Democratic Party in a special election.

The special election was called for as the incumbent state assemblyman, Larry Townsend, suddenly passed away of a massive heart attack.    The district was the 67th Assembly District.

The primary campaign began with a number of Democrats contesting for their party's nomination, to be held in May with the general election to be held in June. 

On the Republican side, there were three candidates, George Reis (who ran unsuccessfully against Townsend the year before), Mike Halliwell and Gardena City Councilman Paul T. Bannai.

The district included Hawthorne, Lawndale, Gardena, Torrance and parts of unincorporated county areas.

At the time, I was a student at El Camino College at the "ripe old age" of 19.  I had worked in the Nixon campaign in Hawthorne the previous year and after that election, things were kind of dull outside of studies.  I was also working at Old Towne Mall (now gone) in Torrance at the time.

At El Camino, a group of us from the Nixon campaign banded together to form the Young Republicans.   (We formally applied for a charter with the Los Angeles County Young Repubicans (LACYR) during this time.)  We discussed the upcoming special election campaign and we agreed that Bannai had the best chance to win with his name recognition and his ability to raise funds for the campaign.  So, we all got involved in the Bannai for Assembly campaign.

As we figured, Bannai won the GOP nomination.  On the Democrat side, Torrance City Treasurer Thomas Rupert (left) won his party's nomination.  However, what people didn't know at the time, he didn't actually live in the 67th Assembly District.

Rupert rented an apartment in the 67th district in order to run for the assembly seat while still maintaining his actual residence outside of it.

Fortunately, we had some excellent and experienced campaign management who saw this as an opportunity to put Rupert on the defensive.  The campaign arranged to have Rupert's in-district apartment photographed as well as his real residence, a single-unit house. 

The Gods must have been on our side when our photographer went to Rupert's home; he photographed it with a car parked in the driveway with a Rupert bumper sticker.

The Democrats have a history of having opportunistic candidates "carpetbagging" their way into other districts.  (Bannai had to face another carpetbagger in 1974 by the name of Maurice "Jack" Mayesh, who was backed by the Henry Waxman-Howard Berman machine.  One can see how pleased I was when Berman was defeated by Brad Sherman last year.)

The Bannai campaign sent out numerous mailers showing the in-district apartment and the out-of-district home with the question boldly asking, "Should our elected officials obey the law?" 

Governor Ronald Reagan and Lt. Governor Ed Reinecke made appearances in support of the Bannai campaign.

As it turned out, the voters didn't think too highly of the carpetbagging issue and Bannai won the special general election by a comfortable margin (54% to 41%).  Plus, it didn't hurt that Bannai was a popular city councilman in Gardena with a lot of name recognition.

Above, Diane Booth and Armand discussing the chartering of the Young Republican of El Camino College with  David Lorenzen, LACYR Chairman at the Ambassador Hotel in June 1973.  Photo courtesy of The Trunkline.

A week or so after the election, while at a political picnic, Bannai asked me to join his district office staff as a field representative.  This I did (on and off, college permitting) for the following two years.   It was while serving in this capacity that I "learned the ropes" of press relations, which has come in handy in the succeeding years.

Above, Field Representative Armand Vaquer (left) presents Assemblyman Bannai with a
stuffed frog novelty he picked up during a vacation in September 1974.  

In 1974, the redistricting of California legislative districts put Bannai into the newly-formed 53^rd Assembly District.  This new district did not favor the Republican Party as much as the old 67^th District in registration.  But Bannai was able to hold onto his office until 1980 when he ran against an aide to State Senator Ralph Dills, Richard Floyd (a rather crude and buffoonish character, but that’s still another story).

It was while I was listening to the radio and some songs came on from that period that jogged my memory.   It suddenly hit me that this year will be the 40th anniversary of that special election victory.

UPDATE:  I sent this blog post to the Gardena Valley News.  Perhaps they will do their own story on the 40th anniverary of the Bannai special election.  We (in Bannai's district office) used to have a lot of contact with the Gardena Valley News, particularly with Polly Warfield.  She was one great lady!

Some 70s Pictures

Rummaging through old photo albums continued. I found some photos from the 1970s when I was much more involved in the political arena.



September 1974. In the above photo, I am presenting a stuffed frog novelty I just picked up while on vacation in Utah to Assemblyman Paul T. Bannai in his district office. At the time, I worked as a staff field representative for Bannai. He was big on frogs and would head off to the Calaveras County Jumping Frog Jubilee every year.

The photo below is the frog I gave to Bannai. I wonder if he still has it.





On February 7, 1975, I had my first legal "adult beverage" in the bar at the Senator Hotel in Sacramento, California. I had just turned 21 three days before. The above photo records the "event." I was in Sacramento for the annual convention of the Republican State Central Committee (now known as the California Republican Party).

That weekend, Spencer Douglass and I were in the bar doing Richard Nixon imitations with Oregon Senator Robert Packwood sitting nearby listening in.



On September 5, 1975, a big Hawaiian-themed party was held at the residence of R. Spencer Douglass, who was planning to run for California state senate the following year. He switched to running for assembly instead. In the photo above, I am with David and Robin Lorenzen. The photo was taken by Assemblyman Bannai. I am wearing a "Reagan Team '76" button. David Lorenzen is the son of former L.A. City Councilman Don Lorenzen.

It was quite a bash. Douglass's home was in Rancho Palos Verdes with a great view of San Pedro Harbor. The home was on a slope and the yard had three levels. The upper level, was where the house was located. The middle level (going downslope) was where the hosted bar was set up. The bottom level was the pool area, where the band was set up for dancing.

The party was the talk of the town in GOP circles for quite a while. It got pretty wild. The next morning, several pairs of panties were found in the planters around the yard.