The Scott Baugh Manifesto
Last week the OC GOP Chairman Scott Baugh addressed his cohorts at the periodic Republican Central Committee meeting.
His speech was much anticipated and much commented about the next day in such venues where anybody gives a damn about what Baugh has to say. I waited a few days to display my disdain for such antics.
It seems Mr. Baugh tried to channel some of the angry energy of the “Tea Party” movement to zap some life into his team.
Baugh unloaded on RINOs; on candidates who get the GOP endorsement and then take public union money; on the “slick consultants” who call the shots. It must have sounded pretty good to the true believers in the audience; but the Repuglican cadre that has turned Orange County into its own little plantation – people like John Lewis and Ackerman, Inc. must have rolled their eyes a bit. Electeds in the audience who gladly took money from police and fire unions were no doubt (quietly) offended and/or frightened, depending on their dispositions, and this includes just about every Republican city councilman and Supervisor in the County.
I’ve got four problems with Mr. Baugh’s manifesto.
First he coughed up a speech very much like it last year in the wake of the epic McCain disaster and a year of Democrat rule. Apparently not much came of that one; so why expect anything else from the ‘Pugs?
Second, he seems to have failed to address the virus of office seeking that infects the party and that has been manifested in the Ackerwoman and now Harry Sidhu strains. In fact, Baugh was a supporter of Linda Ackerwoman and her fraudulent campaign of deceit in the 72nd – which pretty much tells you all you need to know about him.
Third, the idea that a candidate can’t take the money of a public employee union and still represent the public interest is curious. By the same logic these folks would be unable to resist the blandishments of corporate lobbyists who donate to their campaigns. Hmm.
Finally, Baugh ignores the wider problem of Repuglicanism – the malady of being a Republican for fun and especially profit. Calling for ideological purity seems to ring hollow when it’s pretty evident that the game is being played for one’s own pecuniary interest. Will we ever hear Baugh denounce Curt Pringle’s 50 billion dollar high speed idiocy? Probably not. Baugh uses his own political connections to lobby here and there, including a highly lucrative contract awarded by fellow ‘Pugs on the Board of Supervisors to lobby in Sacramento.
So in the end, to quote the Bard, here’s what I see in Baugh’s address: a tale told by an idiot; full of sound and fury and signifying nothing.
Well put.
Pringle is especially a disappointment. He knows damn well that High-Speed Rail is already a financial disaster and will get even worse — except he needs it to visit his new train station in Anaheim. This legacy edifice was to have been supported with private investment, except he couldn’t get anyone to write him a check, so it’s all on his citizens and probably the rest of us. When he’s termed out, he’ll just use his consulting firm to shill for Parsons Brinkerhoff and the other stooge rail builders and keep the pressure on to build ARTIC (even though Anaheim already has a perfectly good, and underused, Metrolink station).
Curt can’t even get Disney to put up any money for any of this, but then why should they as he was bought long ago.
Amen! Shame on the media for believing this speech mattered.
Baugh is a consultant. He and his ilk make a mint off their party collections. That is not right.
I am glad I quit the GOP.
I’ve read a whole bunch of takes on Baugh’s speech over the last few days, but this was by far the most honest.
Baugh wants complete control of the Republicans in the county. It is proven that the folks who usually supported by the union usually win so they take that chip away they even the playing field so their candidates win.
Good article; it does make you think. I still like Scott Baugh. “Do we have to ‘be quiet’ or ‘give in to some things’ when we know they are against Core Values?” That ‘high-speed train’ boondoggle seems that way: politics is a science of deceit as well as moral comprimise. I would like to free women, convicted of murder/manslaughter BEFORE 1998, because of factual deniel of “battered woman’s syndrome” and (I hate to use this term because of misuse by left-wing opportunists) racism; those truly unfairly screwed under our three-strikes law; and harshly punish those criminals convicted with both direct and circumstantial evidence of wrong-doing.
You think that is possible, in our party, without the same lying, backstabbing, and political favoritism of which Baugh is accused?
I want Baugh and Co. to denounce pringle’s HSR rip-off and fight to deny the ARTIC joke any Measure M funding. When that happens I’ll know they really mean it.
Shit-dumping Sidhu was a great start. The job’s a long way from being done.
I really believe there has been a change in the way many in the GOP establishment (like Scott Baugh) view the political reality of 2010.
The Nelson versus Sidhu campaign really highlighted the difference between those like Scott who recognized the fiscal peril RINOism has gotten us into, and people like John Lewis and his underlings who have spent the past year and a half promoting incompetent Democrats like Tom Daly and then the unspeakable union tool, assclown Harry Sidhu.