Category: Politics

My overall score for election night was 15/23 or 65%.

I am not counting the correct statement that Meg Whitman had no coattails and did nothing to advance the rest of the Republican ticket. In fact Meg established herself in the primary as a vindictive bitch in her treatment of Steve Poizner and continued that image through-out the campaign. Nicky-gate continued and reinforced that image. It is likely that she hurt Carly and the rest of the field. She was robbed blind by her consultants and up until the end she was happy to shovel out the cash to them. I hope to look in detail at the race in a future post.

I did better than fifty percent in picking the winners.

Winners 5/9 Correct with one undecided
Wrong Carly Fiorina—US Senate
Awaiting results Steve Cooley—AG
Right George Runner—BOE-2
Right Dan Lungren CD-3
Wrong Andy Pugno AD-5
Wrong Jack Sieglock AD-10
Right Prop 20—Redistricting commission draws congressional lines
Right Prop 26—require 2/3 vote for fees
Partial credit Republicans win House with 70+ seats and win 51 in Senate
Republicans won sixty House with ten undecided
Republicans won at least 6 with a few not decided election day

As a certified nerd, I can spot a looser a mile away and did well in this category.

Losers 8/9 Correct
Right Abel Maldonado—Lt. Governor
Right Tony Strickland—Controller
Right Mimi Walters—Treasurer
Right Damon Dunn—Secretary of State
Right Abram Wilson AD-15
Wilson was the worst Assembly candidate in the Sacramento area but he was the darling of the California Republican Party and had much of Jack Sieglock’s resources diverted to himself. Wilson’s consultant also was able to keep Sieglock from any independent expenditures by undercutting Sieglock. I will touch on this in a future post.
Right Prop 19—Pot
Right Prop 21—More car taxes
Wrong Prop 25—drop 2/3 vote for budget
Right Prop 27—abolish redistricting commission

This is what you get with hope and not listening to what you know in your heart to be true.

On the Bubble 2/5 Correct
Wrong Meg Whitman—Governor (likely win but no coattails)
Right Mike Villines—Insurance Commissioner (likely loose)
Right Larry Aceves—public instruction (likely loose)
Wrong Prop 23 (election will bring change but not enlightenment to voters)
Wrong Prop 24 (class envy card may propel this to victory)

Winners
Carly Fiorina—US Senate
Steve Cooley—AG
George Runner—BOE-2
Dan Lungren CD-3
Andy Pugno AD-5
Jack Sieglock AD-10
Prop 20—Redistricting commission draws congressional lines
Prop 26—require 2/3 vote for fees

Republicans win House with 70+ seats and win 51 in Senate

Losers
Abel Maldonado—Lt. Governor
Tony Strickland—Controller
Mimi Walters—Treasurer
Damon Dunn—Secretary of State
Abram Wilson AD-15
Prop 19—Pot
Prop 21—More car taxes
Prop 25—drop 2/3 vote for budget
Prop 27—abolish redistricting commission

On the Bubble
Meg Whitman—Governor (likely win but no coattails)
Mike Villines—Insurance Commissioner (likely loose)
Larry Aceves—public instruction (likely loose)
Prop 23 (election will bring change but not enlightenment to voters)
Prop 24 (class envy card may propel this to victory)

The Sacramento County Republican Party (SCPR) has completed their voter registration drive for the 2010 election cycle. The program featured the most generous bounty program I have ever seen in politics.

The program was actually run for the State Party by a consultant that worked thru the Committee to pass on the necessary funds to operate the program. The going rate per registration was about $15 each with both the consultant and SCPR getting a cut. Some local elected officials also contributed part of the funds.

The main purpose of the registration drive was to help targeted seats. The three main beneficiaries were to be Dan Lungren in Congressional District 3 and challengers to Assembly Districts 10 and 15—Jack Sieglock and Abram Wilson respectively. All three seats overlap each other and until the 2008 election were all in Republican hands. Only Lungren survived the wave that swept Barack Obama into office. The previous office holders of AD 10 & 15 left due to term limits and the GOP was unable to handoff the seats to fellow members of their Party.

The immediate result of the drive was 51,210 registrations. This sounds like an impressive number until you start digging into the results. Due to software issues and lack of early tracking, only 30,824 registrations could be tracked by district. Of these only 10,518 were in Lungren’s District. 6,410 of these were in AD 10. A token amount was in AD 15.

Per the report to the Committee, the Sacramento County portion of CD3 started with 130,272 Republicans in January and ended with 137,483; a net increase of 7,211.

Assembly District 10 saw Republicans in Sacramento beginning with 46,033 and ending with 49,256; a gain of 3,223.

In AD-15, Sacramento Republicans began with 22,017 and end with 23,143; a gain of 1,126.

If the 51,210 registrations were new Republican registrations and all increases were due to the voter registration drive then:
14 % were in CD-3
6% were in AD-10
2% were in AD-15

While this estimate does not take into account how many of the 51K were people that reregistered, I think it makes the point that the voter registration drive was not targeted and largely a waste of resources. A more targeted approach would have been more cost effective and yielded better results.

A new element was introduced as a result of the program that historically has been the purview of Democrats—voter fraud. The county clerk has received many reports of life-long Democrats that are learning that they are now registered Republican. The October 15th article in the Sacramento Bee was probably not the last that the Committee will hear about this issue. I expect the FPPC (Fair Political Practices Commission) to be going after the SCRP or some of its venders following the election.

Rick Cua did a song many years ago called “Crash the Party.” More recently there was a movie about the “Wedding Crashers.” In this election cycle there is a new kind of crasher. This one is the termed-out assemblyman that desperately wants the California senate seat vacated by the death of Dave Cox.

Roger Neillo—the Primary Crasher—has shown-up at several events that he was never invited to attend to try to further his political career.

Several weeks ago the Cosumnes Republican Assembly in Elk Grove contacted both Ted Gaines and Roger Neillo to check the availability of both men to speak at their September meeting. Ted Gaines responded first so he was scheduled in September and Neillo was told he would be welcome at the group’s October meeting. Not to be dissuaded, Neillo invited himself to the September meeting anyway and spoke after Gaines.

This meeting fortunately was covered by the Elk Grove Citizen newspaper that accurately quoted Neillo as saying he was a better candidate because he would collaborate with Democrats. “And you’re only going to be effective if you collaborate. Collaboration is extremely important.”

Last Saturday Neillo did it again. This time it was a large precinct walk in Rancho Cordova for Dan Lungren and Jack Sieglock. Neillo pulls up in a motor home with billboard decals all over it touting his campaign. Out of the motor home jump about a dozen staffers in matching Neillo t-shirts. As a sitting assembly member, Neillo got a shot to speak after Sieglock and Lungren. Neillo didn’t say I’m here because we need to get these men elected or anything like that. My impression was that he wanted to be seen with the “right people.”

Neillo’s behavior was tacky and inappropriate. I asked after the event was over who invited Neillo and was told by a staffer for another campaign that no one did. Neillo invited himself!

This says to me that Neillo has been in politics for too long. He is one of the professional politicians that the Tea Party should try to retire. Neillo has forgotten the purpose of representative government. He does not represent his constituents. He likes the power and gamesmanship that he exercises because he is the California version of Lindsey Graham. He not only voted for the largest tax hike any state has ever passed but to this day he justifies this voter as the right thing to do to save California. No one ever asks Neillo if this vote really “saved California from going off the cliff” then why was the State Controller issuing IOUs five months after the vote?

The only principle Neillo has left is the one about winning. Unfortunately, his idea of winning seems to be at any price.

Lastly, have you noticed the campaign strategy that he has adopted? In addition to the usual advertisements you might see in a campaign, there are an abnormal amount of ads for the Neillo car dealerships in places that they never usually advertise. Neillo is getting an “in kind contribution” from his family. These ads try to make people feel confident in the Neillo brand. What other car dealer ads are you hearing now? None is the correct answer. My only question is does that family want Roger to win to further his career or to keep him away from the family business?

As things heat-up in the special election to fill the California Senate seat vacated when Dave Cox died, it would be a good time to note the genesis of how state legislators and Per Diem became an issue.

In a word it was Doug Ose (pronounced O-see).

When Vick Fazio decided not to run for re-election for his congressional seat back in 1998, the Republicans sensed that the gains made in the district by Tim Lefever could finally more the seat from Democrat to Republican. Ose’s chief rival in the race was Assemblywoman Barbara Alby. Alby had refused to collect the Per Diem that she was entitled to collect as a legislator.

Per Diem is intended to allow legislators that live some distance from the Capitol to keep a residence near Sacramento while the legislature is in session. Since Alby lives only a few miles from the Capitol, she did not collect Per Diem on a regular basis. Ose took her Per Diem records and turned them into an attendance record and claimed that Alby had one of the worst attendance records of any legislator in the State. In short Alby did not do her job. Ose succeeded in crucifying Alby on the attendance issue and went on to win the seat.

In 2008, Ose again ran for Congress and Per Diem was once again the main issue. This time Ose went after Tom McClintock for collecting Per Diem when McClintock lived just down the road in Elk Grove. McClintock represented a southern California district and kept a second home in Elk Grove. This is what Per Diem was intended to be used for. Somehow Ose never skipped a beat when he did his 180 on the Per Diem issue.

Now Roger Neillo is making Per Diem an issue in the SD1 race. Can you guess who one of his biggest backers is? If you guessed Doug Ose then you got it right.

All-in-all, I think Ose did a good job during his three terms in Congress. I did walk precincts for him and even got a thank you call from him for my letter to the editor supporting him back when Bill Clinton was bombing Bosnia. I still keep the wave file on my computer. However, Ose’s lasting legacy seems to be making Per Diem a political club to beat-up on other Republicans.

If all Neillo has is Per Diem to go after Ted Gains then I think he is sunk. Gains can beat-up on Neillo all the way to November on the fact that Neillo proudly voted to impose the highest State tax hike in the history of the country. Roger is proud that he was able to “collaborate with Democrats” in the Assembly. Those are not my words; they were uttered by Neillo ironically enough in Elk Grove just two weeks ago.

If you want to get even more ironic, the remaining wildcard in the race is Barbara Alby. She has made some noises about getting into the SD1 race. If she does that, then Neillo might have a chance of winning. Alby can’t win but she can split the Conservative vote and give Neillo an opportunity. We are days away from the end of the filing period. If Alby files it will likely be on the last day to do so.

Brett Daniels was one of three candidates that ran for Sacramento County Sheriff on the June ballot. He also is a former member of the Citrus Heights City Council. He is running again for a City Council seat in Citrus Heights and sought the endorsement of the Sacramento County Republican Party (SCRP). The SCRP met for their regular meeting last Thursday (September 9th). The main agenda item was endorsement for non-partisan races.

The way the endorsement process worked was that a committee of five people—one from each supervisorial district—met and voted their recommendations. The full body then treated the recommendations as a consent calendar unless someone wished to consider a recommendation separately. Mr. Daniels was pulled from the list and on a separate vote; he failed to get the endorsement. This was based solely on his recent endorsement of Sheriff Candidate Jim Cooper. Cooper—a Democrat—is running against Republican Scott Jones. Jones got the SCRP endorsement over Daniels prior to the June election.

In fairness to Daniels, he was at the SCRP meeting and not allowed to speak. I can understand that he was frustrated by this and that he did not prevail in a group that would normally support him. Anyway, when I awoke on Saturday, I was greeted by the message below. It was sent not just to members of the SCRP but to other candidates and elected officials. It was addressed to the chairman of the SCRP.

Daniels began his lengthy email by criticizing the endorsements process and the fact that he was not allowed to speak at the meeting. Further frustrating him was the fact that one of the people leading the effort to block his endorsement is involved with the Scott Jones campaign. I think this individual should have kept his mouth shut and let others go after Daniels but he doesn’t even consider this a problem. (It is and just not in this instance but that is beyond the scope of this entry.)

Daniels claimed that he had inside information on Jones that caused him to change his mind. Below is that portion of his email. (Note some spelling errors in the emails below have been corrected but they are otherwise unchanged.)

Because a few vocal hypocrites have decided it’s ok to put party over principle, I have decided to share the information the I shared with the Endorsement Committee with the remainder of the central committee and have attached it to this message. This contained document clearly shows that Scott Jones engaged in an on-going criminal relationship with known ex-felons to provide confidential information for financial gain. Since the document (mainly the Affidavit for a Search Warrant, pgs 14-22) can be somewhat confusing to the general public, I offer to explain it to any one that cares to ask.

In talking with the Endorsement Committee, I didn’t even get the chance to explain another troubling fact about Mr. Jones that I became aware of during the primary involving another deputy who was convicted of a misdemeanor trespass charge after he lied about a 911 call to get into the home of a woman he hoped to pursue romantically, where her two daughters were alone. A federal civil case that resulted in a more than $200,000 settlement charged the deputy with rifling the woman’s dresser drawers after ordering the two girls – then 8 and 12 – to stay in the living room. The deputy’s conduct was so egregious that the judge issued a stern rebuke as she handed down his sentence. “You traumatized those two children,” she said, calling the deputy’s actions a violation of “public trust.” Mr. Jones was a close friend of the deputy, indeed previously lived with the deputy’s wife, and it was Mr. Jones who was in Legal Affairs that lobbied to keep the deputy on the department. It is widely known that Mr. Jones plans to have his friend serve as his Legal Affairs Officer.

Daniels concludes his letter with one last complaint. Namely, others endorsed that night endorsed Cooper so why was he singled out?

Lastly, an attachment was sent with the above email. The attachment is from the Sacramento County Deputy Sheriff’s Association—the union that gave Jim Cooper about $200,000—and can be found here Pages_from_100428_FILED_Motion_to_Unseal_Search_Warrant_Affidavits_PART_1.pdf

When people push my button on something, I’m not shy about firing off a response. Brett Daniels got such a response from me. I have nothing against Brett, but Jim Cooper is on my list of bad guys that need to lose elections. Here are few exerts from my response.

The disciplinary records of Scott Jones have been released to the public. The disciplinary records of Jim Cooper have not and never will be.

Mr. Cooper has subjected other Council members to the wrath of the Sacramento County Grand Jury because they dared to publicly disagree with him on Council issues. He has used bully tactics on other Council members both publicly and behind the scenes. He is a bully with a badge that abuses his public trust. In July, Mr. Cooper tried to remove Sophia Scherman as Mayor because she called a special meeting about a group home for juvenile sexual offenders that happened to be the same night he had a scheduled fundraiser for his Sheriff campaign. I know, I was at the Council meeting.

Mr. Cooper has been chastised by the Sacramento County Grand Jury on multiple occasions for his behavior on the Elk Grove City Council. I am confident from what I have seen and know of him that if his disciplinary records as a law enforcement officer were released that we would not be having the email exchange.

The document that you emailed us today is a political hit piece on Scott Jones that was filed in April of this year to try to influence the outcome of the June election. The Deputy Sheriff’s Association has pumped about $200,000 into the election and this document was filed at the same time their contributions began to flow into Cooper’s campaign. This is not coincidence but part of a carefully coordinated election campaign.

Mr. Daniels fired off a lengthy response. I want to focus on the first paragraph.

I am in complete agreement with you that Mr. Cooper has not handled himself properly in certain situations. He should have recued himself in all matters that involved the Sacramento Sheriff’s Dept, which he did eventually but should have from the beginning. I also agree that Mr. Cooper has at times not handled matters in the manner that I would. And specifically to the Ms Scherman issue, that issue was the result of Ms Sherman on several occasions stepping outside her boundary as a Mayor of a “strong-City Manager” form of local government and culminated when she called a “Special Meeting” with 24-hrs notice outside the parameters of recognized legitimate “Special Meeting” guidelines, regardless of the topic of concern (which I agree was a serious one nonetheless). Somehow, I think you know these things already but refuse to acknowledge them.

The comments on Elk Grove Mayor Sophia Scherman were curious to me. They are almost verbatim what Jim Cooper, Steve Detrick and Gary Davis said when trying to oust Mayor Scherman. The phrase “strong mayor” was used many times to describe her calling of special meetings. I suspect that Daniels had been in communication with Mr. Cooper in the course of these exchanges. The assertion that Scherman did not have the power to call the meetings is a lie as I will illustrate in a moment. Cooper definitely found them damn inconvenient.

My final response to Daniels began:

As Mayor of Elk Grove Sophia does have the right to call a special meeting with 24 hours notice.
The City Council procedures manual clearly states under the heading for Special Meetings that “Special meetings and emergency meetings of the City Council may be called by the Mayor or majority of the City Council and held from time to time consistent with and pursuant to procedures set forth in the Ralph M Brown Act.”

The Brown Act states:
SPECIAL MEETINGS:
Twenty-four hour notice must be provided to members of legislative body and media outlets including brief general description of matters to be considered or discussed.

Brett Daniels was wrong to endorse Jim Cooper. In the June election he was the spoiler that prevented Scott Jones from winning. This forced a run-off in November. Daniels stated publicly that if he lost in June that he would endorse Jones. He has been around the block more that once as a politician and a deputy sheriff. For him to play dumb about the obvious “hit piece” by the Deputy Sheriff’s Association that was posted on their website back in April with much press and fanfare is unbelievable. Daniels was promising to support Jones after these documents were posted on the Internet and published in local media. Why is it dismissed as a “hit piece” in April and the silver bullet that slays Jones in July? There is more to this than Daniels has admitted.

To prove that I am right on all points stated here try these exerts from the debate held April 30th between Jim Cooper, Scott Jones and Brett Daniels. All quotes below and audio of the debate can be found here. http://hoguenews.com/?p=9976

As it relates to their resume, Bret Daniels was fired over his incident years back, while Jim Cooper and Scott Jones have been cleared of any wrong doing after extensive internal investigations more recently.

The scuffle has been Captain Scott Jones’ investigation – Cooper’s crew has been stating publicly that it was a cover-up, and Jones was never vetted properly by the department and the FBI.

While Jones has been taking the brunt of these shots from both Cooper and Daniels, Scott’s camp had asked for the personal records of Jim Cooper to be released for the public eye.

The first response from Cooper was no; doing so would be a violation of the union protection clause. Then, surprisingly during Friday’s 1380 KTKZ radio debate, Cooper made the announcement that he would be releasing his records.

The immediate complaint from Daniels and Jones was the limited release. Cooper was releasing some of his records, but he was holding back all of his internal investigation records from open review.

With Cooper’s news on Friday, it may tone down some of the rhetoric, but both Daniels and Jones believe his limited released is nothing more than window dressing.

As you can clearly see, Brett Daniels is lying about his July epiphany of Jones’ record. Further, when he says that Cooper has nothing left to release that he is lying. Daniels was the one leading the charge to get Cooper to release his records—including the internal investigation records.

Too bad Brett didn’t stay out of making any endorsement in this race if he had a change of heart about Jones. I would respect that a lot more than having him make a bunch of bald-faced lies not only to the Sacramento Republican Party but to a plethora of candidates and office holders in the county.

The California Republican Party was promised 30 million dollars by the Meg Whitman campaign to fund “Victory Headquarters” throughout California. The CRP planned to have the money in hand over a month ago so they could hit the ground running for the November General Election. This had the potential to boost the entire statewide ticket and move many seats from safe for Democrats to competitive. However, Mrs. Whitman has yet to write the check.

It now appears that this promised money will not happen and the CRP is scrambling to scale-down their plans accordingly. Four years ago Governor Schwarzenegger did a similar thing. While he had 100 million dollars in his campaign war chest, the Governor left the state party with about a six million dollar debt that he never helped to repay even though most of this money was spent to re-elect him. It looks as if Meg is going to follow Arnold’s precedent. Once again the party will leverage themselves up to their fiscal eyebrows and Meg will be happy to leave them hanging.

It sure looks like Tom McClintock was right about this being Arnold’s third term. Meg certainly has done nothing visible to boost the whole ticket to victory. This is all about Meg and any hopes of her being a uniter and party builder are vanishing quickly. As a result, I think she will find that Sacramento is a lonely place when you are in the corner office with no allies.

Paul Smith—the perpetual CD 5 candidate against Doris Matsui—effectively threw in the towel today. Had this been Smith’s first run as the Don Quixote candidate in the race, I might have more sympathy but the way this was handled today was more the act of a petulant child. Paul flamed on a lot of supporters and well wishers unnecessarily.

When last I had heard from Paul’s campaign last week he was trying to cobble together enough funds to order some yard signs. Today’s message of I quit unless you give me $20,000 ASAP was unprofessional. Paul knew what he was getting into long before now.

On the whole, I like Paul but every once in a while he really gets off on tangents. I remember last summer when he was demanding $300 from the Sacramento County Republican Party so he would have the funds to rent a hall to hold a townhall event on healthcare. The SCRP couldn’t give him any funds because they felt that this would be tantamount to a pre-primary endorsement. Instead of looking elsewhere for the money, he went on the Eric Hogue radio show and publicly took the SCRP to task. The fact that a Congressional candidate could not raise a mere $300 to hold a public event seemed laughable to me.

I agree with him that Doris is part of the problem but her district is so safe that it would take millions to move enough voters to throw her out. In addition to the almost 15,000 newly registered Republicans in his district, he would need about 70,000 more to have a likelihood of winning in November.

Paul’s actions today affirm the belief that the Republican voter registration efforts in Sacramento County have largely been a wasted effort since he has been the primary beneficiary of the effort and not Dan Lungren. The high registration bounties paid in Sacramento County were intended to boost Lungren out of the vulnerable category. Lungren has only recently been made aware of this fact. Unfortunately, the political consultant that is running the registration effort seems to get paid the same regardless of where the newly registered voter lives.

As a result of the press release today, Smith’s days as a candidate are likely over. It’s too bad, I like having Paul around.

Abram Wilson is missing in action. The repeat candidate for Assembly District 15 has been harder to find on the campaign trail than a ham sandwich at a Bar Mitzvah. When his name has come up in conversation, it is with the same love and affection that Southerners still have for General Sherman. In fact Wilson has probably burned more bridges in the last two years than the civil war general did in his march to Atlanta.

Wilson has burned bridges not only with the volunteer base but with other candidates as well. Some candidates are not even willing to share resources with him because his campaign has “dissed” them too.

Wilson is the only Republican candidate in Sacramento County that still has not received an endorsement from the California Republican Assembly. This is due to the fact that Wilson still hasn’t forthrightly answered any questions on his opinion of the Life issue. The fact that he will not say that he is a Republican on any of his campaign literature hasn’t helped either.

On paper, Wilson is a great candidate and should win handily, but he keeps surrounding himself with Bay Area Elitists that have no use for Conservatives and grassroots politics. Since this is his second try for the AD 15 seat, one can’t help but wonder if his campaign supporters are just a reflection of his values. Wilson has shown no growth as a candidate and is even less engaged in campaigning than he was last time.

My friend—the Sith Lord—sat next to Wilson at the SCRP BBQ last weekend. This is the fourth time Wilson has spent time with the Sith Lord in the last two years and Wilson has yet to even say hello to him.

The scorched earth treatment given to many Republicans by Wilson and his team seems to stem from the fact that many of us thought Robert Rao was a better candidate in the 2008 primary; even after we worked for Wilson in the general election. Give Wilson’s lack-luster performance in both election cycles, I hope Rao will be on the ballot in 2012.

Early last week I was offered some tickets to a barbeque sponsored by the Sacramento County Republican Party (SCPR). Although I am a member of the group I had not planned to attend because they were selling tickets for $55 each. Since these tickets were free to me, I agreed to go if I could get two tickets. My friend said that he had enough tickets so my wife and I planned to attend the Saturday evening event and take our five year old son with us.

Near lunch time the day before the event, my friend had to submit the names of the people using the tickets. Tickets were purchased by a candidate and they were leaving them on will call at the door. One of the people that was unable to attend was the ex officio representative of this candidate to the County Central Committee. My friend decided to give the ticket to his 12 year old daughter since no one else that he contacted wanted the ticket. The candidate’s campaign manager was reluctant to let the daughter have a ticket but agreed.

To understand what follows next, some background information is necessary to put things in context. My friend was by far the most active unpaid volunteer in the 2008 election cycle. He probably put in close to 1,000 hours during the general election cycle; plus he gave up thousands in income and probably spent a over $1,000 in out of pocket expenses to keep the campaign headquarters in Elk Grove open. He took his daughter on as many precinct walks and fundraisers as he could. She also helped him organize much of the activity in the campaign headquarters. He ranks her as one of the top volunteers in the Elk Grove headquarters. A good case could be made that she was one of the top 5 volunteers in the entire county. So when I say my friend wanted a ticket for his daughter, it wasn’t charity, it was recognition of her hard work.

Later in the day on Friday, my friend got word that the candidate’s consultant—Dwain Dichiara—said that the daughter could not have the ticket. Apparently for him, it was better to let the ticket go unused than that a child should use it. My friend was not happy. He told me he would have to go online to buy a ticket for his daughter. After he told me he was going to do this, he talked on the phone with the Executive Director of the SCRP and was told that she didn’t need a ticket.

At 10 pm Friday night, my friend called to tell me that no one under the age of 16 would be allowed to attend the event. Both he and I were furious. In the course of the conversation, I was told that this word came down from a group called Aimpoint.

On Saturday morning, I fired off an email to the County Chairman complaining about the no children allowed policy. Below is the text of the email. It differs only from the original in that one spelling error has been corrected.

I was contacted earlier this week by Carl Brickey to attend the BBQ today. He had already been invited to be a guest of Guy Huston but had been offered four tickets from Abram Wilson. The tickets were to be split as follows: one to his wife, one to John Slamkowsky and two to me and my wife. John decided that he wasn’t going so Carl decided to take his daughter. He contacted the Wilson people yesterday about noon to give them the names of the people using the tickets. There was some resistance about giving his daughter a ticket but they accepted the list. (FYI Carl’s daughter walked many precincts in the last cycle for AD 15 and 10 as well as helped to organize many walks.)

Later in the day Carl was informed that Dwain Dichiara personally vetoed Carl’s daughter from using the ticket because she was a child. She may be a minor but she works harder than most volunteers. (Carl ranks her as one of the top 5 volunteers in the south county and I would agree.) As a result, Carl went on the SCRP website and purchased a ticket to the BBQ.

Last night Carl got a call from AimPoint and was told that no one under the age of 16 was allowed to attend the event. I got a call from him as soon as he got off the phone with them. It was 10 pm.

Sue I can’t tell you how angry this makes me. It is very difficult for me to refrain from using profanity as I write this to you. Is this really an SCRP event? I know the Central Committee never authorized any funds for this but it is certainly being publicized as an event by SCRP. I went on the website and there is no prohibition about children attending the event; it just says buy a ticket.

I think Carl is owed an apology for the way he and his family have been treated and a refund for the ticket that he purchased. I think you need to get a handle on what others are doing in the name of the Committee. When did the Republican Party become the elitist, anti-family, anti-working class party? Especially in this economy?

Oh, and since my son can’t attend the event my wife and I will not be attending either. We named our son after Ronald Reagan and when a person named Reagan is not good enough to attend a Republican event, something is very wrong with the Republican brand.

Sincerely,

William

I think it is contrary to everything that I value that children are treated as some type of pariah. I often see this in both churches and political events. Children are our future and supposed to be the reason why we get involved in making our community a better place. Children are not supposed to be segregated and kept out of the way until they reach some arbitrary age. If we want something like church or politics to be important to them as adults, we must instill the values in them as they are growing up. They must not just see us doing the activities but be included in them as they grow up. It is not reasonable to keep a child from participating in political activities until they are old enough to vote and then wonder why it is not important to them. It is not part of their lives. Children will not share your values if you don’t teach them. It is no mistake that these 1950’s attitudes gave rise to the generation of the 1960’s.

Yes, I know that there are adult only events sometimes but a barbeque is not one of them. Mr. Dichiara was clearly not interested in raising money because the ticket for my friend’s daughter was paid for one way or the other. If he wants to work the “grassroots’ of politics he had better figure out that families are the basis of our society and our political parties.

Epilogue

The chairman did not respond to the email. She only asked Carl if he had put me up to writing it when she saw him at the BBQ.

Dwain Dichiara—whom I never sent a copy of the message to—is the only one that wrote me back to say that if I didn’t like the way that the SCRP was raising money to give him a call. He also wanted to make sure I spelled his name correctly in the future.

At the event, no one had the guts to tell the candidate that attended with his children to send them home because they were not welcome.

The keynote speaker turned out to be Able Maldonado. That’s right, the turncoat, tax-raising, abolish the Republican Party candidate that supported Harvey Milk day was the surprise keynote speaker. What an insult. Having Able as the keynote at this event was about as tasteless as inviting the Ground Zero mosque people to lead the 9/11 memorial service next month.

Oh, and guess who bought a table at this event? Sacramento developer and chief funder of Democrats in Northern California Angelo Tsakopoulos. Yes the Don of the “Greek mafia” himself. I don’t mind taking Angelo’s money but I know he hasn’t changed his views on politics so it make me wonder if we are changing ours.