THE POLITICAL LANDSCAPE:

Wednesday’s town hall meeting with President Obama yielded some happy endings and some, uh, not-so-happy ones. In fact, in Assemblyman Van Tran’s case it was downright embarrassing.

Tran, who was one of the area’s earliest and most ardent supporters of John McCain’s presidential bid — even in the darkest hours of his candidacy — was turned away Wednesday when he tried to attend the rally.

Looks like it was a big misunderstanding and not some dark conspiracy to rebuff a McCain booster.

“We had a little hiccup,” Tran said.

Tran received an invitation from the White House, which is customary for local representatives no matter the party affiliation.

“I was very pleased to have the president come to our legislative district in the heart of Costa Mesa,” Tran said.

So he flew down from Sacramento, got to the fairgrounds and someone at one of the VIP private gates turned him away. Not on the list, he was told.

Tran had a ticket so he went to the public gate like everyone else, but it was too late. Obama was in the building already, and it was locked down.

When Tran’s spokesman Dave Everett called the White House to find out what happened he was told Obama’s representatives would try to set up a personal meeting with the president today. It wasn’t guaranteed as of Wednesday night, so stay tuned.

But if he gets the chance, Tran wants to quiz the president on his plans to right the economy. That should be interesting as both men have quite different ideas on how to do so.

Eva Orozco was all set for the long haul. She had her peanut butter sandwich, some water and a little sign that said, “I need a ticket.”

The Obama fan desperately wanted to see the president at the Costa Mesa fairgrounds town hall meeting, but couldn’t get a ticket Tuesday. So she showed up about 11 a.m. with her sign. The lunch was to tide her over as she waited for the presidential motorcade if she failed to score a ticket.

“I was content with that,” she said.

Then it happened.

About 45 minutes after she got there someone noticed her sign.

“He said one of his friends couldn’t make it so he had an extra ticket,” Orozco said.

She called her daughter to share the happy news, but she didn’t sound exactly thrilled.

“She said, ‘No fair,’ ” Orozco said, chuckling as she added her daughter waited overnight to get her tickets.

But it was all good in the Orozco family. Orozco saved two seats for her daughter and her friend.

Then there were the local representatives who apparently didn’t want to meet the president.

It was a bit odd to hear Obama single out Santa Ana Mayor Miguel A. Pulido as one of the dignitaries in the crowd with no acknowledgment of Costa Mesa Mayor Allan Mansoor.

Word has it Mansoor declined the invitation, but efforts to reach him for comment to confirm were unsuccessful.

Did the rest of the council, aside from lone Democrat Councilwoman Katrina Foley, also find something better to do on Wednesday?

Finally, as Obama listed the local representatives at the town hall meeting, he mentioned Rep. Loretta Sanchez was there and then noted he was actually in Rep. Dana Rohrabacher’s district. Not surprisingly in this partisan audience, the boos soon rained down at the mention of Rohrabacher’s name.

Obama quickly moved to settle the crowd down and noted that his office goofed up the invitation to Rohrabacher, but that he intended to invite him.

“I want everyone to give him a big round of applause,” Obama said. His supporters politely obliged.

Campbell puts capital gains tax in crosshairs

U.S. Rep. John Campbell has unveiled a plan that would do away with the capital gains tax in 2009.

Just like many states and cities across the country offer annual sales tax holidays that boost back-to-school sales at shopping malls, Campbell believes the proposal would encourage people to buy homes, property, stocks, bonds and businesses.

The proposal would eliminate all capital gains taxes on assets purchased in 2009, regardless of when the asset is sold.

“This is to make it [the Capital Gains tax] go to zero, so that people say, ‘Wait a minute, that really gives me the potential for a lot of increased return,’ … now we’re dealing with trying to make a recession shorter and shallower,” said Campbell in an interview with CNBC’s Maria Bartiromo on Monday.

A member of the House Financial Services Committee, Campbell believes the tax holiday would increase revenue to the U.S. Treasury this year. The loss of tax revenue down the road would be offset by a hopefully better economy.

“You would want it to be fairly short term to stimulate activity. Once the activity is stimulated, the economy will run with the ball on that,” Campbell said.

There has not been any research done to determine how much tax revenue the federal government would stand to lose from a capital gains tax holiday yet, Campbell said.

Reporter BRIANNA BAILEY may be reached at (714) 966-4625 or at [email protected]. City Editor PAUL ANDERSON may be reached at (714) 966-4633 or at [email protected].