Op-Ed: Meritocracy Component Missing From GOP Political Efforts, Specifically in Recall-Gascon Effort

LOS ANGELES, CA  – Yesterday, I thought I would be spending a nice afternoon with friends from the Recall Gascon efforts, which indeed happened, complete with delicious homemade macaroni salad, chicken wings and a special “Victims Matter” cake, honoring our victims who have lost their loved ones through violent crime, and celebrating the work we have done the past few months and the many signatures collected. 

Our “Recall Gascon Now” effort was created to supplement the efforts of a better funded PAC, “Recall George Gascon” that was led by an emotionally unstable Republican woman who felt the need to control the effort and was most successful in alienating key partnerships such as with the ALADS organization and other natural partners. 

We chose not to compete with a different petition and hoped to supplement the overall effort and instead were viciously attacked on a regular basis. But that is now water under the bridge as her effort has now failed and cannot collect the 580,000 signatures needed to qualify the recall as the deadline approaches.

During this time, that campaign has raised $1.5 million and a Republican consultancy firm from Orange County was hired, who was simultaneously trolling for business in Orange County and landed an account with the Larry Elder campaign during the recall. This distraction, no doubt, hurt the Recall Gascon effort. 

But during this time, they insisted they were in charge and had things under control, even suggesting to many involved in “Recall Gascon Now” to step aside and “unite”, but meanwhile, enabled the crazy Republican woman’s deplorable behaviors, such as calling a mother of a victim and having emotional breakdowns, yelling at me at a press conference with lies that I was served a cease-and-desist that I never received, or calling Sheriff Alex Villaneuva’s cell phone and ranting at him for his work with other grassroots groups.

Finally, this crazy woman’s behavior hit a boiling point even with the consultancy groups she was paying, and now the players in the consultancy group and some others have started their own PAC, “Recall DA George Gascon”, essentially throwing her under the bus. 

Yesterday, one of the representatives, who is also getting paid by the consultants, came to our picnic and tried to manufacture some sort of unity. We were happy to hear what that would sound like, though my initial skepticism was proven when he was unable to answer questions and how things would be going forward. Yet, there was an air of elitism as he came without doing his homework and empty handed, in general, to our picnic.

There are two important issues here: how did they allow for such an emotionally unstable person run the PAC and now that they can’t get along, start their own and still think they can be in control of the movement? Secondly, for the amount of money they raised, why were the results so poor? They couldn’t even get to the halfway mark in signatures collected.  And the follow up question is: who made them boss, and why are they talking so condescendingly to donor volunteers who actually produced more signatures collected than them, per capital, considering the “Recall Gascon Now” effort had a tiny fraction of their money?

That money was squandered, of course, with a bloated organization that doesn’t care if there are results or not. This is a big reason I am not a Republican anymore. Seeing this arrogance from the consultant class that continuously loses races, but gets hired based on their resume and not their achievements and results, is the deeper problem of the Republicans.

They are so detached from the common and average man, that they think they can just show up without being regular decent human beings to a social event and think their resume (though littered with losses) is enough to get people to stop what they are doing and ultimately give deference. 

For a national party that speaks so much about being for the common man, these days, the Republicans in California are still stuck in elitism. This dying breed in Orange County simply cannot engage with those in Los Angeles that are experiencing the real effects of Democratic overreach. This Gascon campaign is the perfect example.

I engage with many of these elitists in Orange County and hear their concerns. While they are well meaning donors, digging into the details is not their strong suit. They waste their time on minutiae details like complaining why Larry Elder has a live-in girlfriend, which is none of their business. Or writing blank checks to college kids who end up becoming Democrats in the end, or funding any candidate that is black and espouses something conservative, but without researching their background.

It’s funny but Republicans are acting like the Democrats they claim to hate. They are not practicing what they preach.  Republican efforts are not run as a business. They don’t hold behaviors and results accountable. That’s why a consultancy like this can continue to drain money from the movement with no results needed. 

They refuse to do normal things or engage with normal brands, sequestering themselves into micro communities that never touch the average person. Then they wonder why they lose elections big. They operate under too many rules. In a grassroots group, I was berated for sharing a picture with a girl in a bikini. Their priorities are whack when the ship is sinking.

They’ve lost the entertainment industry and now the churches. That’s on you, Republicans. You refuse to engage with the media or effect any change in the institutions that are impactful to the culture. You refuse to look at yourselves in church and examine your own hypocrisy. That is why your kids have been alienated and many of you are lonely.  Maybe you should stop critiquing others’ lives and Karening, when you can look at yourself and your own efforts and audit the results. Maybe you should not be so obsessed with the titles and the glory which mean nothing in the end. 

I was at a conservative fundraiser last night with Jesse Waters as the keynote speaker. He spent a good part of his talk, about the glory of being around President Trump. I get that it fired up the crowd. But I was bored. I do not like the sycophantry. I like results more. Democrats donate like conservatives. Republicans donate like liberals. Donors do not do their research and they just want to feel good, so consultancy firms and this crazy woman running “Recall George Gascon” get to run around wild. Maybe make the ones closest to you accountable for results first, and we can start winning elections?