In others words, Peterson and Swearengen were both receiving GOP votes. That is a good thing.
But, their opponents have raised millions—they have raised thousands. Governor Brown has $20 million in the bank. By the end of the June primary the GOP candidate for governor will be close to ZERO. Why is this important? Because this frees up Democrat/Union/Special Interest money to pay for tight legislative races.
On the GOP side, we have money from Charles Munger and a Leadership PAC that operates out of three counties—these are being used to elect certain Republicans of the correct ideological bent.
The Democrats will spend to elect Castro worshipping candidates. They want every Democrat elected. Our money is spent on a litmus test.
Yet, conservatives do win nominations and elections. That is because of strong grassroot campaigns and use of social media to promote their candidates and expose the leftist leanings of some registered Republican opponents.
My guess is that by June 3 a large number of voters, due to social media will know that Tim Donnelley is a Tea Party Republican—and that Neel Kashkari voted for Obama in 2008, thinking McCain was too conservative.
Yes, Kashkari is going to have a couple million to, as he says, “buy the election,” but most Republicans, even moderates, will not vote for an Obama voter as their nominee. (Disclosure: I am not endorsing or supporting either candidate for Governor).
This is the problem for the moderate candidates in November. In close races, as the pro-amnesty, OK with taxes “if necessary,” support for the SEIU becomes apparent, the voter suppression will become a real problem. All someone has to say is, “Will candidate X become the next Nathan Fletcher.” Fletcher was the long time Republican operative, when once elected to the Assembly, started voting with Democrats, became an Independent and finally admitted the truth, became a Democrat denouncing “extremist” Republicans?
Just the other day we had Rosario Marin, a Schwarzenegger appointee, denouncing Donnelly for the crime of demanding our immigration laws be enforced. Think she will vote for him should he win the nomination?
This divisive attitude by the moderates in the GOP is why we cannot win statewide elections.
In 2002 I worked with Bill Simon for Governor as his Deputy Political Director. Bill lost by about 4.8% of the vote. One major reason was that the moderates in the GOP refused to help and bring their people into the campaign. All over the state moderates refused to be major donors and business groups preferred donating to Gray Davis.
Imagine the difference in California if Simon not Davis were elected—no Recall, No Arnold and infrastructure would have been priority #1.
Yet in 2003, conservatives were told NOT to support McClintock in the Recall since a conservative could not win. As it turns out any GOP’er would have beat Davis. Instead we got a “Republican” Governor that spent seven years denouncing the GOP, squeezing the business community not to donate to it (in 2006 Arnold allowed business to donate, but on the basis the money would be spent on him), create $140 billion in deficits and watched the pension systems go over the edge. Oh, he also appointed more Democrats and Non-Republicans to judgeships and as department heads than Republicans.
To this, conservatives in the Party are told to shut up and support the “R”—even if the “R” does not support Republican values. This could be the end game of the upcoming November elections—a real danger to the continuation of Republicans as part of the political dialogue in California.
If the moderate wing continues to freeze out conservatives then conservatives will freeze out the Republican Party. If they feel unwanted they will do one of two things—either stop participating—and GOP candidates will lose. Or start a Third Party in California, and the Republicans will lose. Remember, it was Munger that spent north of $10 million to end Republican and Democratic primaries by supporting the open primary. In 2012, the first election under the open primary there were eight races of Republicans vs. Republicans and twenty races of Democrats vs. Democrats. The voters lost a choice of ideology and policies in those 28 districts.
The November 2014 election is as much about the continuation of political diversity in California as it is about legislative elections. Are you going to get involved or stay home and watch Seinfeld re-runs?