In the week since Governor Schwarzenegger has appointed Susan Kennedy to be his new Chief of 
Staff, GOP grassroots volunteers and donors up and down the state have been reacting strongly to the news. Whether it is her former positions as Gray Davis’ Deputy Chief of Staff, Executive Director of the California Democrat Party, Senior Staffer to Senator Dianne Feinstein, or her post as Executive Director of the California Abortion Rights Action League — news of the appointment is really ginning up ire.
Apparently the members of the California Republican Party Board of Directors have been really been feeling the heat. So much so that they held an emergency telephonic meeting of the Board of Directors late last week, and coming out of that meeting have asked for an in-person meeting with Schwarzenegger to discuss Kennedy’s appointment, as well as go-forward plans between the Governor and the State GOP. One area that will certainly need to be ironed out is who will represent the Governor on the Party’s Board of Directors. Some have expressed concern that it might be Kennedy. While this is clearly not going to happen (then again, if you had asked me a week ago, I would have told you that Kennedy would never be tapped to run the administration), plans will need to be made.
Traditionally, the Governor’s representative to discuss party matters, sit in on strategic meetings, and be a liaison has been the Deputy Chief of Staff for External Affairs. The good news is that this is Mindy Tucker-Fletcher, whose GOP credentials are a mile long. That said, Mindy’s new boss is Kennedy… So how would that work? Does she report to her own boss on all things BUT her ‘off duty time’ activities with the party? That seems awkward. We’ll see how this develops.
"The amount of e-mails and phone calls from the very volunteers who toiled hard in the recall to elect the Governor are quite upset," CRP Southern Vice-Chairman Keith Carlson told me yesterday. "They are looking to their State Party officers to do something about this appointment. Of course, it is the Governor’s appointment to make. But we can certainly make him aware of the impact of his decision."
State GOP Vice Chairman Ron Nehring had this to say to me on the subject, "The Governor is a political outsider. That’s been a strength for him with many voters. But in this case, it means the he probably didn’t fully appreciate the severe impact this would have on the Republican volunteers and donors this party absolutely relies on. We’d be doing him a disservice if we didn’t let him know what those who have supported and campaigned for him are feeling."
The Board of Directors has sent a widely distributed e-mail to "California Republicans" in which the say they "strongly disagree" with the Governor’s selection of Kennedy as his Chief of Staff.
In that note, an e-mail address is provided to send your thoughts to CRP Chairman Duf Sundheim in advance of that meeting. So if you would like to send him a note, click here.
Tom Del Beccaro, who is President of the Association of the 58 County GOP Chairmen has penned a column for today’s FlashReport on all of this Kennedy controversy that is worth reading.
We’ll see what comes of the meeting, but in the meantime, more and more GOP leaders are coming out publicly, vocally critical of this decision, the latest of which being Republican Board of Equalization Member Bill Leonard. He joins the chorus of Senate Republican Leader Dick Ackerman and Assembly Republican Leader Kevin McCarthy, both of whom have been critical.
One GOP Assemblyman who is close to the administration told me last night, with a request to be anonymous, "I hope the Governor takes a sheet from the playbook of President Bush. He made a well-meaning nomination with Harriet Miers, but underestimated the animas it would generate. He quickly withdrew that appointment, and made a new selection that would unify his base. One can hope, right?"
As Matt Drudge would say… "Developing…"
Jon
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