I am really not sure of exactly how the California Republican Party’s voter guide came out with omissions of party positions, and inclusion of positive statements about measures on which the party has no position. 

The whole thing is troubling and it leaves one to conclude that somebody or somebodies made some subjective calls about which party positions were really important versus which ones were not.  Now what criteria were used to determine what was left off, or what should have been left off that was actually included eludes me.  Was it based on what interests had money and which ones did not?  Because often times political parties will take principled positions for or against ballot measures, knowing that the position of the party may not have a financially well-off ally to help promote that position.

Anyways, in the California Republican Party voter guide, there is an entire page devoted to why Proposition 1D, the so-called Education Bonds, are a good idea.  When it actually came to someone’s attention that the CRP membership did not vote to endorse 1D, instead of scrapping the mailing (which would have been a very expensive proposition), apparently a little disclaimer was printed on the full page of platitudes on 1D, saying that the party has no official position on the measure.  No reasonable person would look at this mailing and determine that the little disclaimer is in any way a remedy to the full page full of positive statements about 1D.

Well, to make matters even worse, now a mailer has gone out to Republican households from the Yes on 1D campaign, where they take the part of the State GOP mailing with the positive things about 1D and reprint it.  But guess what, not only do they NOT tell voters that the CRP does not support 1D, but they actually print right under the platitudes, "From the California Republican Party’s VOTER GUIDE."

I think this is terrible.  Somehow positions (or decision not to take positions) that were adopted by the State Republican Party Central Committee have been warped, omitted or worse.  A trust was betrayed and the membership deserves an explanation.  On the short term, a press release denouncing this latest Yes on 1D mailing as misleading should be issued by the CRP – although it may involve some explaining about how the originally voter guide sent out by the party was, itself, misleading. 

When I tried, as a CRP Member, to get more information on what happenned with the voter guide mailing, I was told that the matter was confidential.  Hardly a satisfying answer.

It would seem from the cheap seats that some special interests are using the California Republican Party for their own purposes, and there’s nothing funny about that.

See the relevant page of the Yes on 1D mailing by clicking the link below.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, October 31st, 2006 at 12:00 am and is filed under Blog Posts.