Elected in Absentia, Umberg Offers Late Thanks to Backers

Assemblyman Tom Umberg, stationed at the U.S. Naval Station in Guantanamo, Cuba, since August, came home to Santa Ana on Tuesday to give supporters the thanks usually shared on election night.

Standing alongside him in a conference room in the Santa Ana Transit Center, known now as the Depot at Santa Ana, were his wife and the cardboard cutout of him that she used to campaign in his absence.

Then he spoke to more than 100 supporters, among them city and county officials sipping drinks and munching on appetizers.

“While I was gone I understand there was an election,” he said, eliciting laughter from the audience.

Umberg, 49, a lawyer and reserve Army colonel, missed five months of the campaign because he was prosecuting war detainees.

Following Army rules, he was unable to campaign even long-distance. Instead, he bided his time by working long hours and watching films at an Army outdoor movie theater.

“I wanted to thank everyone who worked in my campaign in my absence,” said Umberg, who also works for the law firm of Morrison & Forrester. “Election night is when you say thank you, but I was in a concrete building with no windows in Guantanamo.”

Umberg won election to the 69th District on Nov. 2 with 61% of the vote, defeating Republican small-business owner Otto Bade. The district represents Santa Ana and parts of Anaheim and Garden Grove.

Umberg learned he had won by following election results online, and, with few people to talk to on Guantanamo, “hi-fived” himself, he said. Umberg represented the mostly Democratic region in the Assembly from 1990 to 1994, when he ran unsuccessfully for state attorney general.

In his reelection campaign, Umberg’s wife of 24 years, Robin, represented him at fundraisers and candidate forums, appearing with the cardboard cutout of her husband in mid-stride with a jacket casually tossed over his shoulder.

“We talked more about [Tom’s] character and background. It would be hard to answer questions on the issues,” said Umberg spokesman George Urch. Urch said Umberg’s wife did not want to assume what her husband’s position would be on the issues.

Robin Umberg is also a colonel in the reserves. In 1990, she was called to active duty during the Persian Gulf War, leaving Tom home with their three children, then 7, 4 and 1. Robin Umberg spent seven months as a nurse in a Colorado military hospital.

In 1996, Tom Umberg managed President Clinton’s California reelection campaign and served from 1997 to 2000 as deputy director of the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy for the Clinton administration.

After the holidays, Umberg will begin work in Sacramento which, because of term limits, will be his last term as an assemblyman.