Dear Friends: The Goddess of Flaming Capitalism is is pleased to invite our friend and fellow Tea Party Maven, Lipstick Underground, into the Shrine today to report on the status of the San Diego GOP through the lens of the Tea Party movement.
Here is her report:
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Yesterday I attended a San Diego County Republican meeting that was head-lined by the much embattled CRP Chairman, Ron Nehring.
Nehring has faced a lot of slings and arrows lately from Los Angeles talk radio hosts, John and Ken on KFI AM 640, Conservative blogger Michelle Malkin, and a portion of the party itself. There are accusations of money given from the California party coffers to Schwarzenegger to spend on promoting prop 1A (a phony spending cap that extends recent tax increases by 2 years). There is frustration that it took almost two months for the CRP to take a formal position on 1A, and that no visible spending is happening on a media campaign to defeat 1A. There are also supposed expense reports circulating the internet that appear to include extravagant hotel stays (sometimes in two cities on the same date), huge rental car bills, and questionable expenses like a gym membership. It all compounds growing disappointment by the Conservative base that he is letting the party slip through his fingers.
Let’s just say I wasn’t going to miss the chance to actually meet this guy for all the tax dollars we owed this year.
So at the meeting, Nehring unveiled a major restructuring of the campaign and recruitment strategy for the next two years. To be fair it included most of the technological and new media innovations that have been sorely needed in this party for years.
But as the night drew on and questions were asked and answered, I couldn’t help but see Nehring in the following light:
Not so much the diabolical schemer portrayed in talk radio and blogs, but instead, as a bean counter and master of facts and figures who lacks the charisma and leadership spark to execute much needed modernizations of the state party. Nehring strikes me as a very good right-hand-man…the type who can work out diagrams and theoretical structures, but not the face who should be rallying the troops to achieve real action.
He doesn’t strike me as the kind of guy who has his finger on the pulse of public sentiment…at all.
This is best illustrated by the fact that he is so head-down, focused on numbers, that he can’t see the fatal fall-out of his tepid response to Prop 1A.
Let’s just assume that none of the accusations about Nehring are true…he did do his best to explain and defend the funding and spending issues at the meeting.
It doesn’t change the fact he is doing little if anything in response to our supposed REPUBLICAN governor is running around campaigning FOR, fundraising FOR, and donating huge sums of money TO YES-ON-1A.
So after Nehring left the stage (he wouldn’t take my question in front of the meeting), I asked him point blank, “…We are holding a NO-ON-1A Tax Revolt here in San Diego this Saturday. What can we tell the protesters, about what the California Republican Party has done for and spent on NO-ON-1A?”
Nehring’s answer, “What would be enough? One million? Two? I can’t give a number that will satisfy them. That’s not what this is about.”
My reply, “But this is your chance to vindicate yourself, give those who want to defend the party something to hold on to…,” followed by the issue of folks leaving the party out of frustration, and the lack of funding for NO-ON-1A by the leading Republican gubernatorial hopefuls.
His final statement was, “We retooled the website as soon as we voted to support ‘No’ on all the propositions. We have information on the site, we have downloadable voting guides. The propositions are going to be defeated anyway, so it doesn’t matter what gets spent on it at this point.”
REALLY? It doesn’t matter? The Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association, the California Tea Parties, talk radio, and a growing number of employee unions, grass roots organizations, and business leaders have been and ARE spending what they can on 1A. THEY WILL GET THE CREDIT WHEN 1A FAILS…not Ron Nehring, and tragically for the GOP, not the California Republican Party.
If the CRP would at least MATCH what turn-coat Shwarzenegger is spending on 1A, it would send a valuable message to taxpayers.
But alas…someone with a calculator thinks goodwill is a waste of money.
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MUT’s Money Links: In related matters on the web today, Michelle Malkin notes, “I’ve been seeing a lemming-like increase in hand-wringing articles about the need for a GOP hero.” I am thinking Nerhing isn’t it. Founding Bloggers has noted the “Bizarre Comment of the Day“, related to an odd slogan on a Tea Party sign. Allahpundit dissects another Janeane Garafolo “Tea-Baggers are racists” rant. The money quote: My favorite part is when she wonders why tea partiers weren’t out in the streets last year protesting Bush’s then-record budget deficit; a better question, one Griff Jenkins lamentably didn’t think of, is why leftists who grumbled about Bush’s spending aren’t out in the streets now that Obama’s quadrupled it.
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Reminder:
The Southern California Tax Revolt Coalition is hosting the No-on-1A Tea Party.
Day: Saturday, May 16th.
Time: 11:00 am – 12:00 noon
Place: Spanish Landing Park, San Diego, CA
(On North Harbor Dr. across the street from the north end of Terminal 2 for the airport; GOGGLE MAP HERE)
Following the rally, the Tea Party group will gather to caravan to the John and Ken Tax Revolt at Tom’s Farm in Corona (23900 Temescal Canyon Rd, just off I-15; GOOGLE MAP HERE). We are encouraging everyone to bring their signs and be prepared to have fun. John and Ken is the 640AM Radio Talk show that hosted to 15,000-attendee rally in Fullerton this March.
San Diego Republicans, Bring New Uncertainty to Success on the Internet
By Denver Roddinger
With Barack Obama’s stunning campaign into the Whitehouse, he won his way person to person, neighbor to neighbor, internet friend to interned friend
We chose to look at Red County San Diego to get a picture of how Republicans accross the Country are trying to catch up on the internet. We can take a brief observation to see what brief look at how savy, or not the Republican Party is doing.
California Republican Party Chairman Ron Nehring was recently seen bragging on facebook about the great new splash page on the California Republican Party Website (http://www.cagop.org), while I might have been anticipating a stunning new website ready to challenge the looks of barackobama.com or whitehouse.gov, I see a website that looks as if it’s 10 years old. Thoughts? We’ve also been told through unconfirmed sources’ that Chairman Nehring has found that the internet is a far better resource for finding dates on match.com, than it is in reaching more voters. I am really surprised because I just read the pres release he put out months ago talking about his technology advisory team, I guess they are just not that tech cool.
Rumor also has it that beyond match.com, Mr. Nehrinh is also a member of an Adult Bondage and Submission website, CollarMe.com (screenshot). While we admit, this may not be Mr. Nehring, the collarme.com uses the same name as his personal e-mail, dvchallenger@yahoo.com and many of the other statistics are the same (do the math for age since last logged on). He may not have used it for several years, but whatever floats your boat or tugs your chain. Right? Add Ron as your friend on facebook here.
San Diego Republican Party Chairman Tony Krvaric we give a bit more credibility to his effort. After all, he is a famous hacker the founder of one of the most prolific software piracy groups ever, Fairlight. Some articcles about his hacker past even call him a Cyber Terrorist. Tony is proud to show off on his website (sandiegorepublicans.org, which looks only maybe 8 or 9 years old), that he is a proud user of Twitter, Facebook, Myspace and MeetUp… reaching several hundred friends. A brief look at his facebook shows a great use of facebook to interact with voters, elected officials, using facebook events to recrui attendees for the monthly meeting. We are however concerned that covered amongst these great bits of inormation is a great ammount of offendable material in the mafia wars game he seems to be quite obsessed with. 5 or more posts a day from this violent looking thuggish game, one must wonder how he runs his financial advisory firm with so much time spent on Mafia Wars Games… I sure question the time he invests in the Republican Party (screenshot). Add Tony as your friend on Facebook here.
I am actually very much impressed with Councilmember DeMaio and Nathan Fletcher. They have actually done a very professional job of using the internet to interact with voters using facebook, clean professional websites, and direct e-mail communications. Add Carl as your friend on Facebook here, and Nathan Here.
Lets hope come the 2010 elections, the San Diego Republicans can follow suit of Carl and Nathan and bring more than old man mentality to the internet.
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