Aug 012023
 

The first financial reports of the Placer County Sup D3 race are in. David Butler is the clear front-runner. Look at the following table for the status of the money race:

David Butler:           $52,000 In the Bank, $38,000
Michael Murray:     $15,000 In the Bank, $12,000
The other guy:          $2300   In the Bank, $2200 – drop out now.

The other guy is alleged to be Jim Holmes’ sock puppet. Given his performance, he is indeed acting like a sock puppet. Jesse Unruh once said, “You will never talk a man out of getting married or running for office.” I present the “other guy” as evidence. It also proves that Jim Holmes needs to go somewhere far, far away, as no one cares what he thinks anymore.

When you look deeper at the lists, Michael Murray lists 44 unique donors. 2/3 of them can not vote for him. Michael is also the classic grassroots candidate. His campaign finance report has several people on it I recognize, The Husband of the Yuba GOP Chair, the Nevada GOP Chair, the Vice Chair of the Shasta GOP, and a slew of Placer GOP Members. (FYI – TO ALL OF YOU, WELL DONE. IT IS GOOD TO SEE YOU GUYS DONATING TO CANDIDATES) So often, grassroots conservatives are horrible donors to candidates. I hope my friends on the Placer GOP continue writing checks to candidates they believe in.

In addition, I saw a handful of local elected officials that have honored the relationship with Mike Murray, who was instrumental in recruiting a lot of the newly elected conservative Republicans to local office in Placer County. I saw 6 of them on his donor list. Even though I wish they would have backed Dave Butler, seeing them reciprocate Michael’s loyalty is admirable and uncommon in today’s political world.

The brutal reality, however, for Mr. Murray is that the grassroots money well is shallow and runs dry quickly. The Trajectory of David Butler indicates that he will be close to $200,000 by the end of 2023.

This means that Michael has a difficult path to victory. He will have to win his race with almost 100% grassroots door-knocking and low-cost mediums to advertise. Those mediums have been proven to be less and less effective with each successive campaign cycle. I have also been tracking Mike’s activity and have a lot of concerns that his activity has involved many people who can’t vote for him. He recently had a fundraiser with Matthew Oliver at his House of Oliver Restaurant, and many of the people I saw in the photos could not vote for him.

I met with Michael a while ago when I was down the hill, and I told him not to run. (Ask him, he will tell you) On the strength of our friendship when he insisted he was going to take another shot at the office, I told him I would wait until the mid-year report was displayed. I told him I was looking for him to have $40,000-$50,000 in the bank. If he did so, I would sit out rather than publicly endorsing David Butler.

Consistent with that conversation, tonight I am making my endorsement of David Butler public. I disclosed months ago to Mr. Murray that I had committed in person to Mr. Butler a couple months before we met for lunch, but I gave Mike a chance to hit benchmarks and thusly put me onto the sideline. He missed the mark.

I will tell everyone without violating the confidence of David, that he has done everything that his advisors have told him to. His effort level and his determination is beyond anything I have seen from him in the nearly 15 years I have known him. Assuming that Butler’s energy level or drive is reduced because of his age and experience would be a fool’s errand.

As proof of this – David has 144 unique donors. My guess is he will be near 400 when this is said and done. Typically an Assembly Race has 250-300.

Lastly, some will be upset at this endorsement, thinking Butler is some sort of “establishment” guy. While Butler has the contacts and relationships consistent with that label, the man checks all the conservative Republican boxes and when elected will govern as a pro-business, pro-law enforcement defender of the standard of living Placer County is known for.

You will be in good hands with David Butler in Placer County’s Third Supervisorial District.

P.S. I have copies of all three financial reports, email me at aaron@aaronfpark.com if you’d like a copy. Thank you.

Feb 202023
 

Never Forget, I am watching you…

In case you missed it, Former Eureka USD Board Member Eric J Bose passed tragically of cancer. While 2 seats on that board changed hands recently, there is a lot more work to do in order to break the democrat-Eureka Schools Foundation stranglehold on that district.

Also in Granite Bay, many of you will remember the democrat-nimby coalition that rallied against Kirk Uhler to elect the disturbed Suzanne Jones supervisor in Sup D4. One of the things they did was to file 10 FPPC complaints against Uhler. (One of which affected your intrepid blogger as well) 7 of the complaints were dismissed without follow up because they were frivolous. The other 3 were closed without any fine or action.

IN addition, the same Democrats and Nimbys complained to the attorney general about Mr. Uhler’s wife getting a pay raise (for the first time in 10 years, mind you). The leftist coalition had convinced themselves that Uhler had engineered this raise for himself. The correct answer is that Uhler never discussed it with anyone and did not participate in closed sessions, open sessions or any other meetings of any sort. The AG’s office interviewed a ton of people and subpoenaed documents.

While Suzanne Jones lied about this fact (and later hired a family member herself after savaging Kirk over his Wife’s job in a different part of Placer Government)… the vindication came years later but only after the crazed Nimby-democrat coalition had successfully lied about Uhler enough to elect the crazed Suzanne Jones.

You can count on Suzanne Jones and her Nimby-democrat coalition to scream cover up as their cognitive dissonance and inherent dishonesty prevents them from acknowledging reality. (Note that the AG, was Xavier Becerra who is now a piece of the Biden Administration, what Irony)

Crazy Suzy is going to feel like a political piñata soon. No one I know likes her. Everyone I know wants her gone… well maybe Thomas N Hudson still likes her. Like I said no one likes her.

Given that Suzanne’s campaign was built on a foundation of lies and her behavior since election has been as corrupt as anything you’d see in Placer County, there should be a five-alarm fire in the Swan Lake area for quite a while.

Right now, before some star-struck also rans decide to jump in, Jones has a single opponent. Bruce Houdesheldt opted not to pursue the run. I will have more to say about Sup D4 for sure.

In Sup D3, there is clarity coming as well.

I have met with Mike Murray and laid out for him what I believe his benchmarks should be. If Murray can not produce the endorsements and fundraising, he will not be a viable candidate. If he does, Dave Butler will have a race.

Your intrepid blogger prefers Dave Butler out of the field as it is currently, for a myriad of reasons I will lay out at a later time.

The race has become clearer now that Mr. Rocklin, Ken Broadway has decided to stay on the Rocklin City Council. Broadway is loved and popular in Rocklin. I met with him recently and we had a pretty frank conversation about his life and circumstances. Broadway asked the right questions and I believe made the right decision. It is exceedingly rare for someone that would have been as viable as Broadway would have been to withdraw.

Please note that your Intrepid Blogger is endorsing Ken Broadway for Rocklin City Council should he decide to run for a third term. This is not negotiable.

I have been told by several that Greg Janda is retiring, this will create an open seat. David Bass who is still not a Republican and Ken Broadway are the two incumbents that are likely to run for re-election.

To be continued…