The game is afoot. It is clear that Jessica Patterson and team are in full gear. While they publicly say they are “doing well” their actions suggest otherwise:

I’ve been told that at least one Steve Frank supporter (who was a nominee for office and has delegate appointments) has been yelled at for endorsing Steve Frank.

In San Mateo County, Luis Buhler who is an attorney, is attempting to bully the members on that committee in to letting him change the rules so he can unseat the Chairman of San Mateo County. (I wish Buhler would put that kind of effort in to winning elections) At issue is a candidate that failed to make the runoff. The candidate is not considered a nominee and they are claiming that the State Party rule takes precedence over the County Party Bylaws. They are wrong. This is standard stuff with attorneys in politics and the main reason I treat them with contempt when they do attorney things.

It took until late last week, but I finally received reports that Jessica Patterson was actually calling people to solicit support.

A couple of failed nominees for office have been coerced in to supporting Patterson despite what was done to them. More on that later.

Patterson claimed the endorsements of people that had not signed endorsements for her when she sent her original email (this is a typical 90’s era consultant trick). More on that soon. She also claimed endorsements from a County Chairman that is moving out of state.

Patterson and crew attempted to recruit an opponent for a CRP Board Member who is a known conservative that supports Steve Frank. In the race for Chair of the County Chairs, they did indeed get an opponent for Lani Kane of Lake County.

I am also aware that Legislative leadership were and are pressuring members to tow the line and fall in for Patterson. I am not sure how those tactics engender loyalty or passionate support – but this is again another of the hallmarks of 90’s era political consultants.

I am expecting that the threats, games, intimidation, manipulation and such will intensify after the first of the year. Despite their public spin, the establishment knows they have a fight on their hands trying to get Jessica Patterson and her record of failure re-elected.

This brings me to the Convention Itself. The CAGOP By-Laws stipulate a 30-day advance notice. Note that Jessica Patteron has purged the entire CAGOP staff, save one person. This means that the current staff are all compliant to the current “leadership” of the party. As such, it is impossible to see their actions as anything but sanctioned by the party leaders to be.

The Staff of the CAGOP (also called CRP) have not sent out any details about the convention that is supposed to be from Feb 19-21. This is unprecedented, as it has been typical for the convention to be noticed and announced months in advance.

Why could this be? It is simple. Jessica Patterson can not win re-election without a Proxy drill. 44% of her votes came via proxy in 2019. I did an expose, but in short it was 259 out of 548.

As it stands right now, Sacramento County is locked down due to newsolini’s COVID edicts. Even before getting locked down, Sac County was still under a 50 person gathering restriction. Secondly, the State Party By-Laws mandate that the election convention is in Sacramento County.

It appears that they are hoping against hope that the convention will be able to be in person and as such are waiting until the last minute to put the official details out as they hold faint hopes they can do an in person convention to enable proxy voting. This is how you abuse incumbency.

Jessica and Crew should know that Steve Frank and crew are prepared to deal with any contingency – even as I call out the current CAGOP staff and “leadership” for playing games with the convention details. Team Frank will run a superior proxy drill if need and if it is a virtual convention with mail ballots, we will perform well there.

A second key issue – The election was certified on Dec 11, 2020. As of the writing of this blog Dec 21, 2020 no nominees have received any communication from the state party regarding their eligible appointments. It is the opinion of this blogger that this is being done in an attempt to give the team of the current chairwoman lead time to contact these people and is also being done in order to enable attempts to confuse would be appointers. My guess is that the forms will be timed to arrive between Christmas and New Year’s in order to increase the chances that some of the more distant or disconnected nominees will miss the form to make their appointments. This is not the behavior of a confident team.

BTW – I’ve gotten several reports that staffers have been calling delegates whose appointments are expiring to see if they are being re-appointed, they are doing this before the forms have even been sent. Once again, abusing the resources of the party and incumbency.

Patterson’s crew know that a Virtual Convention with Ballots By Mail present a variety of problems. The level of difficulty goes up getting people to fill out and mail their ballots. Proxies allow direct control of the votes, and are very easy to obtain. On the other hand, mail ballots are secret and allow people to vote their conscience and not what they are told to do. Controlling an outcome with a rigged process is a 1990’s era consultant mainstay. Persuading real party activists would be healthy and productive for the party and is an enathma to the same group.

I am going to use this blog to put all of the insider machinations out in to public view as sunlight is the antiseptic to control agents that have shredded the party. Remember, we have written that the people behind Jessica Patterson have hundreds of thousands of dollars (if not millions) riding on keeping her in office. They will do pretty much anything to protect that – and note we do not even know the election process or how the votes will be counted. Pay attention to all the details, they are critical.