By Jack Lee
An open letter reply to Steve Thompson, et al,, Chairman of the Butte County Republican Party and others, who recently wrote in to Post Scripts. His letter can be seen below in comments:
Dear Mr. Chairman,
With all due respect to your position and as a former Chairman myself, let me say that Im disappointed, but not surprised that you have not addressed my concerns made earlier. Let me recap so you can’t easily avoid them:
1. Assemblyman Keene entered into a “private” arrangement with Dan Logue to succeed him. That is, he quietly selected Mr. Logue and this was done according to Mr. Keene’s own statement where he freely admitted that it was done several years in advance of this current election. Call it a backroom deal, a quid pro quo arrangement, or whatever; the fact is he did it and I have a problem with such an early selection. This selecting a successor business short circuits the routine election process.
2. By quietly picking his own successor and getting all the election details lined up and ready to go, this arrangement greased the election for one guy, Dan Logue. That shouldn’t happen. He was given the authority and prestige of Mr. Keene’s high office to get all the support and money he needed to the chagrin of all other challengers. I guess this is why many of Keene’s deep pocket contributors are the same for Logue, but that should not surprise anyone; this is all part of the game plan. This is the kind of strong advantage usually reserved ONLY for incumbents and it’s why incumbents are so hard to dislodge once the get into office, they have all the advantages of money and notoriety and this is why the voters approved term limits.
Do you deny this is a huge advantage for a new candidate like Mr. Logue, so much so that there is no longer a level playing field?
3. By using the prestige and the good works of his own office and even his own staff to support and bring along his [chosen successor] he is handing off the baton, keeping other candidates at bay and forming a future alliance all at once. It’s in theory a win-win for himself and Mr. Logue. Do you deny any of this?
4. Further, an incumbent choosing his own successor has the effect of not just discouraging the competition, it also restrains all the new ideas that come with a field of new candidates. Would you deny this is true Mr. Chairman?
5. The name of the game is…. money. Money equals power and power equals money. Its that simple.
This not a bad situation, it’s a terrible situation and we need reform to restore equal opportunity to our elections. The high cost of just running for office is a real big problem because a candidate almost can’t get elected… unless they take the big money and that comes with a lot of risk for them and for us voters. Just look at all the special interest legislation in California! They all do it, the republicans and democrats and the longer they stay in office the more addicted they get to the money!
It’s why politicians never stop money raising from their first day on the job. Raising money has become too much of what it means to be a good legislator. Taking in money and wriiting legislation is a dangerous combination. Would you deny this?
Mr. Keene, the outgoing incumbent, still has a whopping $220,559.19 in his “Friends of Rick Keene” fund and his “Rick Keene for Election” fund shows $647,957.29 …as of 03/17/2008. And he’s not even running for anything…yet.
6. But, the comical part is you people say I’m not a good republican because I won’t play along with this stuff and I want people to know about it? Again, with all due respect Mr. Chairman (and your tag team), in the real world most people think just like me and if you don’t think so you are out of touch.
Voters are tired of the games and sick of the special interests that buy off politicians and buy our elections. We want no non-sense legislation that place us before the special interests!
In summary: I’m making an ethical stand for what I believe and I wish more republicans would do the same. If they did maybe this party would not be in such a mess. How many more races do we lose before you guys get it?
We need to stand on principle, ethics and ideas and turn this into action! This is what made our party great and the lack of it will surely be our demise!
In case you have not noticed, we have failed our voter base in California and lost all but a super majority in the state legislature. Congress is next and the Presidency is at risk. When what we are doing ISN’T working and our ethics are in question it’s time for a change and that means we backtrack to those days when we really stood for something! Principles, ethics and ideas…then we act swifty to make those words into action!