Occasionally in CAGOP Politics, I am reminded of the ideological divide and sometimes with an exclamation point.
Long before Charles Munger and his billion dollar checkbook existed to literally will moderate Republicans to victory in Conservative Districts, there was a faction in the GOP that had convinced themselves that Conservatives were the real problem within the GOP.
I have observed over the 17 years I have been involved in the GOP that many Moderate activists have deep-seeded disdain for Conservatives that is so bad that they refuse to aggressively campaign against democrats. We saw this with Romney’s Presidential Campaign when the squishes he had for consultants refused to kill Obama off when Obama was on the ropes in 2012. Instead, they chose cruise control after demolishing several more conservative primary opponents just months prior.
Enter: Reed Galen is a political consultant in Southern California. Galen worked on both the 2000 and 2004 Bush-Cheney campaigns and spent 2002 in the White House. He also served at the departments of Treasury and Homeland Security. Galen was deputy campaign manager for Arnold Schwarzenegger’s 2006 reelection and worked for John McCain’s campaign until July 2007.
Reed Galen decided to enter the fray with an op-ed attacking Tim Donnelly and extolling the virtues of the TARP program. It is unclear if Galen’s poorly reasoned piece was part of a retainer for Kashkari.
Galen writes the following as a thesis:
He (Kashkari) represents not only the best ideals of what we hope for in a candidate – solid middle class and middle-American roots, but also someone who understands the economy and (whether you agree or not) likely helped to save ours in 2008 while at the Treasury Department during the financial crisis.
Galen is extolling the virtue of taxpayer-funded bailouts as a Republican value. This worship at the altar of big government is a precise reason for the serious drop-off in votes for McCain in 2008 and a bleed-off of people re-registering out of the GOP.
Obama engineered his own bailout modeled after the Bush-Kashkari TARP as well? I suppose then that Kashkari and Galen agree that was good as well? You can’t split that baby… and it is precisely this sort of ideological quagmire that dooms Neel Kashkari to failure.
Jerry Brown would have supported TARP, both of them.
When the cornerstone of a Republican candidate’s resume is on an issue that is ideologically aligned with the opposition, it is impossible for the voters to see a contrast. This was manifest in the $150 million epic failure of Meg Whitman.
If Kashkari’s big government pedigree wasn’t bad enough, he voted for Barack Obama in 2008 while running said big government program!
These are the values that Reed Galen is extolling.
Reed Galen finishes his screed with a graphic display of his arrogance:
Tim Donnelly serving as the GOP standard-bearer in November will likely spell the end of, for most of my life anyway, any recognizable Republican party in California. Without the ability, and apparently the desire, to reach out to anyone but white Republicans over 55, Donnelly will tilt at windmills in Palm Springs as his candidacy is crushed under the weight of old ideas and outdated thinking.
What’s more concerning, though, is how some tea party or very conservative Republicans are already approaching Kashkari’s candidacy. Combing through some early Facebook comments, I already found at least one example of blatant racism. I won’t dignify its utterance by repeating it here.
This is absolutely unacceptable and Tim Donnelly’s campaign should immediately foreswear any such language or beliefs. They are fundamentally un-American.
When Californians – and California Republicans go to the polls in June, they have a simple but important choice to make when they vote for governor. They can vote Kashkari, and march into the future for California, or they can vote Donnelly and march into the past, and likely into political oblivion.
Got all that?
Because some of Donnelly’s supporters ripped on Kashkari’s heritage, Donnelly is a racist. Some of Kashkari’s homosexual supporters have called the CRA bigoted and homophobic… so I guess that means Kashkari hates Christians? This kind of cheap shot is sophomoric and an example of the vacuous arrogance I have dealt with from many on the left of the GOP for years. It needs to stop.
The rest of Galen’s conclusions are a string of unsubstantiated ad-hominems aimed at disparaging the base of the GOP. I am sure that if Kashkari is paying this guy he might want to reconsider quickly…
… maybe not. I called Kashkari on behalf of the CRA and have yet to get a return call (UPDATE 2/13/2014 – Kashkari has reached out to CRA President John W. Briscoe, good job Neel!). Then I did a bit more research and realized that Kashkari has hired the brains behind Arnold. Arnold was good for claiming about 1.5 million registrations from the CAGOP.
We’ve had a never-ending stream of moderate nominees, Arnold, Whitman, McCain and they keep getting hammered in California.
Now I understand the encore. History is repeating itself and the condescending arrogance toward conservatives is the same, and even 2/3 of the names doing it are the same… and Reed Galen wants us to believe that more of the same moderation will get us a different result.
