Update – see at the very end an important update…
“Aaron is part of the swamp” – Ken Campbell.
Your intrepid blogger received a lot of response to three emails I sent to the Placer GOP in advance of their expected ram-down of an endorsement of Suzanne Jones. The responses from some Placer GOP members resembles the string of “f— Y–” responses my people have been getting from Trump supporters in the Presidential Primary.
Other responses were actually acknowledging the damming results of Suzanne Jones’ decisions to appoint a slew of democrats and greenies to important positions in Placer County.
Interestingly, based on accounts, the Placer GOP may well have violated their by-laws with the way the endorsement was done. Nothing new there either, Tom Hudson has always been a selective parliamentarian in the 25+ years I have known him too.
But, then there is the crazed Ken Campbell. I had more than one person ask me what his problem is and why he hates your intrepid blogger and Kirk Uhler so much. Tom Hudson hates your intrepid blogger for far more legitimate reasons, as I took the guy apart for the rampage he went on against his now ex-wife (see also abusing his law license to stretch the divorce to take over 5 years to go final).
With Ken Campbell, you need to go back nearly 30(!) years for perspective.
In 1996, Campbell supported Rico Oller for Assembly over Kirk Uhler, the late Kathy Lund, former Major Leaguer Steve Sax and a few others. Rico Oller burnt Kirk’s house down to the ground in that tilt. To this day, Rico Oller, Tom Hudson and anyone else (not named Bonnie Gore) that worked for Rico Oller hate Kirk Uhler with a purple passion. Please note that the disgraced Steve Davey also got his start with Oller. (Davey was later fired by the Assembly Rules committee for his abhorrent behavior)
1996 was 28(!) years ago. Let that sink in.
I came in to the political scene in 1997. I met both Kirk Uhler and Rico Oller after the hostilities of that campaign were long since resolved. I met Supervisor Ted Gaines (who just beat Pam Tobin, that’s right Suzanne Jones’ buddy ran against both Ted Gaines and Kirk Uhler), Rico Oller, Tim Leslie, Bonnie Mertus (now Gore) and others. At the same time, I met Campbell, Hudson, Jeff Atteberry and others in the local party. Atteberry would register me Republican and sign me up for the CRA. I met Dave Butler and John Allard back then when they worked for Tim Leslie.
In 1998, Conservatives took over the Placer GOP led by Ken Campbell. Prior to that Tom Jones and the Placer CCR had the reins of power in Placer County.
The Central Committee Meetings were antagonistic and drama-filled. There were new fights every month.
In 2000, I was elected CRA SGT at Arms, a position I would hold 13 years. At the same time, I was elected President of the Placer CRA. I held that position for 10 years.
During my tenure as Placer CRA President Ken Campbell saw the Placer CRA as a threat and would schedule County Party events to compete with Placer CRA events. When I attempted to run for Placer GOP office (I think it was Secretary), Ken threatened to resign if I got elected.
To this day, the only reason I can put my finger on for Ken’s hatred of me is that he served on the Board of the Capitol Resource Institute in the late 1990’s with David Stafford Reade. Yes, THAT David Stafford Reade. Ken never liked me from the first time I met him – mind you, I am going back 27(!) years with this.
Kirk? In 2002, the Placer CCR Club was attempting to run a slate of Central Committee candidates along with the late Auburn Councilmember Bill Kirby who primary challenged John Doolittle for Congress. Doolittle, Tim Leslie, Rico Oller, Ted Gaines and others rallied to the side of Ken Campbell with a slate of their own. There were many names you would recognize in that effort, including Kirk Uhler, Bonnie Gore, Kathy Lund and others that were recruited to help keep the Placer GOP out of the hands of the moderates.
Suzanne Jones’ MAC board member Sandy Harris was on the slate of moderates. Harris has consistently been opposed to conservative Republicans like Ted Gaines and Tom McClintock for the 20+ years I have known her.
During the tenure of Ken Campbell, voter registration in Placer County hit 52% Republican. The Placer GOP was raking in thousands of bounty dollars at the time.
However, when treasurer reports would come out, the numbers did not match. Kirk Uhler, who ran the high school outreach for the Placer GOP for many years, started asking questions. This led to an audit where it was discovered that Ken Campbell had unilaterally run the Placer GOP’s bounty through another county to get a higher payout. Okay, why didn’t Ken just get the committee to sign off on the arrangement? The audit would not have been needed. Ken never forgave Kirk for asking those questions leading to the audit.
Campbell would spiral, later being asked to resign by John Doolittle. When Doolittle was caught up in the Jack Abramoff scandal, Ken led the charge against him in retaliation despite having been closely tied to him for years. In 2008, McClintock was elected to replace Doolittle who had to retire. Doolittle would literally almost have to sue the government to finally get them to admit their investigation of him turned up nothing – Doolittle was exonerated finally in 2012. But Campbell had him tried and convicted, as he publicly attacked him without evidence for years.
Also contemporaneous with that was Campbell writing a column for the Auburn Journal where he was using his title to attack the Placer GOP and its’ CRA-Aligned leadership, Campbell accused the committee and individual members of embezzlement and other felonies (How quickly Tom Hudson forgets he was targeted like the rest of us). Jeff Atteberry was the chair at the time. Atteberry lasted from about 2006 to 2012, read on…
Captured in Time and Space, a snippet of 2010 Central Committee Elections Results
When the moderates, aided and abetted by Ted Gaines, Tom McClintock, David Stafford Reade, Doug LaMalfa, Jim Nielsen, Frank Bigelow and others came calling in 2012 to oust Jeff Atteberry and the CRA-Aligned leadership… Ken Campbell aligned with them.
During those years, the Placer GOP was completely neutered. From 2006-2018, the committee was able to accomplish little except making endorsements. During that time, working with Kirk Uhler, the Placer CRA PAC and other PAC’s we created ran efforts to unseat bad local officeholders. We had some successes, but less than we could have because it was basically Kirk and I with not many others involved. Two of our biggest scalps were Jack Duran and Rene Aggielairuh.
In 2012, a coalition of Tea Party activists who were aligned with Doug LaMalfa and the establishment ousted the Placer CRA’s leadership. This led to Dennis Revell being elected Chair of the Placer GOP. While Dennis and I have become friends in the intervening years – people need to understand that Ken Campbell played a role in making that happen.
Over the years Ken Campbell has used a variety of pejoratives to refer to your intrepid blogger, Slimebag, loser, etc. Swamp Monster is just the latest. Your intrepid blogger just referred to him as “Chairman Psycho” during the same period of time as his actions and rampages based on what I thought were his medication levels at the time governed the assignment of that moniker.
Just to layer on a another level of absurdity to the occurrences of Wednesday – When your intrepid blogger worked for Steve Frank’s chair campaign in 2021 against the Swamp, Ken Campbell was the person that wrote me the retainer checks I earned for working on Steve Frank’s behalf. I guess Ken forgot to take his medication again before Wednesday’s Cent Com meeting, because he also forgot about the FBI visit I got while fighting said swamp. I guess that was soooooo 2021.
Let me put in a last note. In the early 2000’s, your intrepid blogger was known as a bomb-thrower and people across the political spectrum were reticent to engage with me. I did not have the platform or the influence I have now as a result. It was Kirk Uhler in the mid-2000’s that recognized that I had potential as a political operative and he took me under his wing. Others like Bonnie Gore had some influence on me during my formative years as well.
Uhler, showed me that I could be a pro-life, pro-family conservative, be aggressive, but how to focus and hit the right targets to advance the Conservative Republican cause. Without the influence and friendship of Kirk Uhler I would not still be an effective force for Conservative Republican causes today in both Nevada and California. As such, most of my political enemies today are people with personal picadilloes against me, but my friends list has grown exponentially.
Which gets me to the conclusion. What happened at the Placer GOP 1-10-2024 was as much a referendum on the personal hatred of Kirk Uhler and your intrepid blogger by a few influential people and less about Suzanne Jones. This is not unprecedented, look at the endorsement of David Fennell and why that happened. That was hate of Brian and Megan Dahle. When an organization makes important decisions based on personal picadilloes, they lose effectiveness and influence almost immediately. I fear for Placer County in the 2024 general election as the committee rendered itself ineffective like it was back in 2002 all over again.
UPDATE – Across the transom, a screed from a former Placer GOP Committee-member is included below. If any of you have any doubt about the personal hatred angle, read it and weep…
Is this what the Republican Party has become?
