Republican Corner: California Voters Compared to Lindsay Lohan
By Post Scripts on November 12, 2010 6:00 AM 

Dear Readers: Having spent Veterans Day with my wife and kids I didn’t prepare a column for this week. However I ran across this story from a former Californian who had some tough commentary on our recent election. I will be on duty this weekend and unable to respond to posts but please do enjoy and see you next week!

I found the following article in the Wall Street Journal
Steve

By Allysia Finley

Listen up, California. The other 48 states–your cousin New York excluded–are sick of your bratty arrogance. You’re the Lindsay Lohan of states: a prima donna who once showed some talent but is now too wasted to do anything with it.
After enjoying ephemeral highs and spending binges, you suffer crashes that culminate in brief, unsuccessful stints in rehab. This cycle repeats itself every five to 10 years, as the rest of the country looks on with a mixture of horror and amusement. We’d feel sorry for you if you didn’t constantly flip us the bird.
Instead, we’re making bets on how long it will be before your next meltdown. Oh, wait–you’re already melting down.
You’ve racked up nearly $70 billion in general obligation debt, and that doesn’t include your $500 billion unfunded pension liability. Your own analysts predict you’ll face a hole of at least $80 billion over the next four years.
Your government’s run by a brothel of environmentalists, lawyers, public-sector unions and legislative bums. When they’re not taxing or spending, they’re creating regulations and commissions like the Board of Barbering and Cosmetology and the California Blueberry Commission. Many businesses would leave if it weren’t for your sunny climate.

Which may explain why you’re so obsessed with climate change. If your climate changes, no one, including your Hollywood friends, would tolerate you anymore. So you’ve created a law to tax carbon emissions–no matter that it will kill jobs.
It’s not as if you don’t recognize that you’ve got problems. Roughly three-quarters of you say you’re headed in the wrong direction, according to a recent survey by the Public Policy Institute of California. You’re even more depressed than Illinois and New York, and you’ve got sunshine 10 months of the year!
You appropriately give your government low marks–28% approval for outgoing Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, 16% for the legislature–yet you continue to re-elect the politicians who got you into this mess. Not a single incumbent state legislator lost re-election this year, including one Democrat who died a month ago (no joke). What’s scarier is that you’ve just given almost all of the keys to statewide offices to Democrats.
Jerry Brown will be your new (old) governor. This is the man who acted as a gateway drug to your spending addiction three decades ago when he gave public-sector employees collective bargaining rights. Helping enforce your wacky laws will be Lt. Gov-elect Gavin Newsom, the San Francisco mayor who flouted state law by allowing same-sex marriage. On the plus side, he has nice hair and loves you just the way you are. This is what he had to say after winning his race:

“We’re nothing but a mirror of our consistent thoughts. You tend to manifest what you focus on. If you look around for what’s wrong, you’ll find it. But as all we know up here in San Francisco, when you focus on what’s right, you see it all around you. . . . There is absolutely nothing wrong with California that can’t be fixed by what’s right with California. . . . If you’re from another state, you’d love to have the problems of California.”
You’ve also just re-elected Barbara Boxer (that’s Senator Barbara Boxer) to a fourth term. She boasted on election night that it’s her “eleventh straight election victory, and what a sweet one it is . . . [since] everything was thrown at us, including the kitchen sink, and the stove and the oven and everything, millions of dollars of negative ads from known and unknown opponents, millions and millions of dollars.”
We’ve tried to help you, California. Some spent millions on campaigns to entice you to change your reckless behavior. And you told them to kick rocks.
So here’s our final warning: When you inevitably crash and burn, don’t count on us to bail you out.

Ms. Finley, a lapsed Californian who still wears Birkenstocks, is an assistant editor of OpinionJournal.com.

Republican Corner: Chairman’s Report
By Post Scripts on November 5, 2010 6:00 AM | No Comments

By Steve Thompson, Chairman of the Butte County Republican Party

Writer’s note: It is customary for the county chair to report on election results each season, with a hope to improve in the coming years. Now that the election is over, I hope to use some future column space talking about the structure of our party, as well writing about some non-political topics I’ve always been interested in. As always, thank you for reading my column and do feel free to comment.

I would like to start by thanking everyone who helped out this year at Republican Headquarters. We absolutely could not make it without a strong volunteer force, the majority of which came from the local Republican Women organization and members of the TEA Party.

It seems the results are a pretty mixed bag this year, with some wins and some losses. That’s better than two years ago when we were looking at only losses, but there’s still a lot of ground to gain if we’re going to save our great nation.

I’m proud of the gains conservatives made nationwide. America has recognized Obama’s leftist agenda for what it is and decisively dumped it in the trash. Unfortunately California (which used to lead the way politically) has chosen big government programs and European socialism over jobs and economic prosperity. With both Meg Whitman and Carly Fiorina, who ran two different campaigns yet both losing, it is clear that democrat voters simply outnumber republicans in this state. As more and more producers and earners leave for greener pastures, while more and more non-producers seeking public assistance move here, we are leering ever closer towards the tipping of the cart and ultimate collapse of our state’s budget.

On the local level we have some decent results to be proud of. State Republican candidates carried Butte County very handily. We also had some gains at the city level. Tim Titus (Paradise), Cheri Bunker (Oroville), and Mark Sorensen (Chico), all non-incumbents endorsed and backed by the Butte GOP, won their races for city council. Our own Angela Thompson received the highest number of votes in her re-election to the Biggs City Council. Oroville’s mayoral race was actually between two republicans, and we extend our congratulations and support to Linda Dahlmeier, Oroville’s new mayor.

In the days leading up to election, our volunteers made literally thousands of phone calls and door to door contacts with local voters. We also registered over 1,400 republican voters in the last 3 months, possibly breaking some of our old records with numbers we haven’t seen since the 90′s! Perhaps most importantly, we are seeing the various factions of our local party, slowly but surely, coming back into the same room and working together. I think this bodes well for 2012.

Obviously not all local results were rosy. We supported several candidates for school board who tried very hard but didn’t make it. Worthy of special note would be Rachelle Zucholillo of Paradise, whose “in your face” campaign against the teachers unions earned her the nickname of “the scrappy mom” candidate.

We were also displeased to see liberals maintain control of the Chico City Council. Chico is a beautiful city with literally no jobs or future for graduates of our local college. Yet those same students continue to vote against their economic interests on the dubious advice of their professors. Normally I’d be hopeful that they might see the light when they join the workforce and start paying taxes, but there’s no work to be found in this state anymore.

And jobs, finally, is what it really boils down too. You can’t have jobs without business anymore than you can have transportation without oil. The left has foolishly taught themselves to despise both, and the left now controls California completely. The loss of Prop 23 means the loss of at least a million more jobs for our state. I wonder which liberal city will be the first to stand brave on their principles and ban all gas stations? Time will tell. In the meantime I suspect Jerry Brown will become to California what Obama was to America. He will recruit more voters for the Republicans and bring about a sweeping change of the legislature. Wishful thinking or not, we will be there to help make it happen.

Two years ago, when I was a new chairman and Obama had taken the White House, Republicans felt demoralized and downtrodden. I have enjoyed this season thoroughly, and appreciate all of our new friends in the TEA Party movement. Together we have new hope and vigor, and we are coming back to throw Obama out in 2012.

CHECK OUT THE “CAMPAIGNS” TAB TO VIEW THE LIST OF CANDIDATES ENDORSED BY THE BUTTE COUNTY REPUBLICAN PARTY!

Join us in celebrating candidate victory tonight at 896 East Ave in the old Hollywood Video building, 7:00 p.m. – Polls close at 8:00 p.m.

Republican Corner: Budget Talk
By Post Scripts on September 24, 2010 6:00 AM | 2 Comments

By Steve Thompson, Chairman of the Butte County Republican Party

I wanted to give all of our readers a heads up that the CA State Legislature may very well be holding budget votes soon. It is rumored that legislators will be called to the capitol on Monday. In light of this I thought I’d spend a moment talking about the budget process and why it’s so late this year.

As you all know, the two houses of the California Legislature have to agree and pass a budget before it gets sent to the Governor for his signature. That means that 80 assemblymembers and 40 state senators have to reach an agreement. Both houses have democrat majorities and so the democrats, namely Assembly Speaker John Perez and Senate Pro Tem Darrel Steinberg, have the power to call for a vote on any issue. In California, it takes a 2/3 majority to raise taxes or to pass a budget, so republicans have more leverage with democrats here than on other issues.

As I mentioned, the democrat leadership in the legislature can call for a vote on the budget at any time. They could have locked legislators in the building way back in June and forced a vote, had they wanted to. Instead we are now in late September and we have broken a record for the latest budget yet.

The sticking points for this budget remain the same as last year. Republicans want to cut spending and Democrats want to raise your taxes. The state is bringing in less revenue than what it spends. Currently we’re roughly $19 billion in the hole. There is no possible way to close a gap this large without making cuts to program (entitlement) spending. There is simply not enough money left to pinch with tax increases.

In the next week you will hear a lot of cries about evil republicans and how they want to starve children and old people. The public employee unions will probably spend millions attacking them in advertisements. This is because they know we cannot cut spending without firing a lot of state employees. I realize that this sounds bad, but consider that CA state government has grown over 40% in the last decade. While the private sector is having to cut back and lay off millions, government jobs have been relatively safe. What’s worse, they want you to pay for it all.

Unfortunately, as I already stated, there is not enough money to tax out of the people. Even if we raise taxes and put even more taxpayers into default on their mortgages just to pay government, it won’t be enough to close the gap. Last year, the CA legislature passed the biggest tax increase in state history. That’s right, Republican legislators crossed over and compromised the way liberals wanted them too. Sadly we ended up with less revenues coming in after the tax increase than before. Further proof that tax increases do not work!

It is time for California to cinch up its belt and cut the fat. Our state budget is more bloated now than ever, and the only way we will balance our budget is to drastically cut spending. It will not be pretty or fun. There are millions in this state depending on assistance from those who produce. In fact, while 12% of our nation’s population lives in California, we shoulder over 30% of the welfare burden. It’s time for some other states to start pitching in and helping those in need. California can no longer shoulder the load.

For those of you who do not like seeing our budget so terribly in the red. Consider all the businesses we have driven out of our state with excessive regulations and taxation. Consider all the jobs and tax revenues that those businesses create. If you want a prosperous state, you have to have a prosperous business climate. If what you prefer is draconian environmental laws that give us no freedom to breathe, than be prepared for massive unemployment and suffering. The grapes of wrath are right here folks. Hope you enjoy the taste.

POST SCRIPTS
Republican Corner: Party Endorsements
By Post Scripts on September 17, 2010 6:00 AM | 10 Comments

By Steve Thompson, Chairman of the Butte County Republican Party

Ever wonder how candidates for office come by their endorsements from the political parties that support them? While visions of smoke-filled rooms may fill your head, it’s a lot more bureaucratic (and boring) than that. The subject of endorsements by the Butte Republican Party came up in the newspaper recently, specifically in local non partisan races, and as chairman I wanted to take this opportunity to explain some of our policies to the general public.

I should make clear that the party has not always endorsed in local non partisan races. I can remember several years ago I was at our republican fair booth and a former chairman of the party showed up. He saw that we had a Wahl for City Council sign up and gave me heck for it. It wasn’t how things were done in his day I guess.

Over the last decade the Republican Party, both locally and nationwide, has been going through an internal reformation. The moderate wing and the conservative wing have been in a tight contest for control, with the future of our party hanging in the balance. Many of us in the conservative wing feel that the party should be more active at the local level, and that we should do whatever we can to help identify conservative candidates at the local level and give them our support. Non partisan races were originally intended to limit partisan influence, but the partisan influence was never removed, just moved to the background. The downside is that now voters have a hard time knowing where the candidates stand on issues that matter to them.

You see, if I look at a ballot and I see the designation of “R” or “D,” I may not know for sure what that candidate stands for, but at least I have an idea of their general views. Take away the designation and now I have very little to go on. The remedy to this of course is for voters to educate themselves better, but time is limited and the local races often go overlooked. The result is that a conservative voter might end up voting for a very liberal candidate (and vice versa), which will eventually tend to frustrate and disenfranchise voters. For example, a few years ago, college students who were registered Republican received letters stating that Scott Gruendel was “the Republican Choice” for city council. Anyone who knows Gruendel knows this is false, but many students were likely fooled. Had they been able to see Gruendel’s registration on the ballot, they could have made a more educated choice. In the long run I believe partisan designations are good for the political process.

There is also the annoying occurrence of slate mailers. You know those mailers with a republican sounding name that show up with endorsements of Wally Herger, Dan Logue, Doug LaMalfa, and Jane Dolan??? It leaves you thinking, how did she get on there? As a county chairman I get a lot of calls from angry voters wanting to know how this happened and how can they stop it! All I can say is pay close attention to the asterisks and look for the official logo of the republican party when casting your vote.

With all of this considered, the Butte County Republican Party recently decided to get more involved in local elections. We have been actively vetting candidates to determine whether or not they match our values and deserve our support. We have already made some endorsements this year and we plan to make more. We will do our best to publicize our endorsements so that the voting public will know where we stand and who we support.

Our process is by no means perfect. We have a general set of rules (our bylaws) that we have to follow. All of our members are elected to the positions they hold, and it takes a 2/3 vote to cast an endorsement, so it’s not an easy process. Because we have members from throughout the county (Chico, Paradise, Oroville, Biggs, etc) we have members who can look at candidates from an objective viewpoint and decide if we should be supporting them or not. They’re also real people too, with jobs and kids and their own individual priorities. They have the same capacity for human error as you or I, but they’re good-hearted people and I have faith in them.

One of our general guidelines is that we try not to favor one Republican over another. When republicans face each other on the ballot, the party should generally let the voters decide for themselves. The exception to this would be if a flat-out liberal RINO was running and we felt an obligation to point this out. There have been mistakes made over the years though, and the process is not perfect.

All of this leads up to the current election, and more specifically the Chico City Council race. Anyone who pays attention knows we have a liberal majority on the Chico City Council, and that the lone conservative, Larry Wahl, is leaving the council. While they are not allowed to list their party designation on the ballot, it’s hardly a secret where any of them stand. It is however, perfectly legal and just for political parties to tell voters who we support and why. To suggest otherwise would be a violation of our 1st Amendment rights.

Although we haven’t taken a stand in every race, we did in the Chico City Council race. You can stop by Republican Headquarters on the corner of East and Cohasset (the old Hollywood Video building) and find out more. Currently we support the following candidates:

Chico City Council:

Bob Kromer
Mark Sorensen
Bob Evans

Chico Unified School District:

Erik Lyon
Sean Worthington
Dean Stefanides

For more races, stop by HQ or check out our website at www.butterepublicans.com

Thank you all again for being patient readers. If you have questions about our endorsements please post them and I will try to get back to you with an answer.