Obama in the O.C.? Oh yes he wi-ill!

By GottaLaff

The L.A. Times has opinions:

The Democratic candidate, in reaching out to the county, is wisely looking beyond stereotypes.

It might have come as a surprise when Orange County, with its reputation for white-bread, affluent stodginess, suddenly became the spot for TV melodrama, with "The O.C." [...] But that was nothing compared with the public amazement when it was announced that Barack Obama would be holding a fundraiser Sunday at the Balboa Bay Club in Newport Beach.

The presumptive Democratic presidential nominee gathering $2,300-a-ticket support at the once-Republican bastion where Barry Goldwater and family spent their summers? The African American candidate coming to a city where decades ago the police were known for their "NIN" stops, an acronym that referred to stopping black motorists for questioning simply because they were black and in Newport Beach?

Why yes. Yes he is. The dynamics of the Republican-heavy county are changing:

When the 2000 census revealed the ethnic diversity of the county, pundits gasped at how its demographics had been transformed. [..]

Oversimplifying the changes in Orange County would be as much of a mistake as ignoring them. The county has never attracted many African Americans, who make up about 2% of the population. The local Democratic Party doesn't even dream of seeing its registration pull alongside that of the GOP in the near future; the stated goal on its website is to build to 500,000 (the Republican Party has more than 700,000). [...] Those who recognize the county's complexity, as the Obama campaign appears to have done, stand to gain.

Yes they do. Yes Obama has. Yes we can.