Author: The Chief

I came across an editorial in the Orange County Register newspaper Saturday, it was written by a Republican strategist (whatever the hell is that?) and proclaimed that the Party in California isn’t dead, they just need to change their messaging.  It spoke about how John Cox picked up more than 500k votes than the Republican congressional candidates statewide!  The editorial was kind of much ado about nothing, made claims about how the tax cuts didn’t help anyone, etc.  I’m going to give my take on what happened and the steps to take to rebuild the Party.

The Party is dead.  This is due to many reasons, but generally due to the consultants and upper political elites who run the Party.

This rung true under Ron Nehring, who used the GOP job as a reason to take multiple trips to Australia??? Thomas Del Beccaro who used the GOP job as a personal dating service, and current chair, former State Senator Jim Brulte, who is basically just a graveyard caretaker, we will have a new chair in January.  While none of these three are directly involved in the loss of several House, Assembly, and State Senate seats, nevertheless, they are the chairmen, the Party’s decline falls on them.

I blame the consultants on many levels, first being that they essentially territorialized the Party.  Meaning they have a candidate for Congress, maybe a candidate for a State Senate seat, but they care very little after that.  This is very apparent in far northern CA, think Chico, Redding, Roseville, and Rocklin areas, the central valley area, and in Orange and San Diego areas.  These consultants have also become very adept at protecting their own, want to run against one of their people?  Prepare to be carpet bombed.

I witnessed this personally by a central valley/bay area based consultant. I was at a fundraiser for a candidate for Assembly in San Ramon. At this event, the consultant walked up to a rumored future candidate and told them he would personally see to it they are defeated for re-election to the seat they were running for as a result of thinking about running!  This person was a Republican, essentially being told, screw off.  Want to run against a Democrat in a safe seat?  You will get no money and no support from the Party apparatus.  Keep in mind, the Party leadership largely signs off on this.

Our candidates didn’t understand the political climate.  We have a very unpopular president in this state at the top of the ticket, our governor nominee was largely running a “I know I’m going to lose but I want to make the Democrats spend money campaign”….I don’t fault him for our struggles.  No offense to Mr. Cox, but it was a bloodbath in the statewide races and the trickle down was brutal.  Diane Harkey and Jeff Denham never took their races seriously post primary. In the case of Denham, I don’t think he took it seriously at all.  I think these seats are lost for good.  Dana Rohrabacher was a weird incumbent and made enough weird comments to doom his re-election, I think we win can back this seat in 2 years.  Steve Knight and Mimi Walters seats are harder to predict. I think we could win them back but they may well be lost for good in 2022 after redistricting.  The seat Young Kim ran for is tougher to read; however, I think it’s gone. There was a strange ethnic twist here being it was an Asian American against a Hispanic American.  I think its likely toast after redistricting.

The bloodshed continued in the State Assembly and Senate.  We even lost seats that we should have won handily!  In my opinion our incumbents suffer from what I call Dan Lungren syndrome.  Lungren worked hard to get elected, then stopped working the district and as a result faced a very close election in 2008, he lost in 2012.  He fell victim to the thought “I have been elected so many times how could I possibly lose?”

Now back to the consultants and these seats we lost, who do we run in 2 years?  That is a question that cannot be answered. We have no bench in many of these areas.  In reality, you could argue the Democrats have better future candidates then we do.  This speaks to the fact that consultants have essentially locked out other Republicans from seeking elected office in “their territories” as they wanted to keep their own brand.

Now how I would fix the Party in California, keep in mind this will take about a decade or so.  Here are some ideas.

Republicans need a full-time chair and a full-time professional staff.

We need to seek out fresh thinkers and new ideas, not settle for a journeyman or a newbie looking to hop from one job to the next.   Mark Standriff did this years ago. He was press secretary, spoke to a local group of Republicans about how we are doing great things and he was so happy to be a part of it…he took a job the following day in Fresno.

Break up the consultant good old boy network. They never bought a franchise, so why do they have territorial rights?

Work closely with local GOP groups. This should go without saying, but it’s funny how most of these groups don’t even communicate with each other.

Have a slate card that involves ALL GOP Candidates running in the election. The Democrats do this why don’t we?  Their campaigns coordinate….so why don’t we?

We need a platform stating our policy positions on everything, this should be done ASAP.  We also need to enforce the platform so candidates don’t agree with it when campaigning and sell us out once they get to Sacramento or Washington.

Also, how come we don’t play in every race?  We have essentially become a regional Party; playing in rural northern CA, some parts of the valley, Orange County and surrounding areas, and parts of San Diego.  When I say play everywhere, obviously we won’t be winning anytime soon, but in most of those other area’s people refuse to vote for us because they have never heard our message.  Work the area, put a token candidate up and see what happens, maybe after several election cycles we could make inroads.  This is how Donald Trump won, he wasn’t afraid of the inner city.

We need to partner with every small Party in the state to overturn the top 2 primary!  This is a no brainer, the other parties are just as jilted as us, take this to the Supreme Court if need be.  This likely nets us a gain of about 6-8 seats in various districts.

Challenge the citizens redistricting in court as well, this is a sham!  I would argue just like the Pennsylvania Democrats did, how come the GOP gets 40% of the vote, yet we have just 20% representation, and have judges draw a new map.  This could net 10 new seats.

Just my $.02

The wheels have come off the Democrat Party since the election of Donald Trump as our 45th President.  So much so that they have had to abandon their usual talking points of Republicans are racist, sexist, homophobic, or even white supremacists.  Now the Democrats have what I call a very odd relationship with children; not so much in a Catholic priest or disgraced Congressman Mark Foley kind of way, more just in general terms.

Exhibit A – Healthcare Repeal 
Democrats wheeled out all kinds of children saying my (insert constituent’s name here) son/daughter/binary has (insert condition here) and will be kicked off my health plan after you bad guys repeal it.  Blatantly false!  Even under the former healthcare plans you were still covered in most every case until at least 18, in some cases far longer.  In addition, let’s clear up the “pre-existing conditions” malarkey. If you are under a current plan and come down with let’s say a broken foot, your plan would pay for the injury and all subsequent treatments because you were injured while your plan was in force.  A pre-existing condition is if I sign up during open enrollment, because I never had health insurance, and go to my pre-approval physical with said broken leg seeking treatment I would be denied.  As that is called a pre-existing condition.

Exhibit B – Immigration
Democrats paint this really nasty picture of children being ripped out of their parents arms a la Elian Gonzalez with said parents being driven back to Mexico in a bus and booted out whenever we darn well please.  Then taking said child and essentially sending him to any random Central American country and hoping for the best.  False.  First these immigration raids usually coincide with a employment or felony/drug/gang sweep led by federal agents.  We legally cannot leave a child under 18 alone, so we round them up too and place them in holding trying to find a home for them, or reunite with parents and send back to their former home country.  Notice the camera is always on the children, not the parents who are hardened criminals or gang members?

Exhibit C – The Caravan
All the Democrats talk about is how we have to take all these people coming here because, look at all the children!  Forget the fact we have no clue who any of these people are, they have no regard for the laws of any country they pass through, let alone ours!  However we must think of those poor children who will have nowhere to go as if they don’t have any other relatives or anything.

Exhibit D – Children with PTSD Study
This “study” I saw where 1 out of every 4 children has signs of PTSD since Trump got elected? Really?  Think it could be their crazy deranged parents?  How many children know what PTSD is let alone can spell it!

PTSD is typically experienced by soldiers exposed to brutal combat such as house-to-house fighting, trench warfare, or other combat which is up close, personal, and emotionally traumatic.  Think looking the other guy in the face as you plunge a knife into his chest and he’s trying to do likewise to you. The idea that losing an election is anything like that is a perversion. No wonder these folks are called “snowflakes”.

I think this claim of children with PTSD is a ploy by liberal parents trying to get their children on medical record as being “on the spectrum”. Children on such lists are often candidates for unnecessary medication; especially boys.  Once children are listed as being medicated or in a classification that they may be at risk, this history will be used as a backdoor way that will result in making it so anyone with such a history cannot own a gun. Thus Liberals will slowly chip away at the 2nd Amendment by creating a new category of people prohibited from bearing arms. Think about it. Also, would this disqualify them from future military service?

As you can see, this has become a recurring theme of the Liberals.  Don’t focus on our bankrupted medical system, or broken healthcare system, focus on these poor needy children.  Don’t focus on the gang member parents, or the fact they broke the law to enter here, focus on the poor children.  Don’t focus on who the people in this caravan are, focus on the children.  Children are now a pawn in the game of elections in our country and frankly it is sick.

Just to clarify, the 70 million has nothing to do with that rigged mega millions jackpot you Americans play.  That is the amount of DEMOCRAT/HOLLYWOOD/SILICON VALLEY money that has flown to Texas to attack Sen Ted Cruz.  Cruz is in the Senator who will be winning re-election in a week by around 10% mind you.  Cruz may have his misgivings and may have angered the Donald Trump coalition but he was not going to lose re-election, especially with very popular Governor Greg Abbott leading the ticket.  Again to re-iterate if you are from Rio Linda or think the Russia colluded, Ted will win with at least around 10% of the vote.  Forget about Beto O’Rourke for a minute, I’m going to lay out why those in charge of the Democrat’s Senatorial Campaign arm should be drawn and quartered.

While they were blowing all this money on Cruz the same way Charlie Sheen blows the booger sugar, look at what happened to some of the other races for control of the Senate.

First look at North Dakota. Now full disclosure, the candidate had some missteps, but what if she got $10 million of that allotment?  Ten million is a ton in North Dakota, you could even dig up all my dead brethren to vote Left.  That seat?  Yeah it’s lost as well, GOP +1.

Now let’s take a look at Missouri. The incumbent has had a rough couple weeks since the Kavanaugh “No” vote. She is falling behind her challenger. Again could an infusion of $10 million help?  Sorry already went to Beto in Texas. I will call this race for the GOP as well, +2.

Trek up north to Indiana. This race should not be close. The GOP had a disaster of a primary with a challenger emerging mortally wounded. Again the race has closed and appears to be falling the way of the good guys. Polling again is close, but leaning GOP at this time.  We will call this +3 again. I think Democrats have been oversampled yet again here.  So we still would have had 50 million left, maybe another $10 here?

In Florida it’s a giant unknown who will come out on top, but a 24 year veteran Senator being virtually tied with–let’s say a Governor who carries a lot of baggage with him–is not good for the Democrats; especially headed down the stretch here.  It probably would have taken $15 million here but you have a late emerging race where the Democrats could lose.

Now we will look at 3 additional races, 2 held by the GOP.  I’m going to ignore the Tennessee seat, because it looks too far for Democrats to reach.  In Arizona, I cannot really get a feel on this one, I think the GOP challenger is a good one. The Democrat seems like a Code Pink whacko.  Hard to tell here but another $10 million out of that pot may push the Democrat across. This is the seat of aptly named Jeff Flake who basically is making Lindsay Graham into a fire breathing conservative.  Much like the Nevada seat we will discuss next I like the fact that the GOP is winning the Governor’s race in both states at current polling.

Nevada is a tough state for the GOP. Clark County, think Las Vegas, is growing and becoming more left quickly. The Senator is an incumbent and has made some missteps. He leads in polling but I think this is one we lose.  I think between Arizona and Nevada we lose 1.  Montana is another seat just out of our grasp, and a race Democrats could be wondering why they didn’t spend more there.  I think the Democrat wins.  So far if you’re keeping score at home GOP +2 with 1 pure toss up in Florida.  With the House looking likely to switch parties I cannot help but wonder what some Democrats will be thinking after seeing the Senate results.

I for one am glad they spent the money elsewhere.

“The Chief”

You smell that smell?  Not the ethnic food you ate last night, I mean that other smell, like burned toast?  That’s what a certain soon to be former Senator from North Dakota smells like today.  No, not because she voted no on Kavanaugh, but for the reason she gave.  Sen Heidi Heitkamp who by the way comes from a political family a la the Clintons in North Dakota, said she didn’t vote to confirm the good judge because she believed Dr. Ford, the accuser, not Judge Kavanaugh the accused.  Even though the accuser’s story could not be verified and the FBI came to a similar conclusion after their own investigation…Heitkamp still voted no.  Then proceeded to say the investigation was not thorough enough.  Keep that last sentence in mind as I drop this new revelation that came out about then Attorney General of North Dakota Heitkamp…..

While Heitkamp was Attorney General AKA the second most powerful law enforcement official in North Dakota from 1992 and 2000 she ignored rampant sexual harassment and assault at Wahpeton Indian School.  This is a boarding school for troubled Native American Students (No word on if Elizabeth Warren is familiar with said school).  A teacher was accused of sexually assaulting a young girl.  Heitkamp looked the other way.  Heitkamp you may recall gave this reason for not voting to confirm Kavanaugh “Our actions tonight are a poignant signal to young girls and women across this country.”  “I will continue to stand up for them.”  This leads to an obvious question, where were you when your “constituents” needed you most clown?  Why didn’t you stand up for women during your time as Attorney General?  Apparently you believe Native Americans, most in North Dakota live far below the poverty line and have no access to running water or electricity are just throwaways, shame on you.  Heitkamp for what it’s worth said it is not the Attorney General’s job to sue or enforce the law it’s the bureaucracy’s job.  Maybe someone should make sure Xavier Beccerra of CA gets that memo?  He sues the Trump administration by the hour.  Glad you feel so self-righteous about a vote to oppose a duly qualified judge to the highest court.  Maybe you can charge yourself with some sort of failure to prosecute crime?

But wait there is more…..

The Heitkamp campaign over the weekend took out a full page ad in an “open letter” to her opponent criticizing his position on protecting sexual assault victims.  This printed AD listed over 100 names of women who were victims of sexual assault…..allegedly.  Allegedly, because several named women have come forward saying they never gave permission to use their name publicly!  Kind of a big deal.  Other names were discovered as never being victims of sexual assault, yeah the women came forward saying #NotMeToo.  Heitkamp denied any involvement saying it was the first time she had seen the ad, kinda funny being it was paid for by her campaign. Either she delegated this campaign job to Aaron Park or she is lying. Woah! I think we can gather up the hymn books on this one, and I think I hear a portly sized women warming her vocal chords up…I think this one is over!

Heitkamp #MeToo open letter used women’s names without permission

ND-Sen: Victims furious after Heidi Heitkamp campaign identifies abuse survivors in ad

Heitkamp looks to be borrowing a chapter out of the Democrats new playbook, accuse someone erroneously of sexual assault.  Back it up with omitted facts and errors and then when all else fails just deny you ever had a part in any of it.  Even worse it seems the playbook also includes denying the same accusations decades ago, ala Bill Clinton.  Heitkamp could well face charges for running that ad without obtaining permission from those women. Also I think it’s Libel when someone writes something publicly that isn’t true?  I will defer to Heitkamp on this one, since she is you know an attorney…allegedly.  I feel kind of bad for her, her family’s political name is officially tarnished for generations.

That is the one nice thing about a dumpster fire, no one puts it out; it just keeps raging until it no longer has fuel.

I predict a big win by her Republican opponent Kevin Cramer…actually YYYUUUUUUUGGGGEEEEE!

BTW the “Chief” will have no comment on my now fellow Indian by blood Elizabeth Warren, however as the Chief I designate your new tribal name as “Squaw of Crazy Ideas.”

As a homeowner in Sacramento County, I live in an area “served” by the “Sacramento Municipal Utility District” (SMUD). This is our local monopoly providing electricity to well you guessed it, Sacramento and a couple surrounding areas. What we have here is a government created monopoly, if you live in SMUD’s service area you must be hooked up to a SMUD electric meter and receive a bill from them each month. Just to be fair, SMUD does have pretty low rates compared to the other major electric providers here in California, and I’ve never had any service related issues in my three years owning my house.

 

Now to the point of my article, every month in your billing statement you get a couple small fliers (usually 1/3 of a page) stating they are filing for a rate change. This flier is written in such legalese that no common man can reasonably ascertain what is being said, so as a result you wait for a commercial or some sort of article saying what is happening to rates. Newsflash, they never go down. Similar to your credit card company, when they claim the reward benefits are getting better for you, do not buy it. In this case SMUD got very creative, saying peak rates will increase (5-8pm) and all other rates will decrease. What is happening here is rates will go down for the seniors, the stay at home mom’s, and for folks who telecommute or work from home. Every other group gets absolutely soaked under this new plan. Oh, if you didn’t read that little flyer, rest assured, under the new rates, the electric rate you will be charged between 5 to 8 PM triples from what you were paying!

 

Think about it, when do you do your cooking? Dishes? Laundry? Watch the latest series of Survivor…yep all between 5-8 pm. So, your bill is going to go literally up in flames. As far as the discount, well when you are working what electricity is being used while you are away? Your fridge? That’s fair, but your other appliances are either off or EnergyStar ® certified so likely not using much if any power.

 

The bottom line here is this type of government rule (I know utilities aren’t government but are governed by Public Utility Commission) have created a monopoly and really took away choice from the consumer. I am going to use a perfect example of what allowing competition does. I do not watch much television anymore, but when I do, I’m usually inundated with insurance company advertisements. I mean literally you could see 10-15 commercials per hour for these products. I kid you not: the Lizard, the ditsy brunette, the discount double check, the quirky professor, Esurance, the Liberty, Liberty, Liberty company, and Dennis Johnson hawking Allstate. However as much as I loathe the ads, that’s one heck of a lot of consumer choice right there. This way if a company loses its way; price, service or product quality, you are free to go and send them a message via your wallet. This is not true with our government created utilities that eliminate competition. The utilities have full control over you and the rates, case in point? The only way you can refuse service from them is not paying a bill and having power shut off, and to restart service you will be paying a large fee and back penalties with interest.