Steve Frank, the only advocate for the re-election of Celeste Greig as CRA President, has noticeable shifted his tactics in the last few days. While he has never attempted to rebut any evidence or allegations against Greig, he has—up until recently—tried to discredit the message by smearing the messenger; George Park. Park has crushed Frank & Greig with a tsunami of evidence that both have failed to act in a professional manner and in accord with established CRA rules and procedures. What I have published on this blog is only a portion of the available evidence.
Now each time Frank’s candidate is hit with another email from Park, his reaction is to release a copy of his resume. This is damage control for Frank but does nothing for Greig but let her twist slowly in the wind. Frank is distancing himself from Greig and trying to rehabilitate his own reputation. He is like a political consultant that has successfully drained the client of their bank account two weeks before the election and then left them to fend for themselves; while he goes off to a help himself to someone else’s campaign loot.
This is not just a metaphor for Greig’s campaign for President; this is what consults regularly do ever two years to their clients. Now you know why our guys usually loose. Every two years, our party hires the same consultants and gets the same results, only the candidate names change, the rest of the apparatus remains the same.
Frank is currently in strategic withdrawal and trying to position himself to keep his reputation in tact so he can live to fight another day. Whether Celeste realizes that she is under the bus yet is a debatable point. I think behind the scenes Frank will try to narrow the margin of defeat for Greig via his games in the Credentials Committee but there are very few uncommitted players left on the board.
My other reason that I think Frank is done with a vigorous defense of his client is that he has outed two key moles—folks funneling information to him. Here is the account from Aaron Park:
I have not seen a campaign as bizarre as this one has been.
Recently, Steve Frank exposed Bill Cardoza as the source of some of his information when he responded to en email from Placer CRA President Ed Rowen by forwarding an email Rowen sent to Mr. Cardoza complaining about the prospect of Steve having access to Placer’s roster. The only way he could have received a copy of that email would have been from Mr. Cardoza.
Last night – I received a forward of an internal Briscoe campaign email from Steve Frank that was forwarded to him by CRA Board Member Steve Macias. Mr. Macias admitted that to me in a phone call then emailed me to say that he was not going to pull his endorsement of Celeste, thereby confirming that his forwarding of the email was a deliberate act.
Why Mr. Frank exposed the leak in our (Team Briscoe) campaign team is beyond me.
Both Cardoza and Macias have been sources of valuable information to Frank so why did he burn them? Cardoza was likely leaking data and had been accused of such but Macias was operating below anyone’s radar and funneling inside info from Celeste’s opponent. Whether coincidence or not, Macias has ties with John Stoos but I am not aware that Stoos has any current interest or involvement in CRA.
Steve Frank’s conduct in this whole mess is a mystery. Maybe for him all politics really is local and friendships transcend principle and common sense. Or maybe he has an economic interest in the outcome. However this election turns out, we are witnessing the last hurrah of people that Barbara Alby brought into CRA in the 1980s and 90s. I wish they would “go quietly into that good night” but they want one last bite at the apple. Perhaps Celeste’s motives to run for President are not too different than Jerry Brown wanting another turn at being Governor. I can hear Carroll O’Conner singing, “Those were the days.”