It was the classic battle. The establishment against the activists. The Sacramento Crowd against the rag-tag coalition of the resistance. Or so they would have you believe.
The AD-01 Race violated so many conventional boundaries that one post simply is not enough space to fit it into one blog.
As of the date I am typing this blog – Heather Hadwick is Annihilating Tenessa Audette by 24.8%. The AD01 race ended up as an R vs R runoff because only 4 Republicans filed in the Spring Election, two of them were from the Redding City Council. Redding is the largest city in AD01 and its’ Mayor is Tenessa Audette whose appointment as Mayor is the subject of Brown Act issues. (as documented on this blog)
Mark Mezzano the third place finisher, endorsed Heather Hadwick in the fall. Mezzano had his own re-election to Redding Council to worry about, but was aggressively promoting Hadwick. He may have cost himself his own city council election in the process of helping Heather. Time will tell as 1/3 of the vote is still out in Shasta County.
The AD01 runoff was as nasty as a “major” campaign gets, but in a different way. There was not big money spent in AD-01, at least not until the last three weeks. I am going to set up this series of blogs by laying out the battle lines as they do not fit any convention of any campaign I have ever seen.
Team Tenessa:
A ton of endorsements at the local level – few came with money, including Ted Gaines who endorsed and did not donate.
Congressman Doug LaMalfa who engaged in a major way on her behalf (something he has never done before on this scale)
County Party and the State Party endorsements and structure (this will be it’s own separate blog)
The Paskenta Band of Nomilaki Indians
Some Elements of Bethel Church
Team Hadwick:
Brian Dahle / Megan Dahle / Mark Mezzano and a few others
Nadine Bailey / Your Intrepid Blogger – the two most prominent anti-LaMalfa people in the North State (and associated allies)
A bunch of “Third House” donors and stuff
On Paper, It sure looks like a wipe-out for Tenessa.
What it did was wipe out any pretense Tenessa could have of being the Anti-Establishment candidate as she had all those endorsements. (You know, the establishment)
I had lambasted Audette in a previous post for having $92.66 in the bank. This is what she had when the CAGOP endorsed her, more on the CAGOP endorsement later, but suffice to say if the state party leaders will endorse a broke candidate perhaps they need to adopt a formal set of standards.
It Got worse, at the Mid-October Break, Audette was $15,000 in the hole. I mean for realz. She had $9K in the bank and $24K in debt. Why in the hell did Doug LaMalfa go berzerk and co-sponsor a mailer with her, send 6 different emails from his campaign account with her name in lights (as FEC rules forbid him singling her out), had her voice a spot for him (LaMalfa never needs to advertise unless dealing with a serious challenger), and was otherwise out campaigning openly for her after coming out of the closet for her in late September?
He knew she was broke ($92.66 net as of mid sept) when he did all of this!
One of the reasons your intrepid blogger did not write much about the AD-01 race while it was burning is that we (Team Hadwick) did not want to get in the same mud as LaMalfa’s crew. Having dealt with LaMalfa’s crew for 25 years, I know their tactics.
Brenda Haynes and Erin Ryan were part of the David Reade Crew from way back, but they may well have tought Mr. Stafford Reade a few tricks of their own. (Hayes and Ryan still infest LaMalfa’s congressional office)
Haynes and Ryan were trying their best to screw over Hadwick from the very first weeks of her campaign for assembly over a year ago. The LaMalfa crew has never forgiven Brian Dahle for beating their stooge Rick Bosetti (and gobs of cash from Charles T. Munger Jr.) years ago for AD01. Both of them are barely civil to me when they see me and will be less so after reading this blog about their bad behavior.
Wanna know where the 4H Club lie originated? With Tex Dowdy most likely. Tex is the bitter Sheriff of Modoc County that refused to give Hadwick time off to care for an ailing relative. Hadwick had no choice but to resign and go to a different department in Modoc County, and Tex veiwed this as disloyalty. Mix in Former LaMalfa Staffer Shane Starr, long time LaMalfa acolytes Geri Byrne and Ned Coe (All three Modoc Supervisors) and a smear/rumor was born. With delivery vehicles like the Brenda Haynes and Erin Ryan, it spread amongst insider circles and was also used by Ms. Audette.
You’d think with the Sheriff of Modoc and three of Modoc’s Supervisors in her Corner, that Audette would have beaten Hadwick in Modoc? Think again, Hadwick is sitting on 70% of the vote in Modoc County! Whoops, Team LaMalfa, that was not smart.
I am not sure where the New Apostolic Reformation Movement condones use of rumors to advance the cause of the church in politics, but my guess is the Bethel Church of What’s Happening Now has a chapter in their course that is all about it. (Sign up online now!)
As recently as the morning of election day, team Hadwick was fielding calls from people. They went along the lines of calling Doug LaMalfa’s office asking why he was supporting Audette for Assembly and having Brenda Haynes say flat out, “Because Heather Hadwick is a thief!” Note: Hadwick has had to pass backgorund checks for her current job and the director of that local 4H club is a strong supporter of hers.
This is your congressman. You know, he’s one of us. This is the same dude whose people created 4 fake CRA units in the north state to rig conventions and CRA endorsements.
Yes, the same people that had counties like Tehama, Yuba and Glenn with garbage central committees that did not meet yet churned delegates out to team McCarthy/Jessica Patterson for years. Somehow, the same party leaders that had fought with Team LaMalfa/McCarthy to wrest control of county parties away jumped in with them in the ill-fated AD-01 massacre of 2024? If you are confused by this, this is why it is going to take a few posts to unravel this mess.
That is correct, the Central Committees team LaMalfa / David Stafford Reade had been screwing found themselves on the same side as Team LaMalfa because of a seething irrational hatred of two people they don’t even know. But the rage was transfered onto Heather Hadwick and was of course used by team LaMalfa because that’s how they have rolled for years.
Why did LaMalfa do what he did? Your intrepid blogger waits for evidence or corroboration before writing stuff, unlike LaMalfa’s staff who will say whatever is convenient in order to achieve a short term goal. The reason I bring this up again is that the same insider community where the 4h rumors were aired, also espoused several theories as to the relationship between Audette and LaMalfa. Be it money, power, political or otherwise, I had no proof so I wrote nothing.
One theory I had, I put in writing a month ago:
Lest you think the LaMalfa endorsement is a big deal, Haynes and Ryan have had his stuff in a lockbox for years and we all knew the endorsement was coming eventually. (More on Ryan and Haynes later)
With regard to the Shasta GOP endorsement, Haynes is the “chair” of the Shasta GOP. Her tenure has been marked by the same kind of in-fighting as many of her predecessors. After telling the Dahle’s in August that the AD-01 / SD-01 Endorsement was not coming up again, she did indeed reneg on that word (consistent with her long established pattern) and agendized it once again in Late September.
This time, she abused her authority as Chair of the Shasta GOP and gave Hadwick defective notice (more on why the CAGOP Board ignored that issue in a future post) and changed the rules of engagement without telling anyone until the meeting itself. She changed the ballots to have no “No endorsement” option. This converted 3 “No Endorsement” votes to abstentions thus allowing the endorsement that had failed 14-9 in August to Carry in September 14-6 with 3 abstentions.
Lies and dishonest tactics are the standard operating procedure for Team LaMalfa and they pulled out all of the stops in the AD-01 Race and they ate the whole thing when the results of the election came in.
I had another theory. The personal Hatred of Team LaMalfa for Nadine and myself. As LaMalfa’s crew had began the personal smear campaign early (say September 2023) when it was barely known that Nadine was a volunteer campaign leader and I was on the payroll, I had always wondered if that was a part of their nexus.
Perhaps LaMalfa engaged after being publicly challenged not just on this blog, but by others in this district and went on an ego-feuled rampage to show everyone who was boss?
Doug LaMalfa and his crew were held accountable by the voters of AD-01 for their slime, and Mr. LaMalfa hurt himself politically as a result of what he and his team did.
But, what about the County Parties and the State Party? Why did they get ensnared in the AD-01 Mess? What about that dammed Tribe that dumped money in to Tenessa? Bethel Church? To Be Continued…
Pictured, Assemblywoman-Elect Heather Hadwick with State Senator Brian Dahle
