Placer Politics 2014’s Winners and Losers

Everyone does this for State and National, but allow your intrepid blogger to take a stab at naming the biggest winners and losers in Placer Politics.

Winners:

Congressman Tom McClintock – despite a passionate opposition and circumstances lined up to favor a challenger, McClintock reminded people of his dominance with a blowout win.

Susan Halldin – finished first as a first-time candidate in the Rocklin School Board race. Impressive, indeed.

Roseville Joint Union High School District – the two recruits of Placer County’s far left got trounced in their attempts at office.

Roseville City Council-Member Tim Herman – he was the primary beneficiary to derail the attempt for a Roseville City Council election by one of 2014’s biggest losers. Even though Herman is still packing grudges from his 2010 run, his re-election was all but assured due to the efforts of several people who put aside their personal issues for the greater good of Roseville.

Town of Loomis – the wipe-out of the left-wing anti-growth faction in that town is complete. A slate of Brian Baker, Robert Black and long-time incumbent bomb-thrower Miguel Ucovich decimated the field. Sandra Calvert and Vic Markey were both defeated spectacularly.

Big Daddy Jack Duran – due to one of the losers below, he was re-elected without opposition, he stayed out of the Congressional Primary and managed to keep his fingerprints off of the Roseville election drama. Meantime, he has been on an ego-trip that no one can do anything about.

League of Placer County Taxpayers – stepped in to the gap left by the ineptitude of the Placer GOP and led the effort to defeat the attempt by the Placer dems to steal local office seats.

Placer County Board of Supervisors – Measure B passed in a landslide. They ring in the new year with real pay and real benefits.

Bonus – Placer County wins because it will be easier to recruit opponents for Jennifer Montgomery and Jack Duran in future elections.

Losers:

Placer County Republican Party – The current Central Committee is dominated by local Tea Party Members who are aligned with moderate Republican Dennis Revell. The Central Committee raised less than $20k, with almost $14k of that coming from candidates paying for their place on the slate mailer. The previous chairman raised $26k, with next to nothing from candidates. Worse, the Placer GOP was able to mount almost no effort against upstart Art Moore or any of the Democrat recruits for local office. Worse, the inept party structure was helpless to find a candidate against Big Daddy Jack Duran.

Bonus – Beth Gaines, Ted Gaines, Jim Nielsen, Doug LaMalfa, Tom McClintock, Frank Bigelow make the list by association – all participated in the train-wreck that is the current structure of the Placer GOP Central Committee.

Mike Holmes – the Vice-Chairman of the PLACER GOP LOST HIS OWN RE-ELECTION CAMPAIGN. Where were all his Tea Party allies? Where were all his friends on the Placer GOP? #epicfail

Rene Aguilera (pronounced aggie-lair-uh, or else you are racist). He got hammered at the ballot box, He got exposed in the local media and as a bonus, everyone associated with him got slaughtered at the ballot box as well.

People that hate the Placer County Board of Supervisors – they got a 138% pay raise and benefits with 62% of the vote. Once again, the natural opposition to the board of supervisors would have been based in the local GOP, but alas…

The Biggest Story out of the above, IMO is:

Unless you were under a rock, the GOP had a great year in 2014… but in Placer County, it took the NON-PARTISAN League of Placer County Taxpayers to save the bacon of the City of Roseville whilst the local GOP was moribund, asleep and inept.

… and liberal labor-union democrat moonbat Jack Duran slipped back in unopposed.

In one hashtag the biggest story of 2014: #epicfailplacergop