For various reasons, your intrepid blogger refrained from assailing David Dhillon and Soo Yoo (who I call Koo-Koo, read on…) directly leading up to the CAGOP Convention. The main one was that I perceived they had significant weaknesses, and I did not want to shield them from stupidity.
Someday I can waste thousands of dollars on signs for a convention
Also – given the racially charged attacks slung at now CAGOP Vice Chair Corrin Rankin, I resisted the urge to call Soo Yoo Koo-Koo until this blog. But, she is kookoo. Even if Mark Wright does not understand what Soo Yoo’s campaign did to him, I wrote about that. The women ran a ruthless campaign that was unethical and immoral.
If you want a microcosm of the Corrin Rankin vs. Soo Yoo race – those present on Sunday Morning witnessed Lou Barnett ask a cheap shot point of order. “Is Corrin Rankin a Delegate to the CRP?” He asked. The idea was to attack Corrin under the guise of a point of order. Steve Frank later wrote about this in his newsletter but dishonestly omitted the following facts:
- Corrin Rankin was replaced the previous day by Lisa Moreno as Central Valley Vice Chair, thus vacating her REGULAR Delegate Status.
- CRP Chairman Candidate Thomas Cole was not a delegate (meaning the two votes he got were other than him)
- the CRP By-Laws do not require a candidate for CRP office to be a delegate, nor does Robert’s Rules of Order require a candidate to be a member of the body to run for office.
This sort of dishonesty is tolerated by the opposition when it suits their goal. For the rest of us, it shows us that people that present themselves as “candidates of values” are no different than the lousy establishment they decry.
Later, a political insider bent my ear over how Soo Yoo lost her Assembly race despite raising $560,000.
First, she had to be 100% in charge of her whole effort, and, she bristled against those hired and recommended to help her. When the crazed Joseph Grcar attacked Greg Gandrud over party expenditures to Axiom, he was actually attacking the party over expenditures related to Soo Yoo. (amongst others) What irony.
Soo, believing she knew better, fired the Axiom-related consultants working for her in September 2022. It is rarely a good thing when you do that.
Once she got a willing patsy to be a consultant, instead of spending her mail money on a series of small, targeted mail – Soo Yoo spent $50-$55K a mailer as she insisted on mailing to everyone. Effectively, she set fire to $200K+, sending thousands of pieces to democrats that voted for her opponent and still more to people that would not and did not vote. But she was in control and did it her way.
In addition, Soo’s personal behavior is abhorrent.
Soo was also well known for yelling at people in School Board Meetings from her dais and having a group of loud-mouthed sycophants at school board meetings. The CAGOP Convention was the same.
Several people also told me that Soo’s campaign, amongst others, repeated the “Corrin only cares about Black People” and “Corrin is cold and pushy” rumors. These are some of the oldest and low-brow attacks people make against black women. People wonder why the GOP sometimes has problems courting black Americans? How about taking an honest look at the bulls–t that emanated from the koo-koo camp.
Let me point out the obvious. I am white as a sheet, and I publicly advocated for Corrin. Corrin’s Husband (also named Aaron) is as white as I am. Those making the previously enumerated attacks look like morons. Oh, and Corrin’s campaign manager is Jewish. Good Lord.
I was told by several at the convention that Soo Yoo was bellowing like a Pentecostal preacher in regional caucus meetings, and she had a cadre of t-shirt-wearing volunteers that asked some people as many as 12 times if they were voting for Soo. I am sure both patterns were counterproductive, but both were consistent with the cold, aggressive, and hostile nature of Soo Yoo that I learned about.
Soo Yoo is no stranger to setting fire to thousands of campaign dollars… but she was outdone in Dhillon’s waste of money sign war.
When I say ruthless, Soo Yoo’s people were calling through to identified Mark Wright supporters and trying to flip them. I know because several I spoke to indicated they would support Corrin Rankin on a second ballot, indicating that the unethical nature of Soo Yoo’s campaign was why. (Note: any of you who thought all of Mark Wright’s votes would roll over to Soo Yoo on ballot 2 were sorely mistaken)
Some of Mark Wright’s endorsers, including Anna Kramer and Michelle Guerra, were among those making said calls. All’s fair in politics, huh? This said the opposition forfeits its’ moral high ground as they employed many of the same dirty campaign tactics they decry from the paid professionals that help Jessica Patterson and others.
Even if Mark Wright does not get it, I will be pissed off for him.
The coup d’état was when Soo Yoo made an appearance in Orange County. After bellowing to the OCGOP, she was overheard talking to several folks repeating the “Corrin Rankin supports CRT” lie, and one of the most offensive things I have ever heard in a CAGOP-related circumstance followed: “I can relate to Corrin as my ancestors came over on a boat too…”
Let that sink in. That is straight-out racism. I hope the California Republican Assembly Caucus finds someone else for AD65 for various reasons, but Soo Yoo needs professional help for her angry, hostile, and aggressive approach to communication.
I am also very disappointed in the opposition and their general attitude toward Corrin Rankin. I hope several of them heave to and realize that Corrin has a lot to offer the CAGOP, and the better part of valor is to work with her. Practicing best principles of relationship building versus hostile tribalism is pretty simple.
… This brings me to David Dhillon. My guess is Koo-Koo set fire to $20-$30k for her campaign. Dhillon has to be something around $40k.
I only knew little about Dhillon besides Steve Frank recruiting him to run. Then, when talking to friends based in Orange County, I learned that Dhillon was viewed by those that knew him well as a nut.
When I looked at Dhillon’s campaign stuff, I saw him running almost exclusively on a January 6 type of message about election fraud and election integrity. He sent a piece of physical mail with a very minimalist message but featuring photos of him with the crazed Katrina Pierson and a separate photo of him with Senator Rand Paul.
I knew from this message that he believed using the dog whistles was his path to victory.
Randy Berholtz had some stuff to deal with that precluded him from engaging until just a few weeks before the convention. Interestingly, Berholtz is more conservative on issues than the libertarian-leaning Dhillon. Berholtz’s delay allowed the opposition to wrongly smear him as an establishment RINO squish.
Two differences were key between Randy and David. #1 Randy talked about the actual job he was doing for the CAGOP, and Dhillon was talking about election fraud.
#2 Dhillon was prancing around the convention like he had the election in the bag, and Berholtz was playing the humble servant routine. I was approached by several in attendance that they noticed the difference between the two, and two of the folks I spoke with indicated they changed to supporting the re-election of Berholtz.
Lastly, I can not emphasize this enough, Dhillon used Errol Webber as a surrogate. If you read my first blog, you will realize that was a felony stupid move. There is no way having a freakshow as one of your central campaign spokes holes was going to aid your cause.
Despite the withering attacks on Corrin Rankin, I told her mid-day Saturday that I had been counting and I thought she had 660 votes. I knew that many would refuse to listen to reason on the CRT issue as they were hearing what they wanted to regarding a black candidate for CAGOP office, and that hurt Corrin badly. Corrin finished with 676 votes, which got her past the line as she beat Soo and Mark, who combined for 646 votes.
Despite Soo Yoo’s efforts to undermine Mark Wright, he still got 287 votes to Soo’s 359. Mark spent next to no money, and Soo spent a ton and had her minions trying to screw Mark over.
If Soo Yoo tries to run for assembly again, your intrepid blogger will kick her ruthless, racist ass.
David Dhillon spent a ton of money and got hammered 58-42.
Justice.
However, there is still more to talk about. The next installment is about the Rules and the Credentials process. That was far from Justice and is an ongoing problem…
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There were 1,488 members for this convention of which 95% paid their dues and 62.6% registered for the convention. This is a 26.1% increase in registration over the Spring 2022 Convention. Proxies dropped from 44.3% to 34.7%. Not valid proxies increased from 15.8% to 17.6%.
The error rate seems high, but maybe that is because of the archaic process requiring paper and wet signatures rather than modernizing to an online system, similar to how self-appointed delegates appoint their delegates. An electronic system should reduce errors to almost zero.
Most proxies are collected with the giver as the signer and the receiver being filled in by a proxy team. No one should give a blank proxy, especially to someone they do not know.
Blogger’s Note: Regarding blank proxies, 100% agree. Regarding archaic process, 100% agree.
I met all three candidates. I did not talk with Soo Yoo personally, but she spoke at the North Region meeting. She was definitely fired up.
Randy Berholtz. I heard Randy speak at one of the meetings. He seemed rather low-key.
Later, at the reception in the Capitol View Room, my partner and I had a good talk with him. He came over an introduced himself. We talked for a while. He seemed like a really nice gentleman, and we spoke a bit about what he did, etc. He did not say anything bad about David which I noted, but, otherwise, he did not leave any lasting impression on me. I don’t mean this pejoratively but just my impression. However, my partner felt otherwise. She told me that Randy appeared “angry” or “irritated.” I was surprised because I did not get such a feeling from him; but then, I’m not a great judge of character or people.
David Dhillon. I also heard David speak at one of the meetings. Like Randy he was mellow and low key. Later during two evenings, We went to two of David’s parties in a hospitality suite. There we spoke with David. He was very polite and expressed his hope to make the CA GOP relevant in California; a view which I agree with. Like Randy, he was very polite and mellow; he seemed to enjoy the interaction with people. Also like Randy, he also did not mention Randy or otherwise put him down. I do admit, though, that I also felt that David believed he had the election in the bag.
There is some question now if the Convention was even legal. Getting this from other delegates, but it doesn’t look like the Proxy and Credential Committee report/recommendation was ever voted on and approved…and rather Ms Patterson went straight to the agenda. But that was the observation of others. I missed it when I was sitting there. (and I have attended conventions for years…I should have caught that one) Don’t know if it would have made a differece…(excpet perhaps the VC race)…But if true is a major screw up by the Party!