Thread: Donald Trump Officially Opens Los Angeles Campaign HQ

by ADELLE NAZARIAN
11 Sep 2016

LONG BEACH — Donald Trump’s campaign officially opened its campaign headquarters in Los Angeles County on Saturday with a warm, diverse reception and traditional Cambodian “blessing dance” in Long Beach.



Trump’s L.A. headquarters is located at 2338 E. Anaheim Street, #201-C in Long Beach — an area colloquially referred to as “Cambodia Town,” and a Democratic stronghold for the last few years. The building is also the site of the United Cambodian Community Center. Trump opened his California headquarters in Sacramento this past April.

The launch started off with prayers asking “God to bless America and to bless Donald Trump and keep him safe,” followed by a traditional Cambodian dance of greetings and good wishes, Robam Choun-Por (known as the “blessing dance”).

A moment of silence was also observed for those who lost their lives during the September 11 terrorist attacks. Sunday marked 15 years since the devastating attacks on U.S. soil took place in New York.

Jon Cordova, the Communications Director for Donald Trump’s presidential campaign in Golden State, came down from Northern California for the grand opening. “She made it very clear that we are deplorable individuals,” Cordova said of Clinton’s statements about many Trump supporters this past Friday night.

In spite of the attacks, Cordova insisted that Trump surrogates use positive messaging. “I know Hillary gives us a lot of material to talk about negative stuff. Don’t. Be positive. We’ve got the best candidate out there,” he said of Trump. “The best leader. And this is the time. He’s the man for the time.”

He added, “What we see out here are people closeted that are supporters are in the shadows supporting Trump. And it’s because they’re afraid of being bullied by liberals who are very vocal and say that anyone who is supporting the Trump campaign must be a bigot and a racist.”



Breitbart News spoke with several of the individuals present, all of them hailing from various backgrounds, reflective of Long Beach’s history as one of America’s most diverse cities.

A young man held up an “Indians for Trump” sign. Another read “Real Men Vote 4 Trump,” and another read “This Hispanic Mexican American Latina Female from Orange County is Voting 4 Trump.”



“I’m a Democrat. I’m Hispanic, of Mexican extraction,” Michael Barragan told Breitbart News. “But a lot of things that Trump says, I feel should be done.” He said he endorsed Trump’s idea of building a wall and suggested taxing money going south of the U.S. border to Mexico in order to pay for it.

Shirley Husar, who is an African-American Trump delegate for the State of California, said, “A lot of African-Americans are disgruntled with Hillary Clinton.” She added, “They know that we are under an administration that we could go into a crime bill that wants to do mass incarceration [and] that calls black people ‘super predators,'” referring to Hillary Clinton calling youth in gangs “super-predators” with “no conscience, no empathy” in 1996.



Several people expressed their feelings of ease knowing they could more comfortably express their support for Trump in a deeply blue state, thanks to his campaign’s growing presence.

“It may be unique the Bay Area here but one of the concerns people have up here is putting bumper stickers on their cars because there’s a lot of vandalism to these vehicles,” Cordova said. The problem is not unique to Northern California. Stephen Saletros of Los Angeles agreed. “Many Trump supporters are telling me that they are afraid to put signs on the front of their buildings for fear of vandalism and also to put bumper stickers on their cars for fear of vandalism,” Saletros said. “So it’s inhibiting the public expression of Trump support, but some people are still doing it, and a lot of people are reluctant and for understandable reasons.”



M.C. Campbell, an African-American female who has a blog talk radio program, told Breitbart News she believes Trump is the person to bring the African-American and Latino vote to the GOP. “I believe Donald Trump is the one to do it,” Campbell said. “He was the very first and only Republican candidate that has openly invited the black community in and telling the black community what he will do. And that is something totally different than what the Republican Party has done in the past.”

She added, “I came from a Democratic family. My dad said, ‘I was born a Democrat and I’ll die a Democrat.’ So that was the ruling mantra in the family until I got old enough to know better and educated myself and said ‘Wait a minute. The Republican Party is more of what I think.'”

Her husband, Gene Campbell, who is also a Republican, told Breitbart News:

"It’s tradition that is the enemy to blacks. Because, traditionally, we thought Democrats were for blacks without doing any research. And then when I found out that Abraham Lincoln was Republican, I thought ‘Wait. This don’t make sense. If he was Republican, where did the switch come?’ And the switch came somewhere around the ’60s. And most of the blacks that are Democrats still are Democrats because of tradition, not politics. So I’m hoping that will change."

Campbell served in the Vietnam War, noting “as a military person, I can’t go Democrat.”

http://www.breitbart.com/california/...s-campaign-hq/

That is so beautiful. I think if Trump and Trump Supporters work hard in California, Trump can win California.

Why Long Beach?

This location will limit volunteers as the only safe location to walk in Long Beach
is Ocean Avenue.

This is the very edge borderline of L.A. County and about 90 minute drive south of city of Los Angeles in traffic which is all day long 7 days a week.

Not likely to get any volunteers from people living North of Palos Verdes Peninsula.

Waste of resources.

Originally Posted by Judy

That is so beautiful. I think if Trump and Trump Supporters work hard in California, Trump can win California.

I wish I could share your optimism, but I just don't see it.

Sorry to hear there is only one safe location for Trump supporters to walk - Let the Trump camp know @ Ca locations that would be preferable - info@donaldtrump.com

Originally Posted by MW

I wish I could share your optimism, but I just don't see it.

California more than any other state suffers the consequences of illegal immigration and free trade treason. They've lost more than any other state because of these problems, that's why they lead all 50 states in Medicaid payments. Sure the Hollywood and Silicon Valley wealth offsets it to some extent, but doesn't help their citizens to any measurable degree. California still has the highest poverty rate in the United States.

Article below:

Census Bureau: California still has highest U.S. poverty rate

October 16, 2014 11:25 AM

California’s official poverty rate is above-average, but not much. However, by an alternative methodology devised by the Census Bureau, California has the nation’s highest rate of poverty with nearly a quarter of its 38 million residents impoverished, due to the state’s high cost of living.

In this still frame from video provided by the Kasakari For Governor campaign, Neel Kashkari, the Republican candidate for California governor, speaks to the camera during a week he posed as a homeless and unemployed person on the streets of Fresno. AP

By Dan Walters

dwalters@sacbee.com

California continues to have – by far – the nation’s highest level of poverty under an alternative method devised by the Census Bureau that takes into account both broader measures of income and the cost of living.

Nearly a quarter of the state’s 38 million residents (8.9 million) live in poverty, a new Census Bureau report says, a level virtually unchanged since the agency first began reporting on the method’s effects.

Under the traditional method of gauging poverty, adopted a half-century ago, California’s rate is 16 percent (6.1 million residents), somewhat above the national rate of 14.9 percent but by no means the highest. That dubious honor goes to New Mexico at 21.5 percent.

But under the alternative method, California rises to the top at 23.4 percent while New Mexico drops to 16 percent and other states decline to as low as 8.7 percent in Iowa.

The only other state to approach California in the alternate rankings is Nevada at 20 percent, although Washington, D.C., is close at 22.4 percent.

Ever since the Census Bureau first published its “supplemental poverty measure” rankings that placed California at the top a few years ago, poverty has evolved into a political issue.

It’s now routinely cited in official reports and legislative documents, and Neel Kashkari, the Republican candidate for governor, has tried to make it an issue in his uphill challenge to Democratic Gov. Jerry Brown, even spending several days in Fresno posing as a homeless person to dramatize it.

The Public Policy Institute of California used a similar methodology last year to gauge poverty in the state’s 58 counties, called a California Poverty Measure.

It pegged the statewide poverty rate at 22 percent and found some of the highest rates in the San Francisco Bay Area and coastal communities usually considered affluent due to their high costs of housing. Los Angeles had the highest rate in the state, 26.9 percent, followed by Napa at 25.5 percent.

http://www.sacbee.com/news/politics-...le2916749.html

And primary causes of this are:

1. illegal immigration
2. excess legal immigration
3. free trade treason (bad trade deals sucking all the good jobs out)

Originally Posted by artist

Sorry to hear there is only one safe location for Trump supporters to walk - Let the Trump camp know @ Ca locations that would be preferable - info@donaldtrump.com

Already emailed Trump

Unfortunately, the massive influx of illegal aliens and skyrocketing cost to taxpayers (taxes), a large proportion
of the business owners closed there CA operations and moved next door to the more tax friendly State of Nevada with
myself included.

In addition, High income earners have left the state of California.

California suffers from it's own stupidity and is drowning from lack of tax revenue.

by ADELLE NAZARIAN
14 Sep 2016

The Los Angeles Times paid a visit to Donald Trump’s Southern California headquarters in Long Beach on Monday and was stunned by the diversity of volunteers who are committed to seeing him win the Golden State and the presidency.

“It was as if the whole thing had been staged, in Cambodia Town, no less, to believe the notion that Trump’s appeal is largely limited to older white males,” the Times‘s Steve Lopez wrote. In Long Beach, one of America’s most diverse cities, that same diversity was reflected in Trump’s supporters at his Southern California headquarters.

Lopez spoke with a woman and millennials of Filipino descent, a Mexican-American, and a Jewish man, and saw the “names of volunteers from the African-American, Hispanic and Asian communities” written on blackboards adorning the names of volunteers. He noted that “two middle-aged white people [also] joined the party.”

Trump’s grand opening for his headquarters took place this past Saturday, and Breitbart News was there to cover it. As Lopez was told, there were hundreds of people there over the course of the opening; many of them were able to enjoy a performance that was put on by dancers from the Khmer Arts Cultural Center, known as a traditional Cambodian “blessing dance;” something Lopez wrote he would have paid to see.

Lopez wrote that an unnamed Mexican-American Trump volunteer told him that “there are too many illegals here… and they dirty the place up and they take jobs and do things hey shouldn’t.” Lopez noted that once he found out he was with the Times, the man said “the only thing the Times is any good for is to wrap fish in it,” before walking away.

(This Breitbart News reporter was similarly dismissed by a liberal couple at the state’s Democratic Convention last year.)

A white male Trump supporter who was also present told the Times that at although one point he “wanted to strangle” Trump, he changed his mind when he saw that Trump “had received Christ.”

Gary Fultheim, the Jewish man who is also part-owner of the building that Trump’s HQ is located in, reportedly said one of the main reasons he is voting Trump for president is because he believes Trump will do a better job of protecting Israel from Iran than the Democrats will.

http://www.breitbart.com/california/...-to-trump-h-q/

A visit to Trump's headquarters in Long Beach's Cambodia Town, of all places, produces some surprises


Rachel Gunther works phones at Trump headquarters located in an area colloquially referred to as "Cambodia Town, " in Long Beach, Calif. (Steve Lopez / Los Angeles Times)

September 13, 2016
Steve Lopez

The city is blue.

The county is blue.

The state is blue.

So I was curious.

Who and what would you find if you walked into Donald Trump’s campaign headquarters in Long Beach, a racially diverse city and longtime Democratic Party stronghold?

If you believe polls or put any stock in political demographics, the Rams have a better chance of winning the Super Bowl than Trump has of winning California. But I read that his Long Beach office had opened for business last weekend, and I was up for an adventure on Monday.

The Trump office is in the heart of Cambodia Town on the 2300 block of East Anaheim Street, in a building that also houses the Phnom Pich Pharmacy and Khmer Arts Cultural Center. When you walk through the lobby and into the interior courtyard, you’re struck by wall-to-wall photos of people, places and things in Cambodia, as if this were a shrine to Cambodia.

And to Trump.

“Make America Great Again!” said a giant red, white and blue sign in the lobby.

Isn’t it already pretty great, if you can visit the Queen Mary, eat at Phnom Penh Noodle Shack and step into Trump’s Long Beach lair in half a day?

The problem was that I didn’t see many Trump supporters.

Don’t worry, a gentleman named Gary Fultheim told me. They’d be in later.

I asked if he happened to know how a Cambodian business center came to be headquarters for a guy who has alienated a number of minority groups in the last year or so?

I asked the right guy.

Fultheim is a part-owner of the building, a frequent traveler to Asia for both business (as a garment importer) and pleasure — and a big Trump supporter.

I should not have missed the grand opening of the campaign office, Fultheim said.

“We had more than 350 people here Saturday, which I was pleasantly surprised by,” he told me. “They came from Murrieta, Temecula, Encino, West Hollywood and Woodland Hills. We had Hispanics and African Americans here, the gay community was here — everybody. And there weren’t any problems at all and the wonderful Khmer Arts Cultural Center put on a dance performance that was spectacular.”

I’d have paid to see that.

So why does Fultheim like Trump?

Fultheim, who is Jewish, said he thinks Trump will do a better job of protecting Israel from Iran than the Democrats have and will. Fultheim doesn’t always like Trump’s choice of words on immigration, but he likes his policy. He thinks Trump would ease regulations on corporations and “lift the tax burdens off of the small businessman.”

Fultheim, who has done his share of international business, made an elegant argument for the benefits of free trade, which generates jobs for everyone from the forklift driver who scissors the goods off the cargo containers, to the truck drivers, to the retailers and so on.

But wait a minute, I said. Didn’t Trump say he’d raise the roof on tariffs, and doesn’t that mean jobs could be lost, prices could soar, and tariffs might be imposed on American goods shipped overseas?

Fultheim thought briefly and said:

“I don’t know what Trump wants to do, OK?”

But it’ll work out fine, he assured me, because Trump has been a champ in business and “the American population should bet on a winner.”

As we chatted, Trump’s L.A. County regional chair, Rachel Gunther, arrived to open the campaign office.

I walked in with her and saw Trump signs on one wall in the form of a cross, next to a sign that said “BUILD that WALL!!”

Gunther, who said she’s of Filipino descent, told me she liked Trump even before he was a candidate. Scrawled on blackboards were names of volunteers from the African American, Hispanic and Asian communities — people she’ll tap to man the phones or knock on doors in coming weeks.

“A lot of people have written us off,” Gunther said, but she thinks Trump is going to win California.

Two men walked in together to offer their help. One was African American, the other Mexican American. Next in the door were a couple of millennials, Filipino brothers in their 20s, and one of them said Trump makes sense but the media twist everything he says. Only after that did two middle-aged white people join the party.

It was as if the whole thing had been staged, in Cambodia Town, no less, to belie the notion that Trump’s appeal is largely limited to older white males.

The volunteers were all well-spoken in their support of Trump on social, domestic and policy issues, or their disdain for and lack of trust in Clinton, though to be honest I disagreed on this and that.

The African American, Austin Jones, said social programs going back to LBJ’s Great Society created communities of dependency.

Well, maybe, but didn’t racism, housing discrimination and job discrimination have something to do with the creation of two Americas?

The Mexican American, who told me not to use his name, said “there are too many illegals here … and they dirty the place up and they take jobs and do things they shouldn’t.”

At one point, he turned to me and said he wasn’t clear on who I was. When I clarified that I was with the L.A. Times, he stood up and left, saying on his way out that “the only thing the Times is any good for is to wrap fish in it.”

Mainstream media can’t be trusted, several others agreed, because of a leftist lean. I asked what constitutes mainstream media. Aren’t AM radio talk shows, Fox News, Wall Street Journal editorials, and countless newspapers that lean to the right in their conservative states all part of mainstream media?

I didn’t get much of a response. But CNN is definitely liberal, everyone agreed.

Really? If you watch any daily wrapup of election highlights and low lights, aren’t there always an equal number of commentators from each side of the aisle?

Apparently no one has watched CNN enough to know.

The white male, Mike Paulus, told me that as a Christian, it was only recently that he came around to Trump. For the longest time, he didn’t care for Trump’s negativity and language.

“I wanted to strangle him,” he said.

So what changed?

Paulus said he forgave the candidate after a prominent evangelical minister said he believed Trump “had received Christ.”

Imagine Trump’s stroke of luck, that his conversion happened so close to election day.

Maybe the next miracle is that the red candidate takes a blue city in a blue state, and there's dancing in the streets of Cambodia Town.

http://www.latimes.com/local/califor...nap-story.html