Dave Gilliard

SD-28 Update: Did Dave Gilliard Do Another Racist Mailer? Or Is This One Sexist, Or Am I Slamming the Kool-Aid?

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Oct 292014

The SD-28 Race is one of a handful of R vs R runoffs in California.

Riverside County Supervisor Jeff Stone is facing off against Former Assembly-Member Bonnie Garcia.

I am seriously torn in this race. Bonnie Garcia was and is one of the most Liberal Republicans to serve in the last several years. Her lifetime 61% CRA Score is below Abel Maldonado (64%).

Jeff Stone is clearly more Conservative – and I advocated on his behalf at the State CRA Board Meeting. This race ultimately is too hot and ugly and the State CRA Board decided to punt.

Subsequently, Stone and many of his allies have gone on a near-psychotic rampage to try and derail the City Council Campaign of Jonathan Ingram, a fellow CRA Vice President. The attacks have been so ugly, vile and vicious – I could have sworn it was a Congressional Race.

Worse, the information that has come out on Mr. Stone suggests that he has enriched himself at the trough of government successfully for years through a variety of arrangements that should give anyone pause.

So here we are, late in the race. As I have documented previously – Dave Gilliard, Jeff Stone’s Consultant has had a pattern of sending out late haymakers when he believes the race is close or his candidate is losing.

In 2012, he beat up eventual Republican nominee Peter Tateishi so bad that Democrat Ken Cooley walked all over him in the fall in a majority Republican Assembly District. Part of the beating was documented in this blog that featured screenshots of a mailer making Tateishi look like Emporer Hirohito.

I recently was sent screenshots of a mailer attacking Bonnie Garcia. It is all about the Immigration Issue. It lights Garcia up good for several bad votes she made as an assembly-member. It calls her a flip-flopper. I am not going to argue the nuance, because white people laying in the street to stop busloads of illegal immigrant children from being processed looks really bad.

However, here is the mailer. Side one, Side Two.

My analysis is this – this mailer has racial overtones, but is nowhere near as bad as the Peter Tateishi attack that featured bamboo lettering and a black and white photo, etc. However, there is an implication that since Garcia is Mexican that she wants to throw the border wide open and open up the state piggy back to “them”.

Of greater concern to me is that the photo chosen on side one makes her out to look like some sort of Women’s-Libber.

It is likely that most of the recipients of this were male and women identified as conservative that would react negatively to a “woman with sass”.

I am of the opinion then that this latest effort by Gilliard is a solid hit that is legitimately sourced, with obvious racial overtones. However, I believe Gilliard went too far in the sexist direction on this mailer.

That said, unlike the Tateishi attack mailer that was just plain mean-spirited and overtly racist, this mailer is much more issue-centric and less so racist.

What do you think? Is it racist, sexist or am I slamming the Kool-Aid?

Political Notebook – State of the CA GOP

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Aug 182013

For those of you in a vacuum – you probably are not aware of the arena fight now that a new arena has been approved for the kings.

A lot of us here in the Placer CRA are not King’s fans. Some, even less so after some of our local GOP electeds decided to grandstand on the issue.

It seems a group has shown up to run an initiative to gut the project. Then, recently the prime funder of the effort turns out to be a jilted suitor for the Kings from Seattle.

It gets worse, GOP consultant Tab Berg waited until the day before the revelation to leave as the consultant – not two weeks ago when it appears everyone found out.

Why is that significant? In the intervening two weeks, Berg pulled in a bunch of markers and rammed down an endorsement of the no on arena effort by the Sac GOP – who incidentally shut down all debate and discussion to do so.

OOPS. Now Berg has taken his cut and run and the Sac GOP is left holding the bag.

Oh, and don’t look now – but the Sac GOP is getting an FPPC anal exam. They just got served recently over the California Republican Leadership Fund debaucle. The CRLF was a money operation that was used to fund mostly moderate Republican candidates in target districts… mostly by Charles Munger.

That brings us to Stanislaus. Yikes.

Unlike the article that Dave Gilliard and Doug LaMalfa got planted in the Bee three years ago about nebulous and never proven charges against Placer… there was an article in the Modesto Bee about Stanislaus.

There are several problems. Donations over $32,500, coordination, the decisions made without the knowledge and consent of the full committee and the like. The same goes for Sacramento, apparently.

Contrast this to Placer where Dave Gilliard is purportedly still pushing the moderates (who were helped in to control by the local Tea Party and the local electeds) to try and get the former Chair and Treasurer hauled in front of the grand jury.

If the story about Gilliard pulling the strings is true, it looks like it is too bad for him as there are real problems elsewhere that the FPPC is chasing.

So when the local Tea Party members brag about getting rid of the old guard – in favor of Mike Holmes and Jon Green (both of whom are over 70) and others… maybe they should take a look at the articles about other Cent Coms. But, we digress, it might take the fun out of a witch hunt and require unheard of discernment from the Tea Party.

Now, we actually feel sorry for Charles Munger in all of this. Why? While we still fault him for attacking Conservatives in R vs R races while we lost 8 legislative seats – he spent a ton of money trying to win a few other races. (Tateishi, Rios, Zink, etc.) They all lost.

Now, the funding vehicle is being dismantled because the people that put it together didn’t do their job right and tried to tightly control everything, which will cost them everything…

… which closes the loop… control lost 8 seats, control has several cent coms in a state of chaos and we get to sit here blogging about it all. (While trying to figure out how to win an election or two in 2014…)

Bob Williams – The Next Contestant in the David Stafford Reade Bus Tour

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May 082013

How many of you remember the AD-03 Race in 2012?

Tehama County Supervisor Bob Williams ran against Assemblyman Dan Logue in 2012. Dave Gilliard talked Bob Williams in to spending $50k +/- (of his own money, no less) running against Dan Logue. In addition, Bob Williams is in debt – as Dave Gilliard typically spends all of his clients in to substantial debt.

Invariably, Williams was promised the pole position in the 2014 AD03 race.

Bob Williams was used. Dave Gilliard and David Stafford Reade knew 100% that Doug LaMalfa was going to quit the State Senate after winning his Congressional Primary.

The purpose of Williams running was to bleed money off of Dan Logue, making it much more difficult for Logue to compete with Jim Nielsen.

Then Logue’s Kidney kicked in, Nielsen won without a fight.

Bob Williams, no longer useful to Dave Gilliard and David Stafford Reade found his way under the David Stafford Reade bus. (With Willie Preston and others)

James Gallagher is now the chosen favorite – he has the endorsements of Gentleman Jim and Doug LaMalfa. Gallagher is also Dave Gilliard’s latest paycheck in the North State.

Too bad for Gallagher, he is a lawyer that Gilliard is trying to re-brand. (Gilliard seems to have a pattern of re-branding candidates, like taking someone that has never held an insurance license and transforming them into an owner of an insurance agency).

Gallagher has an opponent – Ryan Schohr, a real farmer. Looks like the reverse of Keene vs LaMalfa. This should be fun – and it would not surprise me if there are a few pissed off people in Tehama County looking to assist his effort.

Update on the Wasted Money in R vs R Races: AD41 / AD66 / AD61 / AD67 / AD65

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Nov 262012

Blogger’s Note: I have to moderate comments for spam, threats and profanity. There are very few comments that don’t get approved. Please leave one – even if you disagree.

Of these Four – Only AD67 was an R vs R race. However, these districts illustrate the further consequences of Connie Conway’s deal with Charles Munger and the self-focus of the GOP leadership.

Craig Huey in AD66 got left to the wolves. He lost by about 9 percentage points and could have won easily.

A PAC calling itself Californians for Fiscal Accountability spent $508,271.95 attacking Craig Huey. A look at their donors reveals a list of suspects that should surprise no one:

California Association of Realtors, California Dental Association, the SEIU, AFSCME and the Educational Employees Union!

What was spent on Craig Huey’s Behalf? Zero. Nada. Zilch. But – Huey did indeed have a RINO challenger in the Primary to bleed money off of him.

Once again, Craig Huey is a Conservative Christian and, therefore was likely never given serious consideration for support by GOP leadership.

AD41: Donna Lowe also lost by less than 10. This district was identified as a “target district” yet Lowe did not receive a dime in independent support from anywhere.

AD61: This is a district that got attention by Charles Munger. Batey got a little bit of money from Howard Ahmundson in the Primary in support and got $65,447.26 from Charles Munger via the Spirit of Democracy. However, William Batey was a train-wreck and lost by 21 points. Again – the one race that money was spent on ended up being a complete disaster.

AD67: This race pitted a Dave Gilliard Client, Phil Paule against Melissa Melendez (endorsed by CRA) in the runoff. Phil Paule was the establishment choice.

True to form – Howard Ahmundson rode in on behalf of a Gilliard Client – in this case with $34,000 attacking Melendez and $16,500 on behalf of Phil Paule. Again, this was a waste of resources in an R vs R race.

This race featured the usual Dave Gilliard dirty tricks – a racist mailer against Melissa Melendez and an organization pulled their endorsement of Melissa Melendez late in the campaign. I believe that this was at the behest of Dave Gilliard as I have seen this pattern repeat itself several times, especially when Gilliard’s client is losing.

Melendez ended up winning by a fairly comfortable, yet close margin.

AD65 – this is a seat that the dems snaked by about 5,000 votes. This was the Chris Norby seat. It is the opinion of this blogger that the Republican leadership was still angry at Chris Norby for beating their heir-apparent in 2010 and left him to swing. Also, Norby is very conservative so the chance of Munger helping him was nil.

The Orange County Police Officer’s Union came after Norby (to settle a score dating back to when he was supervisor?) with $123,098.36.

JobsPAC and Howard Ahmundson came in way late with a combined $35k on Norby’s behalf – way too little, too late. I’ll bet Conway wishes some of the millions spent in R vs R races found its’ way to AD65? What about the $65k wasted on Batey?

AD41 – Lowe down by 9.5

AD66 – Huey down by 9.5

AD61 – Batey down by 22 with support

AD67 – money wasted on an R vs R race

AD65 – Republican Seat Lost because of too little, too late support.

But, they stopped Rico Oller, Andy Pugno, Sherry Hodges, Gregg Imus (all of whom are Conservatives and leaders)!?

To be continued…

Fact Check: Gilliard Press Release from June

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Nov 152012

Remember this is the same Dave Gilliard that got lit up for racist mailers and for mailers that were bald-faced and outright lies.

As is a custom for political consultants – they send out Press Releases bragging about the results of elections. Sometimes they also reference settling personal scores in the press releases – like Dave Gilliard’s complicity in getting Charles Munger to attack the Placer GOP for not kissing the ring of his client Beth Gaines.

You’ll note that Gilliard omits the $200k he made off of the CAGOP before bailing out on Prop 40 and the IE’s he ran ostensibly to benefit democrat Larry Agran of Irvine.

ROCKLIN, CA — Clients of the political consulting firm of Gilliard Blanning & Associates Inc. won outright, or came in first, in 17 of 20 races on Tuesday, with one race still too close to call. (As of today, the number drops to 15.)
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Included in the list were two high profile races in Northern California. In the first Congressional district, Doug LaMalfa was the top vote-getter and will face Democrat Jim Reed in November. LaMalfa defeated Republican rival and former Senator Sam Annestad in the hard fought race to represent the rural district. In the 6th Assembly district, Beth Gaines was the top vote-getter in a furious race against fellow Republican, Andy Pugno. Gaines will face Democrat Regy Bronner in November. (Oops – Andy Pugno made the runoff and omitted from this email was mention of the $450k from uber-liberal Charles Munger in to Beth Gaines. Also omitted: the Nomilaki Band of Lusenio Indians that poured money in to both candidates, using the services of Carlos Rodriguez whose office is next door to Dave Gilliard’s. Cozy. Coordination of Independent expenditures is allegedly illegal.)
(SNIP)
In Riverside County, GBA client Jeff Miller received 51% in his Senate race in SD 31, beating second place finisher Richard Roth by over 22 points. GBA client Phil Paule was the top vote-getter in AD 67 and is well positioned to win the conservative district in November. (Phil Paule went down in flames as did Jeff Miller in November)
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In Orange County, every one of GBA’s clients won and the GBA led campaign for Allan Mansoor in AD 74 for the Orange County Republican Party routed Leslie Daigle, who had nearly $1 million in outside help that proved futile. (Please note that Munger went after Mansoor with $700k – in the mind of Gilliard this was bad, but the $450k in to Beth Gaines was good… )
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All told, GBA helped elect clients at all levels of state and local government, including races for Judge, County Supervisor, Assembly, Senate and U.S. Congress. GBA also produced direct mail that helped elect much needed new blood to the Placer County Republican Central Committee.

Dave Gillard teamed up with Charles Munger to teach the conservatives on the Placer GOP Cent Com a lesson for not supporting the Gaines… who are both irrelevant now.

And then there was the independent expenditure to help Democrat Larry Agran… (who lost)

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