I started blogging in 2003. I was in a group that included an Unknown by the name of Katy Grimes, another relatively unknown Craig DeLuz and a young man named Andy Nevis. (who was active in the CR’s until a few years ago) The Rest of the group, known as the Western Alliance of Bloggers scattered.
I remember the days when legislative candidates could get dozens of volunteers in to a headquarters to walk precincts. That was my paradigm. In 2003, blogs were seldom and rare. The bathroom boys of Facebook and Twitter were changing the tape in their glasses in between getting beat up by the jocks in high school.
Years later, Facebook and Twitter changed the dynamics of grassroots. They literally created bloggers like locusts. They literally took people out of the campaign headquarters and back in to their living rooms. I’ve watched it all, and I watched it all play out again in 2017. The state of Grassroots activism in California is a tattered shambles of GOP organizations that are fractured with dwindling memberships and waning influence. Many people believe they can win elections with Facebook posts, I am seeing the insanity repeat itself in the form of a governor campaign almost 100% dependent on Facebook.
I haven’t changed a whole lot since the days when I was nuking Doug Ose, Doug LaMalfa or other RINO squishes on various blogs I wrote for. I still walk precincts, but rarely had company at the front door in 2016 as opposed to 2008 when dozens of people hit the streets for Tom McClintock over Doug Ose.
You can make bank that those in leadership of BOTH parties have seen this. Outside of a core of fringe, marginal operators, few people leave their computer to do anything.
This is what made my combined effort with Joseph Turner to take down Chad Mayes over the Cap and Trade fiasco even more amazing. We caught lightening in a bottle and had several key establishment figures that aligned with us at that point in time. Having influenced the outcomes of campaigns many times with my Blog no one admits to reading, this was familiar territory.
I also remember what I was like 10 years ago. I’ve honestly written about all of the enemies I made with my bombast in years past. I watched it happen again, except this time is has been guilt by association. A lot of people ask me about Mr. Turner. I won’t disavow my friendship with him as it is not my style to discard political allies without cause.
I learned after getting several political bloody noses that you do not attack spouses. In my political life, someone contacted my wife’s boss trying to get her fired to get to me. In the AD73 Race in 2014, a Guy named Art Sanchez wrote a nasty blog attacking my wife because he was enraged over the opposition research file I unloaded on Ana Bryson. My Brother George was accused of felony money laundering by Doug LaMalfa in print on the front page of the Sacramento Bee largely as retaliation over my annihilation of him in his 2012 State Senate victory over Rick Keene.
One time I called a Congressional Candidate’s (Rick Tubbs) wife Tammy Faye Tubbs. I did end up apologizing directly to her (and her husband) because that was uncalled for. Amazingly, after that apology, I was able to connect with some of Tubbs’ supporters who I consider friends today.
I also learned that with the exception of proof of a cover up or a direct link to the candidate/officeholder themselves, you leave out staff. I lit up Steve Davey and Dave Titus as I am 100% aware their ghastly patterns are known to their current / former bosses, the Gaines. (who enabled it and/or were willfully ignorant of it) It became a valid attack because Steve Davey being allowed to quit by the Assembly Rules Committee (which is in and of itself a cover up) before they fired him begs the question of why the allegedly Christian Conservative Ted Gaines put up with his behavior.
However, I’ve never talked about the police records of staff and usually prefer to say “The legislator was having an affair / inappropriate with a member of his staff” rather than launching an expose’ on the staffer by name. When staff get brought in, it creates victims and gives your target sympathy. It also turns some very valid information ineffective. It also creates a lot of enemies.
In this Chad Mayes saga, I have made new enemies. Some I earned by my own actions and some through the actions of my fellow combatants. I am at peace with it, and those among us that want to be bloggers had better make peace with the fact that people you’ve never met will hate you often times for things you did not do. This is similar to being in office, without the office. You had best be loyal to your friends, because when you become radioactive in a political fight, you won’t have many of them.
So you want to attack the establishment? So you want to take out an incumbent? You had best be ready for retaliation. You had best be ready to be marginalized.
When you line up a target, you’d better have an end game. Are you getting paid like I sometimes am? Are you preparing a viable campaign to run for something? Do you have a stake in the election or cause you are trying to affect? Do you have a plan to take that target out? Most of the time I can answer yes to 2 or more of those questions. I will submit that most that are out chucking keyboard bombs can’t honestly answer yes to any of those questions. As such, they create wounded bears and the only loser is them.
Most will say, “I don’t care what THEY think”. They may not admit it, but they do care what people think of them after all. People don’t get involved in politics in a vacuum. As long as this dynamic exists, the conservative resistance to “the establishment” will get rolled repeatedly. People’s opinions and positions matter, ignore them, discount them and they will beat you.
Even in this effort, several self-styled conservative activists called me a RINO, etc. etc. etc. because I was defending people I knew. The insults and accusations because I defended some staffers I am friends with underscore the terrible state of the Grassroots in California. As their numbers shrink, they are lashing out at natural allies and are still being led by charlatans that want to use them.
Let me summarize, we “got” Chad Mayes. For reasons I will lay out in a follow up this post, I will provide analysis of the current sagas surrounding several GOP incumbents and demonstrate that pretty much all of the GOP incumbents will be re-elected. (were the elections held today)
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