Wednesday’s Town Hall meeting/campaign rally with President Obama at the Costa Mesa fairgrounds surely had the usual worshipful energy one would expect with a room full of partisans, but not everyone here found it so inviting.

As I chronicled in the dead-tree version of the Pilot yesterday, Assemblyman Van Tran was invited to the event and even flew down from Sacramento to attend it but was turned away at the door. And Obama, while recognizing dignitaries at the fairgrounds, made special mention of his office’s gaffe in failing to get out an invitation to Rep. Dana Rohrabacher.

This left Tran’s spokesman Dave Everett understandably miffed and wondering if the White House was just playing partisan games. I understand how he feels, but I have trouble believing it.

Cynicism comes so easily to all of us when we consider politics. Everyone’s always running some sort of an angle. That particular feeling’s even more acute in Southern California where the main industry is the movies, and we’ve all heard the stories over the years of some of the backstabbing that goes on in that tribe. Trust me, they do business the same way in DC.

In Assemblyman Tran’s case he should have been allowed in with no problem. Who cares if he wasn’t on someone’s list. He’s the elected state lawmaker for the area. Just let him in through the private VIP entrance. But, OK, bureaucrats can be bureaucrats so if I were Tran yesterday I would have quickly gone to the public gate since he already had a ticket. By the time he made it to that gate the president was in the building and Secret Service locked it down. In case you don’t know that’s standard protocol. You can’t be late for the president no matter what. Security demands that you get there on time or you’re out of luck.

In Rohrabacher’s case, his office never received any sort of invitation and they only found out about it from the media. When it came to the attention of Obama’s staff they called Rohrabacher’s office and apologized. Later, Obama’s chief of staff Rahm Emanuel himself called Rohrabacher to apologize again.

“That gave Dana an opportunity to talk to him a little bit and he said so far we’re being treated better by this administration than the last one,” said Rohrabacher’s spokeswoman Tara Setmayer.

Rohrabacher was not too upset about it, just a little disappointed he didn’t get a chance to talk to Obama about Afghanistan since they share some common ground politically on the strategy there, Setmayer said. Emanuel vowed to put the congressman in touch with their top advisor on Afghanistan and that was done today, she added.

That’s one thing about Obama — when he makes a mistake he’s good at correcting it.

A good source chalked all this up to rookie mistakes on the president’s staff. That makes sense. I would find it hard to believe that a politician who wrote a book laying out a strategy for bipartisanship and who emerged into the national spotlight with a historic speech extolling the virtues of bipartisanship would start playing such juvenile partisan games. What would he stand to gain by snubbing Tran or Rohrabacher? Nothing. And he has a lot more to lose by doing it.

Now, as for why most of the Costa Mesa City Council apparently snubbed Obama, I have no idea why. Don’t you want the stimulus package money? Oh wait, some council members said they did not. Now that’s just silly. You might not like the president, council members, but a majority of your constituents voted for him. Get over it. Councilwoman Katrina Foley told me that if President Bush had come to Costa Mesa she would have looked forward to being there. I agreed. So would I. Covering the president is always fun. I’ve covered appearances by Presidents George H.W. Bush and Clinton and I saw President Carter on the campaign trail when I was a kid. It’s always exciting. That’s not a partisan statement — it’s just respect for the office and for the country.

UPDATE: Mayor Allan Mansoor just got back to us and said he didn’t want to go because he would have found the experience “frustrating.” Making a more or less libertarian argument, he says he basically doesn’t agree with the federal government’s big-spending plan to jolt the economy upright. This makes no sense to me. He had a perfect opportunity to tell the president to his face how he feels and he whiffed. He says he didn’t think he would have gotten that chance, but by skipping the town hall he guaranteed that. Let’s hope it doesn’t jeopardize the city’s chances to get some of the stimulus money. With the huge deficit the city’s facing it needs all the help it can get. Alan Blank will have more on this in an article to be posted tonight on our website. Also, check out Brady Rhoades’ take on this issue.

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