ICYMI: A Revision of the Indictment of Jessica Patterson Written a Day Before the Election – Organizational Failure, Financial Failure, Leadership Failure, The Total Package

Blogger’s Note: This has been revised since its’ original posting on 11-1-2020 for this re-post.

Jessica Patterson is a complete and utter failure as CAGOP Chair. If you were writing a book about leadership, she’d fail almost every objective test of leadership. She failed to unify people, purged staff, purged nominees, ignored stakeholders, failed to do her job, ignored campaign fundamentals and presided over the campaign account running dry. That is as complete and impressive of a record of failure as you can amass.

Two years ago when I was working for Travis Allen’s CAGOP Chair Campaign, I wrote an expose’ on the people behind Jessica Patterson and their history. I had warned everyone what to expect. It is not hyperbolic for me to type that it is worse than even I could have predicted. I have long believed and written that squishes see Conservatives and not Democrats as the problem. It has been proven in the last two years in spades and the resulting devastation has been nearly complete.

My biggest personal frustration with Jessica Patterson and her crew was the extraordinary resistance I received when I took on AD73 Assembly-member Bill Brough. I fielded credible allegations of sexual misconduct by several women, documented over 200 campaign finance violations, drunkenness, misconduct and corruption with evidence. However, it was a terrible and uphill fight as the Assembly Permanent Minority Leader Marie Waldron cared more about protecting a leadership vote than doing the right thing. Jessica Patterson refused to stand up for the victims of Bill Brough until the OCGOP and Lincoln Club took the lead (over Waldron’s objections) months in to my expose. It is this passive refusal to lead that has defined Patterson’s Chairmanship. This is also why I was not surprised to learn that she ignored local parties in the CA25 race because she refused to cross Kevin McCarthy. Bill Brough lost his primary, and will likely be fined six figures by the FPPC and could very well be prosecuted for his campaign finance issues and other personal issues. It felt like I carried the day on this single-handedly at times.

First off, we were told that Jessica Patterson’s primary qualification was her leadership of California Trailblazers. It was so successful that the powers that be attempted to shut it down quietly, reviving it after they were roundly trashed by your intrepid blogger.

Since it’s inception, California Trailblazers has been a highway to hell. In 2011, we had 15 Senators. We now have 9. IN 2011, we had 28 Assemblymembers. Now we have 19 with one Assembly Seat coming from a prop 14 fluke as 5 democrats split the vote allowing an R vs R Runoff in AD38. That’s a Loss of 15 Seats in the legislature in a Decade. That is one out of every 8 seats in the legislature. 

We need to change this to reflect her recent successes! (Another two Senators gone)

Taking the Fight to the Democrats and Winning?

If you were to stop reading here – you have enough of a case to terminate the contracts of every consultant that has been getting rich off of the failure of the CAGOP. You also have a more than adequate case to dispatch with Jessica Patterson as a dismal failure. Mayes and Mainschein bolted the GOP and 2 more confirmed gone November of 2020. What does Jordan Cunningham do now that he survives? Will he bolt the GOP too? Why should he stay?

The entire CAGOP Legislative Caucus can now fit in a special ed bus.

We were told Jessica Patterson could unite the CAGOP and “take the fight to the democrats”. I’ve yet to see her take out a hamburger from the drive-thru.

Unity? Jessica Patterson appointed the Rules, Initiatives, Proxies/Credentials, Volunteer Organizations Committees and others. Out of nearly 100 members, only 2(!) were people that supported one of her opponents in 2019.

Unity? I’ve spoken to over a dozen county chairs that Jessica Patterson has ignored repeatedly. I know there are more.

A leader reaches out to people that did not support them in an attempt to bring them around. Instead, exactly what I predicted with the oligarchy of controlled failure – the same crew that brought us Arnold and Meg – are doing the same things they did when Arnold wrecked the CAGOP and Meg spent $150 Million making their BMW payments.

Unity? Ted Howze #CA10 whose race was close despite being attacked by his own side and Mike Cargile #CA35 who forced Norma Torres to spend $500K in a safe dem seat were stripped of CAGOP endorsements by a Jessica Patterson led cabal without a hearing. She was getting ready to rip more nominees before scrutiny stopped that rampage. Why did they get lynched of their CAGOP endorsement – because they are conservatives? Or was it one of Jessica’s Consultant buddies with a grudge?

Cargile has run the prototypical campaign you should run when attempting to unseat a safe democrat. But the CAGOP lynched him without a hearing. Howze? He is going to come close to Josh Harder, imagine how much closer without the intervention of Jessica Patterson and crew. Lynching GOP Nominees without a hearing is not leadership.

Unity? Mike Madrid and Luis Alvarado are earning income trying to unseat Republicans all over the county in a rage-fueled vendetta and Jessica Patterson did noting with the complaints from honest delegates. They have endorsed Joe Biden. So have at least three other CAGOP Delegates I am aware of. They and others are still delegates to the CAGOP despite this grotesque violation of party by-laws! Why? Because they voted for Patterson in 2019? They get to stay, but Mike Cargile and Ted Howze get lynched. Acting out on the vendetta of a jilted consultant friend and allowing Biden-Endorsing supporters of yours to stay is not leadership.

Take the fight to the democrats? When the LA and Ventura GOP endorsed Mike Garcia in the 2020 CA25 Special election primary, Congressman Kevin McCarthy was supporting Steve Knight. Jessica Patterson refused to stand up for local county parties acceding to her consultant masters ignoring the will of the rank and file. Garcia is in serious danger of losing his seat. How much better off would he have been with some party support pre-primary so he could have conserved his resources?

Build the Party? When Andrew Kotyuk #AD42 stood up to oppose Jessica Patterson’s one-time benefactor Chad Mayes, she demanded he not hire a certain consultant she did not like or else he’d receive no party support. Guess what? Kotyuk still got next to none and Patterson acted out on another personal vendetta. This is not leadership.

Build the Party? Take the Fight to the Democrats? #AD67 Kelly Seyarto has been ignored, even though he is in a still safe Republican seat and will be part of our irrelevant caucus in the legislature. Patterson and crew also ignored Greg Raths #CA45, Bryan Maryott #CA49 and other white male candidates. The last I checked, White Males represent a lot of Republican voters. Even worse, Raths and Maryott had margins of defeat that suggested they would have won with average support.

Unity? Taking the fight to the democrats? Jessica Patterson and crew were open about having a racial litmus test for candidates. Yet when people stepped up such as Tamika Hamilton #CA03 or Rhonda Baldwin-Kennedy #CA26 or Aja Smith #CA41 they were ignored. They can’t even get racial pandering right. Racism in candidate preference is not leadership.

Leadership? She purged the entire GOP staff she inherited when she was elected. (Save one) Every leadership book you read advises against this very old and very common practice.

We were told Jessica Patterson could raise the money we needed to “Take the Fight to the Democrats”.

The party ran out of unrestricted candidate money in Early October 2020. This was confirmed by two legislative chiefs of staff, a lobbyist, a campaign manager and two consultants. I stand 100% behind this assertion. Failing or refusing to do your primary job (raising money) is not leadership.

When the party had money, they spent it stupidly. In SD23, which may be part of the losses in the Senate side in 2020 – they bankrupted the State Senate Caucus on Rosilicie Ochoa-Bogh IN THE PRIMARY while leaving LingLing Chang and John Moorlach financially vulnerable. By the time the final tally is in on SD23, they will have blown over $4 Million in IE and candidate money. What a waste. Lloyd White was well positioned in the primary to be competitive in the general election for far less money, but he checked the wrong boxes on the app. Bogh may be qualified in her own right – but the party leaders made a decision based on demographics. This is racist and needs to stop.

In #SD05, they also blew $250K in a primary for Jesus Andrade in a D+20 district then promptly abandoned Jim Ridenour, the old white guy that won the primary.

Jessica Patterson and her crew known as the “Oligarchy of Controlled Failure” also stubbornly refused to do voter registration. Inexplicably, they sent out an email celebrating the CAGOP returning to second place ahead of no party voters.  While the GOP gained 624k registrations, the dems gained 1,800k registrations – almost 3-1. That only happens when you are willfully trying to lose.

Under Jessica Patterson’s Watch, every possible metric you could measure a “chairwoman” by is an abject failure:

1. Tolerating several trump-haters openly opposing the President, including people being paid to defeat Republicans allowing them to continue as delegates
2. running out of candidate dollars a month before the general election
3. excluding half the delegates from the process (committees, etc) because they supported other candidates
4. ignoring party leaders and stakeholders not known to be loyal
5. losing a slew of elections
6. refusing to do voter registration
7. selectively targeting nominees of the GOP for un-endorsement without a hearing.
8. refusing to support or help nominees in marginal districts despite campaigning on doing so
9. allowing the platform committee to come within 2 votes of yanking the pro-life plank from the CAGOP Platform (despite campaigning as a conservative)
10. purging all but one CAGOP Staffer that was hired before her reign of terror began.
11. refusing to take resolute stands including ignoring local parties with regard to #CA25 Mike Garcia and #AD72 Tyler Diep
12. A net loss of 1.2 Million Voter Registrations on Her Watch
13. Refusing to defend the female victims of former #AD73 Assemblymember Bill Brough (or even comment)
14. Falsely claiming to have invited Travis Allen and Steve Frank to help with voter registration. (Both have told me this never happened)
15. Abusing the parties’ resources to help Kevin Faulconer’s Governor Campaign.

I tried to participate and help. But mere weeks after a gracious introduction of Jessica at the CIR Convention in 2019, the purging and exclusionary practices began. It has to stop, the CAGOP has been killed by this stuff. It was at that time when I resumed shelling her – as if to give all the people shunned and excluded a voice.

I had hoped that the few surviving members of the CAGOP legislative caucus will finally divorce themselves of the crew that have decimated the CAGOP. It’s dead. Jessica Patterson, Tom Ross, Jeff Randle and crew hastened the death of the party. Continuing to support these people will guarantee the death spiral of the CAGOP – yet many are right there again.

If you care about the CAGOP, it is time to remove Jessica Patterson post haste.