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OCREC sends mailer warning Republican voters not to mistakenly vote for Bill Segal by: Chairman Lew Oliver

OCREC sends mailer warning Republican voters not to mistakenly vote for Bill Segal

 JULY 29, 2010

 
The Orange County Republican Executive Committee announced today that it has commenced sending a mailer to more than 45,000 likely primary-voting Orange County Republican households to warn Republican voters not to accidentally vote for Bill Segal because they think he is a Republican, when in fact he is a long-time Democrat with an extensive personal and family history of financial and other support for liberal Democratic candidates and causes such as Barak Obama, John Kerry, Al Gore and ACORN. The mailer refers to and is supplemented by a website "segalisademocrat.com" which documents Bill Segal's liberal Democrat record.

 Orange County Republican Chairman Lew Oliver: "We were driven to take this highly unusual action because nearly all of us in the Republican leadership have talked to numerous Republican voters who said they planned to vote for Bill Segal because they thought he was a Republican. When told that he is in fact a long-standing Democrat, they are incredulous, and tell us they will no longer vote for him. We think it is an important part of the party's mission to, at minimum, make sure that our voters know who is and who is not a Republican candidate. For many of our voters (and for many Democrat voters for that matter), it is important information they wish to know and we are going to give it to them."

 "It’s a free country.  If Republican voters know Bill Segal is a Democrat and want to vote for him anyway, that is of course their right. But we think most of them won't if they know the truth. Most Republicans believe the future of the nation hangs in the balance, and they are anxious in this election year to send a message from the Capitol in Washington all the way down to the county admin building in Orlando."

"We are focusing this unprecedented effort specifically on Bill Segal because we believe that he and his campaign - both now and in the past - have made conscious and unique efforts to deliberately appear to be a Republican to Republican audiences publicly, while quietly supporting liberal Democrat candidates and causes behind the scenes.  He does this because he knows he need significant Republican votes to win the August primary.  Call him a chameleon, or call him a wolf in sheep's clothing; the fact is that we rarely see this kind of confusion in any races, and we are determined to set the record straight. By contrast, the other Democrat in the race, Linda Stewart, never tries to be anything other than the liberal Democrat she is. No Republican voters we know of are confused about her party affiliation or record."

"Finally, to those who think that party isn't or shouldn't be relevant in so-called "non-partisan" elections, we make 2 points about the Orange County Mayor's position: (1) This position controls a billion dollar plus county budget that has a profound impact on a whole range of local spending and tax issues that directly impact our pocket books and (2) This position is the most powerful local office fundraising platform in a 100-mile radius. If Bill Segal becomes mayor, he will use the position to raise money and support for a wide range of liberal Democrat candidates and causes from Barak Obama to ACORN's successors; he has done it in the past as Commissioner and he will do it again in the future as Mayor."

Thank you

 

WHY THE PARTY SHOULD NOT AND DOES NOT TAKE POSITIONS IN PRIMARIES

At most of the OCREC training classes for new members, the subject of primary endorsement comes up. I am often asked why OCREC doesn't take sides or endorse in primaries and why we don't "screen" or "approve" or "review" candidates for this or that characteristic. As the campaign season gets into full swing, I thought it might be timely and worthwhile to address this topic in detail. 

Usually, the justification presented for endorsements or statements of support (or condemnation) falls into one of 2 categories: (a) that the party has a duty or obligation to ensure that only "true" or "pure" republicans should be allowed to reach a general election ballot (i.e. no "RINO's" or lunatic fringers), or (b) that the party should endorse the strongest possible candidate for a general election, not necessarily the purest Republican ideologically. As you can imagine, these two reasons are rarely BOTH true simultaneously. In Orange county recently, the arguments in favor of endorsements have tended to fit into the first category (demand purity/exclude RINO's), and it is to that argument that I will chiefly address myself, although the arguments against the other justification are mostly the same. 

While the local and state party organizations have a process for formally endorsing candidates, that process is [understandably] difficult. It requires special notices, opportunities to speak, extraordinary majorities, etc.  OCREC has not endorsed any candidate in a primary in nearly a decade, and I would like to underscore once again the major reasons why I think that it is ALWAYS a terrible mistake for the party (at ANY level) to endorse in primaries, and why I hope that we will not even consider such an option in the 2010 election cycle:

1. It's not our job and it's not in our constitution. Many OCREC members pride themselves on being strict constitutionalists. OCREC has a constitution. The prime directive of our organization is to elect Republicans. There is not one single word about the our volunteers "guarding the party's values" or "approving candidates" or "weighing in on the purity of candidates" or anything like it. We were not set up to do that and it's not part of our mandate. 

2. Centralized party authority has a very nasty history. There are two very notable party organizations whose written charters contain clauses directing the party to inquire into a candidate's ideology and values to determine whether or not such candidates properly reflect the values of the party, and should therefore be allowed to stand for election on that party's ticket. Both had very careful interview and vetting processes to ensure that the candidates adhered to the party platform with little or no variation, and had mechanisms for instantly removing or punishing candidates who vary too far from the party's carefully constructed and adopted orthodoxy. These two parties are the National Socialist Workers Party of Germany (NSDAP a/k/a NAZI) party of the 3rd Reich circa 1924-1945, and the Communist Party of the Soviet Union circa 1917-1989. Communist parties in China, Venezuela, Cuba (and the UNITED STATES incidentally) have similar clauses.  I submit that these are not great examples to follow. 

3. Central Party Authority is Contrary to Republican Philosophy. Most Republicans believe in the 10th amendment, local control of school boards, and government and other decision-making closer to the people. We believe that individual Americans are more qualified to make decisions about their families, their faith, their local schools, their businesses, their health care, their elected officials, etc. than any bureaucrat (or any party official), at any level, on any given day. Our nation was founded on that [at the time] very novel idea.  We do not need a King or jobs czar or a nanny state to tell us how to run our lives.  That is why, whenever possible, Republicans believe in devolving decision-making down the ladder to the smallest level of government closest to the people, and, where possible, directly to the people themselves. It would therefore be peculiar indeed if we Republicans would on the one hand decry some faceless bureaucrat telling us - for example - what our health care choices are, while on the other hand arguing that we - as a party officials - should tell our fellow Republicans who to vote for in primaries.  We can't have it both ways. Either we trust our fellow Republicans to make their own choices or we do not.  

4. Republicans believe in Free markets: let the best candidate win. The founding fathers adopted the free speech component of the first amendment for two very important, but very different reasons. The first is that they believed that men are endowed by their creator with a RIGHT to speak their minds, and the founders were determined to say so explicitly in case anyone later failed to remember or honor what the founders took for granted (the main argument against the 1st amendment was that it was unnecessary because the rights were already so "obvious").  But the second reason was far more practical and utilitarian: the founding fathers believed in MARKETS, including most notably the market of IDEAS. They understood that a right to free speech allowed many divergent points of view to see the light of day, and believed [properly] that free citizens are more likely to make good decisions if they are exposed to as many points of view, arguments and counter arguments as possible. Unless and until we make party membership in the United States restricted to those who pass some litmus test or tests (which was how it worked in Nazi Germany and Communist Russia), whoever wants to register as a Republican is a Republican.  THEY are our market. Our system lets THEM decide, and rightly so I think.  

5. We aren't qualified to pick. Let's face it, you and I are the "fanatics". Our friends and family and co-workers think we are borderline nuts (at least mine do). We are part of OCREC because politics is a passion for us. We have essentially appointed ourselves to these positions. Only 5% of us won our positions in a contested race, and 86% of those who won were the first name on the ballot.  But the reality is that no group really represents anyone perfectly, no matter how ideal the selection process of the representative.  Both parties' activists tend to be more right or left of center than rank and file voters. However it is rank and file voters who ultimately elect our representatives, so they are much likelier to have a handle on the "right" candidate than we are.  It's a given of organizational and game theory that the larger the group polled, the better the decisions. Large groups of voters on the whole will do a better job of choosing than any self-selected oligarchy.  There will be times (plenty of times) when those of us who are party activists will be unhappy with the choices of primary voters. That's inevitable and part of the process. But more often than not, the process works.  

6. We will fight each other rather than Democrats. The endorsement battle inside the party will be unpleasant because the passions are very high, even more so lately. We cannot afford such battles when we have to keep our eye on the general election ball. When the primary is over, the volunteers for the candidate who was not endorsed by the party may just sit out the general election in anger. We can't afford that. We need every hand on deck and every boot on the street. There is no reason to burn bridges with our fellow volunteers by fighting an unnecessary and largely useless battle. 

7. Voters usually don't care what we say. Once all the infighting is over, all the plots and deals have been made, and all the bodies buried, the effort to create a party endorsement will be largely for naught since voters notoriously pay little attention to what parties say. For better or worse (I think for the better), Americans like to make their own decisions in elections. They have no history at all of caring what parties think. Oddly enough, they LIKE to have choices. Can you blame them? Don't you?  In short, the effort to endorse is not only divisive and destructive, it is also mostly useless and generally fails to accomplish its objective.  

 

8. We will lose general elections. Voters want to have a say in their party nominee (don't you?). They don't like other people making decisions for them. If they feel that they were consulted and had their say in the primary, then they are more likely to accept the results of the primary and get in line behind the winning nominee. This is the American way. This is how teams work. You have to give everyone their say before you can expect them to back someone else's preferred choice. There is an implicit "social contract" involved: I will support YOUR nominee THIS time if your candidate wins the primary provided that you support MY candidate NEXT time if my candidate wins the primary. If you exclude voters from the decision on the grounds that you know what's better for them, they will take their marbles and go home in the general election. The recent case of New York's 23rd Congressional district is a classic example of what happens when this rule is ignored and parties (or anyone else) meddle in decisions best left to voters. In a time when public sentiment is running strongly against democrats, and in a district that has been 100% Republican since Lincoln, where the Republican won 65/25 in 2008, a Democrat stole an historical Republican seat with less than 50% of the popular vote.  This was simply inexcusable. Pundits from all over the political spectrum will try to make ideological hay over the result. They will claim that the candidates were too liberal, or too conservative. Both arguments are wrong. The Democrat won because the Republican and Republican-leaning voters failed to unite because they were never given a legitimate choice as to who their nominee would be. Conservatives were annoyed that moderate state party officials picked a moderate Republican candidate against the wishes of conservatives, and moderates were annoyed because outside forces drove their moderate candidate out of the race. No one thought the decision or the process was fair.  Consequently, the anti-Democrat vote was split, resulting in the election of the Democrat. Had there been a primary to select the nominee, if all the voters were given a choice of nominee, if the voters generally agreed that the selection process was a fair, local affair, and not some play toy of the national media, then the Democrat would not and COULD NOT have won. It doesn't matter if conservatives are 90% of primary voters or it's the other way around. Either way, we need the other 10% of the voters if we are to win a general. We simply cannot afford to squander ANY votes by imposing our will from above. The stakes are simply too high.

9. You can - and SHOULD - still support your favorite candidate in the Primary - OCREC not only does not discourage our members taking part in primaries, we actively encourage it at every opportunity. I emphasize this in all the training classes and wherever I can. Primaries are where we express our preferences and back our favorites. They are also essential "practice" for the general election. We can't all sit around doing nothing until September.  There is no prohibition against individual members of OCREC endorsing in the primary. Go ahead and do it.  If the primary is fair and we all think we had a chance to get our candidate to the general, then we can ask everyone to unite behind (or at least vote for) the party nominee. 

10. You don't HAVE to work for candidates you don't like. OCREC has no mandatory precinct walk or phone bank requirement. No member is ever required to do anything for any Republican candidate. Our oath of office is a prohibition of support for Democrats, not a requirement to support all, or even certain, Republicans. You can always "sit it out". If enough Republicans "sit it out", then the market will eventually force a re-alignment of candidates. Victories teach modest lessons. Defeats teach powerful lessons.  Voters are not completely stupid. Eventually, they will realize the hard way who they need to nominate if they intend to win. 

11. This is what adults do. We compromise. Politics is a team sport. Ronald Reagan had the best quote EVER on this subject: "someone who agrees with you 80% of the time is a valued friend and ally, not a 20% traitor". One man's "sacred principle" is another man's triviality. We are allowed to have different priorities. All 300 million+ of us. That's how free nations work. Everyone has different value sets. You take your allies where you can find them and cobble together coalitions as best you can. Perfection is a goal, not a reality, and men who insist that there is "no compromise with their principles" are engaging in arrogance, not idealism.  The nation isn't perfect and no one gets their way all the time. Welcome to civilization. There are words for people who insist on getting exactly what they want every time: dictator, hermit, 4-year old. 

 12. Chill. Elections run in cycles. The last cycle killed us. There were a lot of reasons and plenty of blame to go around. Like many of you, I think much of our mess was caused by Democrats, but also a fair share was caused by the actions or omissions of Republicans. Tough choices were avoided. Too many elected officials wanted to have their cake and eat it too. The chickens have come home to roost. That said, we are Republicans because we know in the core of our guts that the programs proposed by Democrats just flat won't work. Sooner or later they will fail and fail badly. They HAVE to. If they don't, then you and I have been mistaken our whole lives and we are in the wrong party. But we know better. Failure, even disastrous failure, is coming for the Democrats. Barak Obama is Jimmy Carter all over again, only worse. The question isn't whether the nation will swing back our way, the question is when it will swing back (and of course how much damage will the Democrats do in the meantime).  Have faith. 

It is my hope that you will agree that we should let our primary choices be made by our primary voters and not go down the path of negative internal battles over ideology. Save those for the democrats.

Thank you.
Respectfully submitted,
Lew Oliver, Pct 539
Chairman  

 

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