CA: Moderates take state GOP chairmanship, but what comes next?

Sac Bee ^ | 2/24/03 | Dan Walters

[NormsRevenge]

Sunday's election of Silicon Valley lawyer Duf Sundheim as chairman of the California Republican Party ended another skirmish in the decades-long struggle over ideology and tactics that has contributed to its poor performance in recent elections. But there's no evidence that the war is over.

[NormsRevenge]

Shawn Steel will be on KSFO 560 in the next hour, between 8:10 to 8:30 AM PT is my best guestimate.

[NormsRevenge]

Ping

[sheik yerbouty]

More of the same defeatism comes next. They must stop bowing before the Caliban.

[Illbay]

Moderates take state GOP chairmanship, but what comes next?

My prediction: Complete extinction of the GOP in California.

[FastCoyote]

Duf Sundheim is one great guy, I knew him at Stanford and might use him as my lawyer someday. That said, moderate Republican politics are doomed.

[Uncle Hal]

The California Republicans is in very bad shape. So anything is an improvement. It cannot get any worse than it is now. I heard this is the first time in over 100 years that no GOP member holds a state wide elective office. The party is in bad shape in the Golden State.

[conservative_2001]

The problem with the California GOP is that both sides have the maturity of 3 year olds. If a moderate gets elected 27th Assistant Vice Chairman of County X, then conservatives take their ball and go home. If a conservative gets elected 27th Assistant Vice Chairman of County Y, then moderates take their ball and go home.

Both sides need to grow up. It's already difficult enough for a Republican to get elected in that state, it's impossible when both sides are sabotoging each other over petty disputes. Fight the Democrats, not each other.

[Redcloak]

Mmmmm... Duff...

[Simmy]

Agreed. I don't care this this guy is a "moderate", as long as he can unite this party, and start winning elections (winning with true moderates, or even, 'gasp' conservaties. Not untraliberals pretending to be moderates like Riordan), I will be happy.

[marajade]

The Dems just have a huge registration advantage in CA... something like a million or so more...

Until that registration advantage disappears the Reps can forget it...

[Simmy]

The only reason why we lost every statewide office last election, EVEN WITH THE DEM ADVANTAGE, was because...
A: Simon was inept
and
B: Parskey is a moron who put his "moderate" views ahead of the party. Making conservatives candidates (one of which, Tom McClintock, who nearly won!) have an additional disadvantage to them (i.e. less money to fight the Dims).

Part of it is turnout. The turnout last November was extremely low especially for Democrats. Unfortuently, because of Simon's ineptitude and the fractured party thanks in part by Parskey, so was the Republican turnout. All we need is a unified front, and Dims not to turn out.

Now, I NEVER said that winning in this state will EVER be easy. But this state is WINNABLE.

[bayourod]

"Duf will be FAR more independent of Rove and"

I was a Texas Republican Party official in 1978 when we hadn't elected a state officeholder in a hundred years. We hired a young Univ of Texas graduate student named Carl Rove to help train Congressional campaign managers. He helped elect the first Republican governor and within 16 years every state officeholder was Republican.

My personal experience with Mr. Rove is that his power stems from his ability to communicate simple facts of political reality. He doesn't suffer fools and I've never heard of anyone arguing with him after he has presented his analysis of a situation.

You will be lucky if Rove stoops to advise your CRP just one time. And if you don't follow his advice he probably won't waste his time on you again

[marajade]

Why is it moderates are always to blame? I'm a moderate but still vote for conservative republicans over any democrat.

How could you factually demonstrate that it was only moderate republicans who stayed home on election night?

[Simmy]

I'm not sure this was directed at me, but I will respond to it anyways. First, I didn't say that moderates were the only ones that stayed home. All I said was that Republicans didn't turn out in the last election (moderate or conservative).

Now, the reason why moderates are blamed, rightly or wrongly, is because, well, Parskey is a moderate. Parskey, whos job was to unite the party (conservative and moderate) has done the exact opposite and split the party between moderates and conservative. His oversized ego prevented conservatives to get the resources to win, and he put money on candidates that, weren't winnable but were "moderate" (Tom Campbell, Matt Fong, Richard Riordan [sure, people can say he could win now, but unlike Bill Simon, he didn't get though the grinder of the Davis machine and, due to Riordan's extremely liberal views that puts his "moderate" term in doubt, probably wouldn't get the base], Bruce Pearson).

Now, I'm fine that the current chairman is a moderate. As long as he unites the party and starts winning, I'm okay with that.

[marajade]

If Republicans themselves whether conservative or moderate can't decide to vote for Republicans that is a Republican party issue and all are to blame...