For a number of years now the San Diego Republicans and the Orange Republicans have argued good-naturedly which organization was most capable of doing the basic jobs of a county party: registering voters, recruiting candidates, turning out the vote, and raising money. The record has been back and forth, with surges in activity from either county that thinks it’s visibly slipping.
So as a San Diego partisan who lived and worked in Orange for a couple years in the Fuentes era, I was interested in an email that come through the pipes today describing what sounds like a little competition between the two counties. I like competition. Competition is usually pretty good in determining winners and losers. Looks like Orange County Young Republicans and San Diego Young Republicans have a little wager over which club can recruit the most volunteers for the Republican Party during the dog days of summer. I hear the winner gets bragging rights and BBQ – and that the losers are humiliated in a manner not befitting description for the gentle readers of this blog.
I also hear the Orange County Young Republicans are getting lapped like I did when I ran the Three Mile in high school track. And when I called around in Orange today to ask about this humiliation I got the response – from an otherwise reasonable person – that of course San Diego was ahead, because "when you are number two you just have to try harder." Hmmm… that may be true, but as an employer I’m generally more interested in the driven guy in the number two slot who is going to work himself into the number one slot or die trying. And maybe it’s the Irish in me, but I’m not a big fan of folks who give you the high hat cause they think they are to the manor born.
Well… there’s some more time on the bet so we’ll see what happens. I’d be more interested in having regular, published competitions between the county party organizations and their affiliates. Compete in winning Democrat majority nonpartisan seats and you might see Monterrey up on top. Commitment of resources to down ticket seats maybe San Bernardino. Who knows given fair measurement of like counties who’d really be the top dog and have real bragging rights. Who knows? But a little competition and a lot of transparency in results goes a long way.