Al Snook: Running hard one last time

Paul Clinton

Al Snook’s run for the state Assembly seat that will represent

Costa Mesa will be his final one.

Handily behind his Republican opponent in the money race and

largely unknown outside his hometown Garden Grove, the Democrat faces

long odds in unseating Ken Maddox for the 68th Assembly District

seat.

“This will be my last chance,” Snook said. “That’s the way I’m

looking at it.”

Snook, an insurance salesman who fought in the Korean War, said he

ran as a favor to Democrat Party leaders looking for a viable

candidate to run against Maddox.

Snook, Maddox and Libertarian Doug Scribner, who lives in Costa

Mesa, are facing off Nov. 5. Maddox has held the seat since 1998.

A perennial candidate in his hometown of Garden Grove, Snook has

entered a handful of elections since the early 1990s. Snook ran for

mayor of Garden Grove in 1992, 1994, 1996 and 1998. After three

dismal finishes, in which he secured 14%, 13% and 18% of the vote, respectively, Snook nudged up to 31% in his most recent run at that

city’s top elected post. Yet, he was still beaten by a more than

2-to-1 vote margin.

Snook and Maddox have some familiarity, and history, with each

other.

Maddox also ran unsuccessfully for a Garden Grove City Council

seat in 1994, before winning a seat on that dais in 1996. The two

went head-to-head in 2000, when Snook decided to step up and run for

the Assembly on the Reform Party ticket. He finished third out of

four candidates, securing only 5% of the vote.

“I didn’t have the money to compete,” Snook said about that race.

While Maddox has said he is busy familiarizing himself with Costa

Mesa issues and meeting city leaders, Snook hasn’t given the city

much thought, he said.

Costa Mesa would replace Garden Grove as the largest city in the

new district.

Snook pitches himself as a blue-collar Democrat. His first job, as

a teenager living in Alaska in 1952, was a union job as a truck

driver with the Teamsters . He has kept his dues book as a memento.

In that same year, on his 18th birthday, Snook was drafted into

the Air Force to serve in Korea. After the war, he worked as an

insurance salesman. He opened up his own agency in 1965.

He has lived in Garden Grove for 37 years.