No I don't know Ray personally, but I have listened to him on occasion, I believe, on talk shows such as the Michael Reagan Show. (Do you?)
In the past, I recall I had been favorably impressed by his conservative values and his stands on issues.
It is a real pain to listen to people battle it out like this in public.
I would be very reluctant to do to any friend of mine what Ray did to Tom. Maybe Ray didn't sell out Tom personally, but at least he seems to have sold out politically (ok?).
I dunno, maybe I'm missing something...
[I went back to Ray's letter. Ray made some mistakes in judgement IMHO. First, he thinks Issa has good character and is electable. I don't, based on my experience as a voter and consumer of Issa's company's product. Ray thinks Tom ran just because he thought he could win and was better than Issa. I don't view that as controversial, and I think Issa dropped out because he was vulnerable, not just because others such as Tom ran against him. No one can get as far as Tom has gotten through all these days without something powerful to offer voters. I'm checking almost daily in my area and there is still strong support for Tom-- I could never sell Issa to anyone, friend or acquaintence. Ray ignores reasons for Tom staying in the race: Tom as a foil in the debate; Tom as insurance against an Arnold dirt-bomb; Tom sucking up support from Democrat crossover vote in a race where the frontrunner Republican has high negatives along with both Davis and Busta; etc. Ray missed a lot and maybe he's not as bright as I would normally expect a conservative in his situation to be.]
ElkGroveDan says (in so many words) that he's very close to "ground zero" on the entire Tom McClintock story. I do listen with my heart as well as my head, and I think ElkGroveDan is telling the truth here. So far, his predictions to me have been right on.
If you likewise have a close view of the situation, feel free to share thoughts or info, publicly or otherwise. I try not to be dogmatic.
Politics are politics, but friendship is another plane. Just my opinion, and you know what Dirty Harry says about those ;-).