FR friend Jeff Flint, over at his Red County/Placer website has a blog post that spells out a potential scenario where Tom McClintock may not have the valid signatures necessary to be a candidate for Congress in the 4th District.
Never mind that the post reminds you of a theory that might be advanced by Mel Gibson’s character in the movie Conspiracy Theory, stranger things have and will take place in the world of politics.
It’s worth checking out, for sure.
April 9th, 2008 at 12:00 am
This is total nonsense and Jeff Flint knows better. Tom McClintock’s campaign turned in far more valid signatures than they need to appear on the ballot. He could have gotten 100,000 more signatures if there had been any point.
The legal precedents in this area favor “substantial compliance” anyway, meaning that it takes a great deal more than this silly allegation to get a candidate thrown off the ballot.
We should not let “Cabana Boy” Doug Ose’s smear tactics succeed in distracting us from the fact that his only claim to residence in Placer County is the pool shed that he allegedly rents in Granite Bay, in a house with an odd assortment of unrelated adults (Green Party members, included). Doug Ose is actually registered to vote in that house!
No wonder Ose is trying to distract us from his legal problems (i.e. election fraud is still a felony in California).
April 10th, 2008 at 12:00 am
Jeff Flint’s post and conspiracy is silliness, and an insult to our Republican Placer County Registrar of Voters Jim McCauley. Jim’s office checked the signatures and he had the needed valid 40 signatures. Why Jeff thinks he knows so much better than Jim McCauley… who knows? But it does indicate how low the Ose people are willing to go.
April 12th, 2008 at 12:00 am
Jeff, if you’re reading this, how are Mark Denny and Jeff Gibson doing? Oh, and Laurie Campbell too?
Been named an “unindicted co-conspirator” lately? Pleaded the Fifth Amendment lately?
[For those too young to remember it or new to CA, the following was taken from an Aug. 10, 1996 L.A. Times Orange County edition article (on page B1):
Prosecutors Friday named a top aide to Assembly Speaker Curt Pringle as an “unindicted co-conspirator” in last year’s Republican scheme to put a spoiler Democrat on the ballot in the 67th Assembly District election, according to papers filed in Superior Court.
Jeff Flint, deputy chief of staff to Pringle (R-Garden Grove), allegedly told a GOP aide that he would get the spoiler candidate to fraudulently sign nominating petitions, according to court documents filed Friday. Those documents label Flint a conspirator in the scheme for the first time, though grand jury testimony supporting that accusation was revealed last spring.
Flint, who was running the recall campaign at the time, was named in a motion prosecutors filed Friday in the felony election fraud case against another GOP aide, Rhonda Carmony. In naming Flint as a co-conspirator, prosecutors sought to use against Carmony statements allegedly made by Flint in furtherance of the conspiracy.]
For you to accuse anyone of ballot access fraud gives new meaning to chutzpah.
April 13th, 2008 at 12:00 am
That was a purely political prosecution, and its main target (Scott Baugh) was cleared
of all charges in OC superior court in 1999.
I don’t have any connection to the Ose-McClintock dispute, but Jeff Flint did nothing
wrong in 1995…. in fact he was trying to assure the Republican majority voters chose
in 1994 would not be stopped by 2 faithless Assembly members. That Curt Pringle
went on to become Speaker shows he succeeded.
April 19th, 2008 at 12:00 am
Republicans shouldn’t accept the Whitewater defense.
There is nothing wrong with recruiting someone of another party to run for an office.
There is nothing legally wrong with having campaign operatives of your party gather signatures for a candidate registered to another party in a recall election, but it’s very politically embarrassing if it is found out and makes the news.
HOWEVER, there is absolutely something wrong with instructing those campaign operatives not to sign the papers as circulators and instructing the candidate to sign those falsely as circulator. It’s multiple criminal violations of the Elections Code, done in order to avoid political embarrassment.
Of course Scott Baugh was cleared – nobody said he told Campbell to falsely sign the papers, or Denny, Gibson, et al. to not sign them.
Richard Butler had no motivation to lie about who gave him instructions, and he fingered Jeff Flint.