Fight for soul of GOP in Orange County

OC Register ^ | Steve Greenhut

[Chet 99]

If you want to know what's wrong with Sacramento, you need look no further than Orange County. That's where Republican Party insiders have cast aside one of the GOP's most principled members in its drive to fill the 72nd Assembly District seat vacated by disgraced Assemblyman Mike Duvall, who resigned after being caught on tape bragging in lurid detail to another assemblyman about his sexual exploits with lobbyists.

The first major candidate to announce his intention to replace Duvall was Orange County Supervisor Chris Norby. If the local GOP were serious about the limited-government rhetoric it constantly preaches, Norby would be a no-brainer choice. As a supervisor, he has been a steady voice for keeping government small and efficient. On the board, he opposed pension-spiking deals that establishment Republicans endorsed and has been an advocate for lower taxes, open government and property rights. Norby has deep roots in the district – he represents a good bit of it in the Hall of Administration and is a former Fullerton council member and schoolteacher.

Instead, party leaders have gone outside the district and are backing a politicians' wife with virtually no political experience of her own. Linda Ackerman is a Republican national committeewoman, but she has never won elected office. Her claim to fame is being the wife of former state Senate Minority Leader Dick Ackerman.

-snip-

Here's how I put it in a Sept. 14 post on the Register's Orange Punch blog: "Clearly, it's more pettiness by a former minority leader who wasn't exactly a conservative icon. He voted for budget deals in '04 – '07. Dick and Linda tried mightily to get the liberal Lynn Daucher elected as state senator – even as Daucher was hosting a fund-raiser for one of the founders of the National Abortion Rights Action League.

[rabscuttle385]

Figures...the OP leadership likes to talk the talk without walking the walk.

[pointsal]

Another illustration of the absolute idiocy of the power brokers in the Republican Party.... pure jerks.

[Amerigomag]

Remember, the Orange County GOP gave us Schwarzenegger. From Pete Wilson's old gang that couldn't shoot straight to the deep pockets of the New Majority, Orange County Republicans have turned the California Republican Party into a political whore who will preform any service for $5.

[Ladycalif]

The Country Club Republicans of Orange County, lead by that Profile in Cowardice Scott Baugh better take a lesson from NY 23 that THE REAL REPUBLICANS OF ORANGE COUNTY are not going to write checks, walk precincts, and vote “R” just because they show up every four years, wave the flag and say “what are you going? vote for a Democrat.”

We will take back our party, or destroy if we must.

The CA Republican Assembly maybe the conscience of the Republican Party but we will be the cajones of the Republican Party.