Charles Munger

Has the big money withdrawn from the GOP? (A lot of insider info)

2018 Elections, Charles Munger 1 Response »

Oct 082017

I’ve written for years about the nearly one-sided expenditures against Conservatives since 2012. I am starting to see signs that there will be few if any of them.

I am going to lay out some insider information via a string of events and occurrences that strongly indicate a pattern.

Let me preface this by stating that most all of the massive independent expenditures of cash have been financed by Charles T. Munger Jr. via has Spirit of Democracy PAC. There have been much smaller amounts contributed by CREPAC (realtors), the Dentists, Chevron, Eli Lilly, PG&E, JOBSPAC and the Chamber Pot PAC. (The last two are functions of the California Chamber of Commerce mostly)

As I have written previously, on a personal level, I like Mr. Munger and have found him to be a reasonable, thoughtful gentleman. Many on the right of the party could learn a few things from his approach. I can not make the same complements about some of the folks hired and paid with his money. I truly believe that Mr. Munger was motivated by what he believed was in the best interests of the GOP.

However, the nearly $9 Million spent (by Mr. Munger alone) in 2016 attempting to control party offices, county central committees and elections statewide may well have been tossed in to a bonfire.

Several mainline political consulting firms had as much as $1.5 Million go through their hands in the course of the 2016 largess. I had to sift through individual reports and take hand-written notes to reverse engineer where the money was spent. We will never know with 100% accuracy, but looking at the slate vendor’s reports and seeing consulting making slate buys for county central committee races was my first clue how this was engineered.

The first clue things had changed was in 2016, seeing the CAGOP get nothing more than token amounts of money from Mr. Munger. Several county parties cut off their registration programs as they had no sources of funding outside of Mr. Munger’s largess.

Earlier this year, I lampooned David Hadley for running for governor and claiming he’d get backed up by $1 Million from Mr. Munger. Reality set in apparently as Hadley’s campaign did not last a month. Many on the right remember with anger the $1 Million spent on Neel Kashkari against the fraud known as Tim Donnelly, it apparently is not there in 2018.

Some of the top Lieutenants in the “leadership operation” (code word for the combination of Charles Munger’s money and the whims of the permanent minority leaders) are out looking for other work. (more on that in a bit)

Los Angeles County and Ventura County let go of their paid staff in the last few months. Both are no longer receiving financial support from Mr. Munger. I’ve heard similar reports from other Bay Area Counties that I have not confirmed yet therefore I am not mentioning individual counties.

The operation against Chad Mayes featured several County Parties who had at least half or more of their elected members elected by the massive expenditure (that I estimate at $2.2 Million) of money by the “leadership operation” go off the rails against the very leader who participated in those expenditures. Several CAGOP leaders who had received material support from the same operation also revolted.

Remember the #capandtraitors? – Heath Flora benefited from $600K spent on his behalf. The “leadership operation” even spent about $200k attacking conservative San Joaquin supervisor Ken Vogel as well

Rocky Chavez? How about nearly $1 Million, including a boatload of attack mail against Conservative Sherry Hodges (who now works for Diane Harkey)

Marc Steinorth? It approaches $1.5 Million over all cycles

Jordan Cunningham? Yup, he got some too

Catharine Baker? On the aggregate, it is approaching $3 Million over all cycles.

Would be Cap and Traitor Frank Bigelow was elected over Conservative Hero Rico Oller due to the sheer mass of $1.5 Million of mostly negative ads descending on one of the most conservative districts in California. While I like Bigelow on a personal level, he is not a conservative and does not match AD05’s socially conservative base, this is a statement of fact.

The “leadership operation” spent $1 Million on Ling-Ling Chang’s failed Senate Run and another $1 Million getting Josh Newman qualified for a recall.

Are you tracking with me? Millions of Charles’ Munger’s money gone. What does he have to show for it? Proposition 14 and a ton of losses. Now Charles Munger’s top Lieutenant Luis Buhler is in a full blown drill to try and save prop 14 as it, too is on the chopping block with a rumored referendum coming to overturn it. (PS, Labor Unions – if you are looking for a Conservative Republican to help you overturn Prop 14 when you qualify the initiative, please reach out to me)

I’ve received reports that I have confirmed that David Stafford Reade is taking candidate campaigns and is set up to run candidates in opposition to other consultants he once worked with closely. It is my professional opinion that this is because Mr. Reade needs to replace the lost income he will not receive courtesy of the “Leadership operation”. (Please note, I am not accusing Reade of a crime, or ethical issues in this case) Mr. Reade has consistently been on the payroll of said operation ever since Meg Whitman’s train wreck and gravy train ended.

I then learned that Andy Garakhani, (who is a good dude, btw) also referred to as Andy Gimmecandy (couldn’t help myself there) has landed a gig working directly for a statewide GOP candidate. This is another long time top Lieutenant of the Munger operation that is out finding direct employment with a campaign.

David Stafford Reade and Andy Garakhani would not be able to run campaigns and participate in the usual independent expenditures at the same time. Neither had done General Consulting for partisan races during the time they were employed by the leadership drill.

Reade is also running a county supervisor campaign in Placer County, this is unfamiliar territory for him. (BTW- I hope his candidate is successful) The evidence keeps piling up suggesting that the “Munger money” is a thing of the past.

Luis Buhler used to run drills for the left of the party years ago as a volunteer, then he got paid to do so out of the Munger operation. I guess it is now back to the future as Luis is making his own phone calls to gather support for retaining Prop 14.

I am of the opinion that the straw that broke the camel’s back regarding the Munger Largess was the #capandtraitor drill. I had been told by several that they had seen a sea change in Mr. Munger’s approach and had heard that Mr. Munger was experiencing resistance on a personal level. I can not speak to Mr. Munger’s spirit, soul or thought process – but I can look on the surface and see that a reasonable, thoughtful and intelligent man would asses the results of what he has done over the last 6 years and ask some very real and thoughtful questions about it.

There is also no way Mr. Munger ever dreamed he’d become public enemy #1 in his own party.

The cap and trade drill saw a fracture in the moderate side of the GOP, with the wholesale revolt of 3/4 of the GOP post 2016 against Cap and Trade. The grassroots overwhelmed the lobbyists, donors, establishment, etc. and semi-ousted Chad Mayes as a petrified and fractured Assembly GOP Caucus could not finish the job.

Since Mr. Munger’s vast resources had been deployed to settle personal scores of some who were formerly on his payroll and in other cases specifically and ideologically against Conservatives, the list of enraged people is legion. Mr. Buhler is reputed to have been buttressing the arguments of the CA GOP Board Members who stood against the anti-Chad Mayes Resolution. Mr. Buhler was reputed to have attempted to interfere with more than one county’s attempt to adopt an anti-Chad Mayes Resolution. There is no way Charles wanted to be a part of so much bloodletting. There is no way Mr. Munger is happy with the results of his expenditures which I estimate as being $50 million on the aggregate now.

Mr. Munger’s money ultimately elected the necessary Republican votes, at the expense of conservative candidates who were shredded, to pass Cap and Trade. This is the largest tax increase in California’s history (if you count fees as taxes, if you don’t, it is the second largest and the largest batch of fee increases ever). This bred the most widespread grassroots revolt within CAGOP Ranks since we had to recall three members of the legislature in the mid 1990’s to gain a fleeting majority in the Assembly because Republicans kept cutting deals with the democrat minority to get themselves elected speaker.

20 years ago when I first joined in CAGOP Politics and I joined a group I was later expelled from for life, I was told that “the Moderates” in the CA GOP would not stop until the entire platform of the GOP was shredded. Save for the time that Connie Conway was Assembly Leader, 100% of the time when democrats needed a budget or tax increase vote, there were always able to find an unprincipled establishment Republican to give them what they needed. I watched Pro-Life, Pro-Family, Pro-Ethics, Pro-Gun and on down the line get shredded, watered down or completely discarded in the name of fabled polling showing adopting democrat positions was the way to the promised land.

I’ll repeat what I said, I like Charles Munger on a personal level, and I write this knowing 100% that I was on the receiving end of $100k of his money spent in Placer County in 2012 that resulted in me losing my seat on the County Cent Com by 38 votes. I am one of many that should have a personal axe to grind with him.

Luis Buhler has bragged to people about me getting unseated, but never Charles.

Charles wrote the checks, but the crew that influenced him have had a huge comeuppance in the last few months. A lot of people made a lot of money off of Mr. Munger while hurting a lot of other people in the process. It looks like those days are over. If Conservatives can regroup and figure out how to collaborate for a common cause, we can pick up the shattered pieces of our party and accomplish something again. Conservatives proved that even after being hunted from one end of the state to another that they could still win against the establishment.

I do wish Mr. Munger well. I hope he finds some excellent charitable endeavors to invest in, I remember him telling me about his home church that he goes to, maybe there is something there for him.

The 2018 primary is going to be a mess. It is my educated guess that it is going to be back to 1960’s style grassroots campaigning with a twist of the election fraud enabling bills like being able to harvest ballots, same-day register and dumping absentee ballots in the mail on election day… but the massive money that was almost 100% against Conservatives likely will not be there.

Its’ 2014. Charles Munger is Still Here. What to do?

Charles Munger Comments Off

Jan 252014

Everyone in California Republican Politics has an opinion on Charles Munger.

I know I do. Before I returned the Mungerwatch.com website to Mike Schroeder (who paid for its’ construction) – I railed on Charles Munger Constantly. (Under my own name, mind you)

Charles Munger spends megabucks on Politics, but Charles Munger is not always wrong.

When Charles Munger is wrong, it has catastrophic effects on the party. The Citizen’s Redistricting Commission was hijacked by the Unions for example. Prop 14 creating the jungle primary was another.

Charles Munger has since used Prop 14 elections to spend big bucks on Moderate/Liberal Republican Candidates. That is his right – he as $1billion in the bank and he can spend it.

Moderate/Liberal Republicans claim that Conservatives want to impose their values on the GOP. Charles Munger spent $833k on liberal Republican Rocky Chavez in AD78, a Conservative District. Munger chipped in $400k toward the nearly $2 Million spent stopping Conservative Icon Rico Oller in favor of Tax-Raising Liberal Republican Frank Bigelow in AD-05. Two of the most Conservative districts in California are now represented by Moderate/Liberal Republicans due to the intervention of Charles Munger.

However, Charles Munger got embarrassed because while spending $850k saving Beth Gaines from a primary challenge, as he funded a primary challenge against Alan Mansoor to the tune of $750k.

Charles Munger’s actions of targeting an effective, outspoken incumbent because Connie Conway wanted him gone and then supporting an ineffective, incompetent incumbent because Connie Conway wanted her there (to save the leadership vote) breeds resentment.

What’s worse is that we lost 5 Assembly races in 2012. Munger chipped in $250k to Peter Tateishi – imagine if Munger had diverted the $400K he spent against Rico Oller in to AD08? AD05 was going to elect a Rep no matter what. We lost AD32, AD36 and AD65 by slim margins. Imagine if Munger had diverted some of the $833k from Chavez in to those three races?

Now we can’t find a candidate in AD32 – and both AD36 and AD65 are going to cost $1million or more to re-take. Add to that, we have to defend the Gorrell Seat and the Morrell Seat because Gorrell is running for CA-26, another narrow loss that Charles Munger could have aided. (Instead, he spent $1.2 million in the Safe CA-08 Congressional race helping elect liberal Republican Paul Cook in a Very Conservative District.)

As a result, the Tea Party California Caucus was born. The more Charles Munger spends money attempting to manipulate the outcomes of elections, the angrier people will get and the stronger the opposition will get. Many people in insider politics understand my issues with elements of the tea party.

The demise of the CA GOP is not Charles Munger’s fault. It is a team effort.

The knuckleheads that write the anonymous Munger Games blog are not helping matters at all. Their information is sometimes poorly vetted and because of their cowardice, they launch personal attacks in lieu of constructive, reasoned debate.

Connie Conway appears to have directed IE money in a manner to protect her leadership votes, this certainly affected some of Munger’s decisions. (aka selfishness from a politician, imagine that)

Many Tea Parties are guilty of the same lack of discernment and discretion that I rail on the left of the party for. Once such absurdity is the accusation from some of the bad operators in the TPCC that Munger controls the CRA and has donated to it. This is an absurd lie and its’ propagation is being done to wedge the Tea Party against CRA.

This sort of division, coupled with the failure of elected Republican leaders, plus the apparent bias of Charles Munger’s spending is a toxic cocktail.

Charles Munger did nothing wrong by giving nearly $700k to the CRP. That was the RIGHT thing to do and he deserves credit, not scorn. When juxtaposed with the myriad errors, it appears that Munger is trying to treat the sick patient without realizing that he is causing some of the illness.

The critics of the CRP need to take a step back and get to know the leaders within the CRP and realize that they are independent thinkers and not puppets.

In short, criticize Charles Munger for things he actually did… don’t buy trouble.

I have spoken to Charles Munger personally. I would encourage anyone else to do so. Munger is an affable and approachable man. Charles Munger and I spoke for 45 minutes, I believe we both enjoyed the conversation. Other people in politics that I have attacked spend their waking hours trying to destroy me because of their paper-thin egos. They will never forgive me for writing critical blogs about them. Congratulations for playing your part in the fractures of our shrinking party.

These so-called leaders could learn from Charles Munger in that regard.

Here is the conclusion – it has come to my attention that Charles Munger is lining up targets. A couple of those targets are safe R seats in Orange County.

Without writing some retarded “New Year’s Resolution” under the cowardly cover of anonymity – let me say the following to Charles Munger:

Don’t do it.

If you want the TPCC to get angrier and stronger, spend the money.

If you want to galvanize the OC establishment against you, spend the money.

If you want to exasperate the resentments that exist along the ideological divide within the CRP, spend the money.

The anticipated benefit to the expected independent expenditures is not worth the further degredation of CAGOP.

My suggestion to Mr. Munger is the following:

Open up a can of Wupass in the Gorrell and Morrell seats we have to defend. Help Eric Linder. Drop a bomb on AD36, AD65 and the other two competitive assembly races we have.

Please help in the 3 Congressional races we are trying to pick up – help Gary Miller defend himself.

Please help Janet Nguyen Pick Up SD34. That seat will put us over 1/3 in the State Senate.

There are so many targets that are not safe R seats! Why create further resentment and heartache by imposing yourself on safe R races?

I have learned a lot of lessons from past mistakes. I will also be reminded of a lot of those mistakes because in politics there is little if any forgiveness and most all resentments are permanent.

I am tired of fratricide. I hope Charles Munger is, too.

SF Chron Outs Mike Schroeder as Author of Munger Games

Charles Munger, Harmeet Dhillon, Mike Schroeder 2 Responses »

Oct 302013

( Aaron F Park is the author of this post )

We don’t have a problem with blowing up Charles Munger. He is a liberal Republican. At least his actions say as such – he tried to re-engineer the CRP Platform in 2011 and even paid for a proxy drill to try and make it happen. He dropped $45k in to our Cent Com Race in Placer, specifically against Placer CRA Members running for Cent Com.

He spent wads picking winners in R vs R races all over the state – we’ve been over that ad-naseum.

However, the Munger Games site is wrong. And, Mike Schroeder’s comparing the anonymous authors of the Munger Games vis-a-vis himself to the founding fathers is grounds for a padded cell and fingerpaints.

The SF Chron did an article.

In the article, they quoted Jon Fleischman and Mike Schroeder and at the same time they outed Schroeder as the author of the Munger Games Blog. This is significant – Schroeder is a past Chair of the CA GOP and he is attacking the sitting Vice Chair and the Parties’ major donor.

We would like to call BS on the following comment by Schroeder: In an interview, Schroeder said, “Munger is a thin-skinned guy. He doesn’t like that the Munger Games is criticizing him, so he wants to use his wealth to attack anyone who does that.”

Please note that Aaron F Park spoke to Mr. Munger for about 30 minutes at the just concluded CRP Convention. Munger was far from thin-skinned, and in our opinion appreciated the conversation. Hopefully, it will be the first of many in an attempt to find common ground.

Munger has also told many people that he is not going in to R vs R races anymore.

The issue, as clearly stated by many is the anonymous nature of the attacks. The Munger Games emails / blog have libeled Harmeet Dhillon and have also attacked the CRA. There is no accountability when you’re anonymous – and Mike Schroeder knows this.

However, the shroud of anonymity has been lifted by the SF Chron and Schroeder’s non-answer sets himself on fire.

I will conclude by quoting the Executive Director of the Non-Profit First Amendment Foundation:

“I support anonymous speech when it is necessary, but here these are not defenseless people,” Scheer said. “It’s not like this is Iran or China.”

Anonymous criticism has its value, Scheer said. “But your arguments have more value when you can put a name to them.”

Jon Fleischman risks further marginalizing himself by defending the anonymous attacks – he should follow up his public call on Harmeet Dhillon to drop her suit with a call for his friend Mike Schroeder to tell the truth about his involvement in the Munger Games. (This should be much easier now that the SF Chron has outed Schroeder)

Meantime – we reserve the right to kick Charles Munger’s a– when he deserves it, and we will continue signing our names to it.

Political Notebook – State of the CA GOP

California Republican Party, Charles Munger, Dave Gilliard Comments Off

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…)

RNC Appoints Moderate Attack Dog as California Grassroots Chair?

Charles Munger, Clinton Soffer, Kevin McCarthy, Republican Party, Republican Values, RNC Comments Off

Jul 252013

The Republican National Committee announced Wednesday that Clinton Soffer will become its first California state director. Credit San Luis Obispo Newspaper.

Who is Clinton Soffer? He was an outspoken supporter of the Jim Nielsen-Abram Wilson – Charles Munger Financed – effort to annhiliate the California Republican Party Platform.

He signed every letter and email in support of the so-called 21st Century Platform.

Clinton Soffer appears to be heavily connected to the Kevin McCarthy squish machine in California. He was a past President of the CR’s – a young Republican group with a socially liberal bent they control.

Soffer also worked for Moderate Turncoat Nathan Fletcher when Fletcher infested the Assembly. Fletcher left the GOP and became an independent when he thought it could help him gain an advantage over fellow Liberal Republican Carl DiMaio in the 2012 San Diego Mayor’s race. (Embattled current San Diego Mayor Bob Filner won that election)

Soffer is only 23.

While we could care less how young he is, the problem for Mr. Soffer is experience dealing with a state as enormous and diverse as California.

The second issue we have with the RNC’s choice is why they chose someone with a history of aggressively fighting against the Conservative base of the California GOP.

We have to conclude that Kevin McCarthy and likely Charles Munger had something to do with this choice by the RNC. The RNC has long preferred Moderate Republicans to their more Conservative Counterparts. Soffer fits that mold.

Soffer has also served McCarthy and Munger well in his short tenure of “service” to the GOP.

Count us as skeptical about Mr. Soffer’s ability to unite and organize – especially once the Conservative base finds out about his pedigree.

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