Tom Hudson: Buyer’s Remorse Over CD-4

Tom Hudson has “buyer’s remorse” (or a bad case of jelly spine) after the local endorsing convention that he helped organize failed to deliver an endorsement for Tom McClintock. The endorsing convention was held in conjunction with the annual convention of the California Republican Assembly in Buena Park.

The organizers of the Buena Park convention were the Placer County Republican Assembly. Yeah, I know Placer County is at least 350 miles away from the convention site but I’m just the messenger. Anyway, the Placer folks (including Hudson) wanted as many local endorsing conventions held at the convention as they could schedule. These votes were scheduled on the morning of Saturday March 1st; the first full day of the annual convention.

Some people like me went ballistic and said they wanted local endorsing conventions held in or near the district. Those that felt like me argued that candidates, delegates, rank & file CRA members and the public should be invited. It was a way to endorse candidates in an open and transparent process. In addition, the filing period was still open at the time the annual convention was held.

Lastly, the club I belong to had not voted to select any delegates for an endorsing convention—only delegates for the statewide convention. We planned to select endorsing convention delegates at the first meeting after the convention (which we did.) Traditionally, delegates to the annual convention have a large economic cost to attend while endorsing delegates can carpool to the event since it is held closer to home. In addition, the announcement for the endorsing conventions in Buena Park also said that participants had to pay the registration fee of $40 in order to vote. I also protested this as being a “pole tax”.

I went so far as to tell the folks from Placer that neither I nor any people from my club would participate in an endorsement vote for any contested election in an area where we had jurisdiction. Buena Park was simply too far and too soon to hold such a vote.

Those that protested were able to pull endorsements in their area off of the endorsement schedule. Most races in Sacramento and San Joaquin Counties were removed within days of the February 14th call for endorsement conventions.

Hudson gave his full throated support for endorsement votes at the Buena Park convention. I know he was aware of concerns raised by people like me. Then at the Buena Park convention, he was present at many of the endorsement votes that were held on Saturday morning. Before, during and for the rest of the convention, Hudson was OK with the process and its results; then on Monday—his first day back to his job with the State—he has a change of heart.!?

Clearly someone contacted him and pressured him for reconsideration. Hudson decided that what’s in the past—that he agreed with at the time—was suddenly invalid and he had called for a new endorsing convention to redo the vote. This call was revoked by CRA President John Briscoe.

So on March 11th, Hudson sent an email blast to the CRA Board. To me this was the key sentence:

It is my position that there has not been a valid CRA local endorsing convention in the Fourth Congressional District and we need to hold one right away so that we can endorse Tom McClintock for Congress.

Please note, he does not say this is now a contested race and I think we should take another look at CD-4 but he says the purpose is “so we can endorse Tom McClintock.” Why? Both Republicans in the race are conservative.

Hudson is the parliamentarian of the CRA Board and he often uses this position to obfuscate issues with voluminous amounts of nonsense that sound good at the time but upon further analysis are distorts or outright fabrications to get him to the outcome that he desires.

Besides the famous incident that I chronicled on this blog with him and the Yolo County Republican Assembly many years ago, the most recent example was ironically on the last day of the Buena Park convention. Hudson argued for a good ten minutes that local RA chapters were not required to maintain minutes of their meetings. He stated this was not required under the CRA’s Statewide Bylaws or under Robert’s Rules of Order. OK so why is Secretary a required officer?

After insulting our intelligence at the CRA meeting with that whopper, he has the stones to claim the Buena Park endorsement isn’t valid because he didn’t have minutes from that endorsing convention!

Talk about talking out of both sides!!

This might become a major focus of the CRA Board meeting on Saturday in Burlingame. What a colossal waste of time if that happens. Tom, your side (whatever that is) lost, get over it and move on.

I have more I could say about this but I will keep my powder dry…for now.

Tom McClintock Snubbed By CRA

Another piece of news out of the CRA convention was that Congressman Tom McClintock was denied an endorsement for re-election.

McClintock has a reputation for being an arch-conservative but he seems to never find time in his busy schedule to help anyone else in his Party get elected. Just ask Dan Lungren, Peter Tateishi, Jack Sieglock, and any other Republicans that have run in and around his district in recent years. Even when his chief of staff decides to run for office, McClintock can offer only symbolic support.

Furthermore, I have been told that his representative in the Placer County Republican Party (Central Committee) is pro-abortion and pro-gay marriage—truly a reflection of his publicly stated views and values…NOT.

McClintock may be many things but the word “leader” is not one that he deserves. The people that he tends to surround himself with are reportedly difficult and do not always share conservative values. He also doesn’t play nicely with conservatives that live in his district. (During most of his time in office, McClintock has lived outside his district in Elk Grove.)

As a result of his “army of one” attitude and hostility toward conservatives, Placer CRA denied him the endorsement. Reportedly after the filing period closes, they will endorse him then since he will be the only Republican on the ballot.

Tom can give a good speech but he has little to show for his years of service. Like many, he is living off a reputation that he ceased to deserve many years ago. He is on the same path as Dan Lungren except he is not in a competitive district so he will be in Congress as long as he likes. I wish he would either lead or get out of the way.

Ling Ling Chang Stumbles on Life Issue

Over the week-end, I spent time at the annual convention of the California Republican Assembly.

The good news is that the convention was at Knott’s Berry Farm. The bad news is the park was closed due to weather. My family elected to “pay the mouse tax” as the Sith Lord calls a pilgrimage to Disney. My wife and two of the kids went to Downtown Disney to see The Lego Movie, eat lunch and shop. Meanwhile, daddy took a test for his on line accounting class and then went to the Saturday session of the convention.

Sunday saw my wife and kids get an early start and go to church while daddy attended the business meeting. Following this meeting was the first meeting of the newly elected Board. It is during the Board meeting that I saw something that was unusual and remarkable. I saw a candidate go from first to worst because of their position on abortion.

Under the CRA Bylaws, if there is no active club in a district—be it Assembly, Senate or Congressional—any endorsement in that race must be done by the State Board. One such race was the 55th Assembly District. In the race, three Republicans are actively campaigning: Ling Ling Chang, Phillip Chen and Steve Tye. Ling Ling had been working the group all week-end and even had a chance to speak during the Saturday Luncheon. Going into the endorsement proceedings she was the favorite. Phillip Chen was a distant second and the only question was could he get enough votes to prevent Ling Ling from receiving the require 2/3 vote needed for endorsement. Nobody had even heard of Steve Tye and I was surprised that he too was in the room.

Prior to the endorsement discussion I had met both Ling Ling and her husband. Both seemed like nice folks and I was planning to vote for her.

As the endorsement for AD 55 began, CRA President, John Briscoe started by introducing the man who was in charge of candidate surveys. Instead of going over all the questions, he said he would only go over the questions where the three candidates differed. Of these questions, the most glaring deficiency was that Ling Ling had left several life questions blank. This was a big yellow flag for the Board.

It was decided that candidates would go in alphabetical order (by last name) so Ling Ling was the first to address the group. She started by saying she was glad she was able to address the group and mentioned the prayer breakfast. After a few more comments, she then got to the blank questions on abortion. She stated that she was supportive of abortion for “the Reagan exceptions and the first few months”. Translation, she was for abortion in cases of rape, incest, life of the mother and during the first trimester. Then she was asked if she supported keeping the pro-life plank in the state party platform. Instead of saying yes, she said she would “support whatever the party wanted.”

First, I appreciate her honestly in answering the questions; but given her views why even try for our endorsement?

Phillip Chen then came up and said he was 100 percent prolife. He rolled-out his credentials that he was an evangelical Christian and loved God, country and family. Chen was then followed by Steve Tye who conducted himself well also.

After clarifying that No Endorsement would also be an allowable vote, the first of three ballots was conducted. On the first ballot, Ling Ling Chang got five votes, Tye got six, and Chen got about half. Many also voted not to endorse. As the person with the least number of votes, Ling Ling was then dropped from further consideration. Just like that, the perceived front runner was finished.

On the second ballot, Chen got 28, and the rest were divided between Tye and No Endorsement. On the third ballot, Chen got 29 votes because I changed from No Endorsement to Chen. This gave Phillip Chen the bare minimum needed for the CRA endorsement.

I was startled that my switch changed the proceedings from a deadlock to victory for Chen.

I did feel bad for Ling Ling. I felt she was just tone deaf to some issues that make conservatives passionate. (This opinion is due to the wording of a few other questions she answered in the candidate survey.) I am not saying that she had to agree with us or lie to get our endorsement, but she needed a more affirmative and confident answer. It could be that the issue hit too close to home and she did not want to speak about it publicly. If that’s the case, she needs our prayers.

Super Bowl XLVIII

By far the biggest winner was Tim Tebow. The T-Mobile ads that he did were not only funny in their own right but a not so subtle “in your face” to the NFL. “No contract”, what a campaign—Tebow vindicated on a national stage.

The biggest loser was Tebow’s replacement at Denver, QB Peyton Manning. Denver fans will require vast quantities of federally prohibited pharmaceuticals to get past their team’s blow-out. Fans hoping for a victory celebration in the Rocky Mountains will be holding their breath until next season…Bummer.

Oh, in another stroke of irony, the Seattle QB’s first words in his interview were to thank God for the performance that he had—probably about the same speech that Tebow would have given if he had lead Denver to victory. I hope this defeat will haunt Denver’s management for many years.

Hollywood Nukes Quadriplegic Singer

Well known conservative and sometimes singer Joni EarecksonTada was stripped of her Oscar nomination for the movie song “Alone Yet Not Alone”. Tada’s nomination was revoked after the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences ruled that the person who wrote the lyrics of the song (Bruce Broughton) had violated their rules by personally emailing members and asking for their vote.

Wait until the academy finds out they just dissed the most famous quadriplegic in the world besides Stephen Hawking.

For more see Christian film stripped best song Oscar nomination

Bathroom Bill-Round 2 Underway

The referendum effort by CRI amazingly is surviving on life-support. The number of signatures turned in to the Secretary of State was not enough to qualify outright but good enough to go to the consolation round. Here is the meat of the story:

The Secretary of State’s Office said Wednesday that projections based on random sampling show the law’s opponents obtained 95.6 percent of the valid signatures they need to qualify the referendum for the November ballot.

Transgender rights referendum reaches next step

Now signatures will be verified by the various county election offices and reported to the State. This process should take another month. The likely outcome is that the Secretary of State will then be able to pull the plug on the referendum effort; leaving CRI zero for four in their political efforts.

Translation, they were close but no cigar.

Bathroom Bill Challenge

Once again the challenge to the “bathroom bill” is in the news. The failed effort was handed a pyrrhic victory earlier this week as some petitions that were disallowed by some smaller counties where ordered by a judge to be included for verification. Judge orders Count of Disputed Signatures

Per the World Net Daily article, (Judge bashes California for ignoring election rules) supporters consider this a victory. This fundraising propaganda piece—disguised as a news story—implies that this small number of signatures will be enough to qualify the referendum. Per this article, supporters claim they gathered 620,000 signatures and need 500,000 valid ones to qualify this effort. They actually need more than 500K but do the math using their numbers. This means that supporters are banking that they have an eighty percent verification rate for petitions largely gathered by volunteers at various churches. Such a high validity rate is impossible.

Per the WND article, signatures must be verified by January 8th. When the referendum effort is declared dead by the California Secretary of State what will supporters do then? Probably send out another fundraising letter declaring that the evil Liberals have thwarted the will of the people again. The blame should be affixed to CRI but somehow we know they will avoid fixing any blame on themselves.

CRI Track Record of Failure Continues

As many of you will note in the news today, the transgender bathroom law is about to take effect in California. As burdensome, ridiculous, and unworkable as this law may be, many readers will ask about the supposed referendum effort to block this law.

Bad news, there never was a serious effort to block or repeal this law. Some financial backers of Prop 8 were interested in funding such an effort until it got hijacked by CRI (Capital Resource Institute). Once CRI interjected itself into the issue, the potential funders sat on the sidelines; only if CRI succeeded with the qualification of the referendum would they jump into the fray. CRI—the Karen England led conservative lobbying group—took this issue and turned it into another half-baked fund raising campaign for her organization.

This is at least the fourth such effort that CRI has made in recent years. They have a zero track record of success in anything they have tried to put on the ballot. In fact their efforts are so feeble that you can’t even find any trace of them on the California Secretary of State website for campaign finance reporting. The little money they have raised has gone to their staff payroll and CRI overhead and not to any signature gathering or other legitimate efforts to get anything on the ballot.

In a recent Sacramento Bee article, it was revealed that CRI got cross-wise with the IRS last summer and was in danger of losing their tax exempt status. I asked a politically connected friend about this article and his unsolicited response was, “I guess that explains why they were running the referendum campaign; to maintain cash flow.”

CRI is not only failing in their mission, they are actively hurting the few remaining conservatives left in California by emboldening our ideological opponents. By purporting to speak for all conservatives and failing miserably at every turn, CRI is creating the perception that nothing stands in the way of the looney Left agenda.

In recent years, CRI has lost their way. They spent much of their time fighting with conservatives and trying to take over the CRA and after that failed, they then expended effort trying to create an identical organization under their control (currently they have about two active chapters statewide).

Their fundraising often involves pretending to be part of someone else’s efforts to get something on the ballot or creating a parallel effort instead of supporting folks that are like minded on an issue. Prop 8 is the poster child for this behavior. CRI raised money from people that thought they were giving to Prop 8 when in fact they were giving to a CRI shadow organization that funneled money into CRI for the purpose of helping them make payroll. As is often the case with CRI, the money did not go to the purpose that donors were promised.

This referendum drill by CRI was a dismal failure. I knew it would be before they ever collected a signature. They never had a chance of success. The reality of politics in California is that such an effort typically requires about three million dollars just to get it on the ballot and an additional fifteen million or more to run a legitimate campaign. CRI ended up getting about half of the valid signatures required for qualification. Only paid gatherers could make up the needed shortfall. Why they would undertake such an effort when defeat was certain is mind boggling.

The reality is that we need CRI or a group like them at the Capitol but we also need an effective group. CRI has lost their way. The fact that Karen England is now residing in Nevada and commutes to Sacramento to work two days a week is not a harbinger that things are looking up for them.

Lest you think I am alone in this belief take a look at these articles:
http://www.rightondaily.com/2013/12/retrospective-why-the-ab1266-referendum-effort-looks-dubious-part-1/
http://www.rightondaily.com/2013/12/why-the-ab1266-referendum-looks-dubious-part-2-view-from-the-ground/

Merry Christmas 2013

For unto us a child is born , unto us a son is given : and the government shall be upon his shoulder: and his name shall be called Wonderful, Counsellor , The mighty God, The everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace.  Of the increase of his government and peace there shall be no end, upon the throne of David, and upon his kingdom, to order it, and to establish it with judgment and with justice from henceforth even for ever. The zeal of the LORD of hosts will perform this.

Isaiah 9: 6 & 7