
The State GOP’s Permanent Quandry
Mike Spence’s excellent post below best describes a long running disagreement, between GOP Moderates and GOP Conservatives, about how the California Republican Party should be run.
Everyone complained about the Chairmanship of John McGraw (who I served as Treasurer for) from 1999-2001 but he was the only State Chairman I’ve seen that didn’t hand the keys to the Party over to the: 1. Party nominee for Governor or 2. Party nominee for President. He stood up to the Bush "people" in California in 2000 and was widely excoriated by party Moderates and some Conservatives for failing to "cooperate" (read, become the waterboy for) with Bush’s staff and volunteer leaders here.
Because of McGraw’s "lack of cooperation" (read: he told them to go to hell) we "reformed" the Party so that it is effectively controlled by a small group of leaders (making the Board virtually irrelevant) and handing the Party over to Gerry Parsky from 2001-2004 for the Bush re-election (in which they invested zero money).
The… Read More