An Open Letter to Bill Simon

Team Simon | 6/28/03 | TEAM Simon

[TheAngryClam]

Dear Bill:

Rumors are persisting that you are readying to actively campaign for governor once again.

We hope these rumors prove untrue. If you become a candidate you WILL hurt the efforts of so many who’ve worked so hard for the last year; first for yourcampaign and now to make this historic recall happen. You will hurt the Republican Party, spoiling its chances of replacing Gray Davis. By splitting the Republican vote, you will also ultimately hurt yourself, forever damaging your credibility in the Party.

We can only assume that you are getting considerable encouragement from campaign professionals to run, probably from the same campaign professionals who destroyed your chance to unseat Gray Davis last year. We cannot believe you have sought the opinions of a wide range of party leaders, donors or grassroots activists about your potential candidacy. If you had, you would have received a resounding “PLEASE BILL, DON’T RUN!”

We know of no Republican who is objectively in support of you running in the recall election, in fact quite the opposite is true. Republicans we have spoken with are mortified at the prospect of your candidacy and its effect in reshaping the recall campaign. Aside from the obvious prospect of you splitting the Republican vote in this winner take all contest, you will give Gray Davis ample ammunition to mislead the voters about the recall.

If your campaign is anything like the stumbling, clumsy performance we painfully but nonetheless enthusiastically supported last year, the Democrats could conceivably manage to elect one of their own, or Gray Davis could even survive the recall. The Simon for Governor Campaign has already once saved Gray Davis from the jaws of defeat. This performance does not need a sequel.

The conflicts of interest of those supporting your potential candidacy are very transparent. Some see their power disappearing before their eyes, some see you as little more than a welfare check, but they all share little more than a yearning for the limelight once more. Bill, we beg you to look beyond these tainted motives and seek the guidance of those who genuinely have your best interests, and the best interests of the Party, in mind. Your wife Cindy is opposed to you running again. That should tell you something.

We beg you not to file as a candidate for Governor. Please, break away from your former and current political handlers and speak with the party’s leadership, donors and activists. You will find that you are liked and respected and people are willing and eager to support you for a statewide run sometime in the future. You will also find a united group who are against your rumored candidacy.

Bill, we hope you will listen to your former supporters, and ignore those campaign professionals who served you so poorly in the past and not file as a candidate in the upcoming campaign to replace Gray Davis. Now is the time, that only together can we renew the California Dream.

Sincerely,

Team Simon Volunteers

*TEAM SIMON VOLUNTEERS are a statewide group of Republican Activists. For the past year they've spent countless thousands of hours working the grassroots leg of the campaign for Bill Simon and are now as busy as ever collecting signatures for the Recall.*

----------- If you have any thoughts about Bill Simon's prospective candidacy, let us know. If you would not like to recieve future email updates, please respond with UNSUBSCRIBE in the subject line Email address.

[Owens08]

My only worry is that McClintock won't have the money necessary to run a full-throated race.

I couldn't agree more that based on the issues, he's not only one of the best in the state, he's on par with anyone in the country. He just isn't the best fundraiser the Party has ever seen.

And when you consider the fact he has a really tough race to retain his state senate seat in 2004, he needs every penny he's got.

I'd love to see Tom in the Governor's office, but not at the risk of him losing, and then as a result of him running, Hannah Beth-Jackson taking over his senate seat...Just a thought to consider...

[Owens08]

In this election, turnout is everything. It won't be like a typical election where appealing to the proverbial 'swing' vote is critical to success.

In this race, building coaltions withing the conservative wing of the Party will be critical. Dick Riordan CANNOT do that. If conservatives don't show up, NO Republican can win. Period.

Turnout will be so low, that despite one's political persuasion, we're going to have to come to grips that ONLY a conservative can win this time.

[b9]

I'm pretty naive about this, but I really thought the goal
was to unseat Davis.

I see Arnold as one who can garner support from
disillusioned Democrats as well, and while he's
not your favorite conservative (I don't believe he's anything like Davis) would you truly not be able to hold your nose and vote for him to support our party?

[TheAngryClam]

But talk about a phyrric victory if we get someone like Arnold who's going to raise taxes anyway in office.

Of course, as I said before, if he runs, he'll win.

[CARepubGal]

Hannah Beth Jackson? Friend of Hildebeast?

[John Lenin]

Turnout will be so low, that despite one's political persuasion, we're going to have to come to grips that ONLY a conservative can win this time.

You act like this state would embrace a real conservative. Reality says it will never happen, if you want to give the election to Bustamante just so you can stand on principle, be my guest.

[CARepubGal]

Honestly and sadly, NO. Why? Mike Bloomberg. Arnie would be a destructive force and with a state GOP in bad shape, this would be a really really bad thing. Arnie would support the GOP into the grave.

[TheAngryClam]

That's the one.

McClintock's senate seat is one of the more vulnerable Republican ones we have.

Do we really want Davis's dirty tactics beating the bejesus out of him during the recall, only to have him have to face more of that less than a year later?

Owens08 was being kind in saying that McClintock isn't a good fundraiser. Let's put it this way: Bill Jones's primary campaign had better fundraising than Tom.

I think he has a good future that I'd be behind, but this right now isn't it.

[CARepubGal]

Crap. And Davis and friends will fight dirty. Is there anyone besides the small list who can step up to the plate?

[TheAngryClam]

Nope. Welcome to the hell that is the California GOP.

The highest ranking elected official we have right now is either a state senator or a congressional representative (depending on how you grade them).

That means we're working from the bottom on name ID and experience.

[Owens08]

Attempting to quantify the criteria for our best candidate, I think we can all agree on some basics.

1)He must have money. No money equals no chance.

2)He must be conservative. Swing voters won’t play nearly the factor they normally do. People will be prone to hearing the Republican message for the first time. Having it be a watered down version won’t do us any good.

3)He must be politically savvy. Mistakes like Bill Simon’s cannot be tolerated this time around. We have GOT to have someone who knows what they’re doing.

4)We’ve got to have someone energetic. Some have suggested Bill Jones, but he bores the dead. Ditto for Bill Simon. Those of us interested in politics will sit through any speaker and listen for their message. But with the teenie-tiny attention span of the California electorate, we need someone who is animated and exciting enough to command attention.

5)We need someone with a track record. If someone like Arnold runs, and says he can fix things, how easy will it be for Gray Davis to simply say, “Prove it.” People like Tom McClintock, Darrell Issa, etc have a proven track record to point to and say, “Here, take a look.”

6)Whoever runs, must have a solid command of the issues. When people like Arnold say they don’t want to talk about the issues, it serves the purpose both to deflect attention from any controversial stance they might have, but also acts as a way to avoid looking stupid.
Q:“Arnold, how big is the annual state budget for the State of California?”
A: (silence)

7)Lastly, whoever runs must be aggressive. One of Bill Simon’s faults was his pacificity. He was afraid to make anyone upset. We need someone in the mold of Patton. “We’re going to advance all the time. We’re going to go through the enemy like crap through a goose.”

I don’t know what other people think, but in my opinion any candidate should be measured against a similar criteria and have our efforts go behind the one who best fits such a mold. Splitting our efforts spells defeat, as does backing the wrong horse.

[CARepubGal]

Is the CRA involved or is it dividing the party too much? I like the CRA (a big shock I know) but they tend to be a bit farther to the right than the local party honchos are happy with (and the abortion issue comes into play here for some bizarre reason). It is a hell and I am not too thrilled about jumping into hell feet first.

[Owens08]

There is one more candidate that I think is our only hope. His name is Congressman Darrell Issa.

He doesn't have the name id (yet) to win statewide, but he has a lot of positives working for him.

1)He's personally worth over $300million, and isn't afraid to spend what it takes to win.
2)He's conservative. He's got a 94% lifetime rating from the American Conservative Union. 100% from National Right to Life. 100% from Gun Owners of America.
3)The Party owes it to him. The ONLY reason this recall is going to qualify is because Congressman Issa has spent over $1million to make that happen.

He's already declared his candidacy for Governor. He already has hired a staff to run. Unless Tom McClintock wins the lottery tomorrow (you never know), I really think uniting behind Darrell Issa is our best/only chance at replacing Gray (Joe) Davis with a REAL Republican.

[b9]

"Splitting our efforts spells defeat, as does backing the wrong horse."

So if you had to pick one, which horse would you gamble on?

[TheAngryClam]

Not that I'm currently aware of. They'll probably get behind McClintock if he goes for it, otherwise either grudgingly support Issa (because Issa has a lot of questionable, but mostly unsubstantiated baggage... still it makes one wonder).

I don't know how many Simon believers are still in control. The people I know are all angry at him for leading conservatives to a defeat snatched from the jaws of victory.

Then again, when endorsing for the 2002 primary, they went heavily for Simon, and then nearly 40 for the psychopathic Nick Jesson, roughly double those that went for Bill Jones (who while a legislator back in the 1990s brokered a deal to raised our taxes, so is understandably unpopular. But still, Nick Jesson?!?)

[Owens08]

Darrell Issa for Governor!

If that fails to become a united chant of grassroots activists like us, I think we'll end up with a Democrat (either in Party of in spirit) governor.

[CARepubGal]

Is Issa ok with Israel? There is a big huge community of folks (wearing black hats and funny haircuts plus loads of evangelicals) who will not vote for a guy perceived as pro pali.

[TheAngryClam]

#33 seems to say Issa (just a little bit...)

Personally, if Arnold runs, I think he's going to win, even though I probably won't be hopping on that bandwagon.

I don't really like Issa all that much myself- the guy comes off as pretty unstable and has huge amounts of questionable events in his past (several car theft charges, rumors he burned down his business for the insurance money, reports of supporting Hezbollah, etc.).

Still, the way it's looking, he probably is the best candidate in there right now.

Condoleezza Rice, please step forward, though. Apart from her affirmative action support, I think she rocks.

[Owens08]

The national organization of which CRA is a member, the National Federation of Republican Assemblies (NFRA) holds their bi-annual convention the first weekend in August (8-10 I think). On the Sunday of that convention, the CRA will hold a Board meeting to endorse a candidate for Governor.

They supported Darrell Issa in his run for Senate in 1998, and I bet they'll support him again now.

[CARepubGal]

Jesson is a complete tinfoil hat wearing nutball. I am Baptist and would not vote for him for anything. Yikes. Issa is someone I hear mixed stories about (Worldnet is not reliable) and I am not comfortable with him (Davis would shred Issa).