The CAGOP is on fire all over the state. Unsurprisingly, those holding the incendiaries are the opposition. But in 2025, it is different than anything I remember. One such difference are that the targets in some cases are people that were once darlings of the right. I wrote about LA County (whose election has been delayed due to the LA County Fires) which is one such instance.
This time around, the opposition to the CAGOP establishment are more organized than I have ever seen them. That said, with a few exceptions, the candidates are more extreme and fringe than I ever recall. People I worked with four years ago when attempting to elect Steve Frank, including Frank himself, I struggle to recognize. It feels like the FBI visit that made me a hero of the opposition was in 1921, not 2021.
Some of what I have learned will find its’ way in to these blogs. Some won’t because it is too disturbing. But if you think Jerry Springer is dead, he lives on vicariously through the garbage I am witnessing.
Solano County has long been one of the bright shining stars of the opposition. In fact, their closed caucus system was the inspiration for a by-law change stripping counties of their delegates to the CAGOP unless they were on the ballot. At the time, this was done to help a major donor who was pouring millions in to the party and contested primaries to try and eliminate conservatives in the legislature and county parties. He is not around the scene anymore. There is no excuse not to go on the ballot, because outside of San Francisco, there were no organized efforts to spend big money in county party elections.
Former Solano GOP Chair Michelle Guerra has become so toxic that she had to do two things – keep Solano off of the ballot in order to keep control and get a sock puppet to run for chair to replace her. I thought this is what the establishment does to keep control? (Hint: I’ve written about establishment Central Committees for years)
Not to be outdone, the Chair of Yolo County Dan Brown (whose tenure more closely resembles a ham-fisted dictator) attempted to extend his influence into Sacramento County. While Sacramento has not organized as of the writing of this blog, look for Brown and his candidates to get trounced. Brown may well have been making his endorsements from another state – the lack of self-awareness from the rank-and-file opposition folks is staggering.
I received one first-hand account of bullying in a Bay Area County whose election went the way of the opposition. In this case elderly members who were swing voters were bullied into voting for particular candidates. I have seen the establishment do this, (In fact, in Placer County many years ago) and now I guess the opposition is ok with this too.
Mendocino, Humboldt and San Luis Obispo opted out of going onto the ballot – costing the opposition another 12 delegates and furthering the absurdity that has been unfolding. I thought voting and being able to vote was a fundamental right?
It appears that Siskiyou County’s refusal to notice an endorsement in April of 2024, and the defense of it by the opposition members of the CAGOP Board was the first shot in the coming CAGOP officer election cycle. Rules and by-laws don’t matter when there is an election to win apparently.
While the opposition took Ventura County by storm, a bunch of democrats called the Briones crowd took over the SFGOP. A group of people who do not understand campaign finance law and have launched a personal crusade (similar to the J6 committee against Trump supporters) based on lies and fabrications to destroy people they don’t like took over Marin County.
I guess lying, bullying and denying several counties an election is OK if that is what it takes to get the bad guys, right? I guess burning the CAGOP down to the ground is ok, if you can’t control it? I guess attacking Conservative and Moderate alike and calling them all RINOS is OK because the war is now tribal and does not follow ideological lines anymore.
I don’t relate to this. These are not the conservative values I grew up with and that I promoted as an officer in CRA for a decade and a half. What I have seen is the tactics I attacked David Stafford Reade and others for, yet they have been applied to a more severe degree by people I once helped!
While I have major issues with Jessica Patterson and Kevin McCarthy’s crew and how they wielded the power of CAGOP – the behavior I am seeing now is literally justifying all the things they did that I criticized.
Where is Mike Morrell in all of this? I can draw no other conclusion that the man I once knew is gone or has gone in to hiding. I could not imagine him associating with and condoning the tactics being used on his behalf., but here we are.
… and I am just scratching the surface.
