OC GOP at the Crossroads

Legendary bluesman Robert Johnson penned the immortal song “Crossroads”, where his protagonist sings, ” I went down to the crossroads, fell down on my knees. Asked the Lord above for mercy, “Save me if you please.'” Today, the Orange County GOP stands at a crossroads, only it is taxpayers that need salvation.  In case you missed it, the OC Register’s Steve Greenhut has penned an excellent article on this point, “Fight for the Soul of the GOP”.

Greenhut’s article is well-worth reading for its discussion of the Ackerman-Norby race for Assembly seat AD 72, and the existential issues it raises for the GOP.  A brief excerpted summary follows:

“If you want to know what’s wrong with Sacramento, you need look no further than Orange County, where Republican Party insiders have cast aside one of the GOP’s most principled members in its drive to fill the 72nd Assembly District seat vacated by disgraced Assemblyman Mike Duvall…

If the local GOP were serious about the limited-government rhetoric it constantly preaches, Norby would be a no-brainer choice. As a supervisor, he has been a steady voice for keeping government small and efficient. On the board, he opposed pension-spiking deals that establishment Republicans endorsed and has been an advocate for lower taxes, open government and property rights…

Instead, party leaders have gone outside the district and are backing a politicians’ wife with virtually no political experience of her own. Linda Ackerman [is] the wife of former state Senate Minority Leader Dick Ackerman [who] has been trying to undermine Norby’s political career [since they served together on the Fullerton City Council]…

The GOP establishment has always kept Norby at a distance given that he is driven by ideas rather than pleasing his fellow team members, and in the Ackermans party loyalists have found what they want – establishmentarian deal-cutters who play well with other politicos…

[Dick Ackerman] wasn’t exactly a conservative icon. He voted for budget deals in ’04 – ’07. Dick and Linda tried mightily to get the liberal Lynn Daucher elected as state senator…Dick and Linda wouldn’t support a measure that would have halted eminent domain abuse..The Ackermans … [criticized] … conservative … [Fullerton Councilman] Shawn Nelson …[who] …appropriately blew the whistle on the behind-closed-doors pension increase that the City Council and city unions were pushing ahead…

I have no doubt that Fullerton taxpayers would be saddled with an unconscionable pension increase advanced by the Ackermans’ liberal allies on the council… Linda Ackerman, as a Municipal Water District board member, recently voted for a massive rate increase, in case you wonder where her tendencies lie…

KCBS/TV and the OCWeekly – which broke the Duvall sex-bragging story – are reporting that a Linda Ackerman fundraiser had been caught, according to sources, in a “compromising position” with Duvall in the front seat of a car. [Editorial note: The subject in question and her lawyers categorically deny the allegations reported by KCALs Dave Lopez.]

The party hierarchs and lobbyists are backing the Ackermans, but the grass-roots (based on Norby’s lead in an internal poll) and the party’s most principled members (U.S. Rep. Tom McClintock) understand this is a race between the party’s lobbyist/insider culture and an idea-driven outsider. “

“In some ways,” Greenhut concludes, “This could be described as a race for the soul of the party.”

Greenhut’s conclusion understates the existential issues facing the OC GOP and California GOP at large.  The party has relegated itself to irrelevance and permanent minority party status.  One might expect a resurgence to come from “the grassroots” of the GOP’s dwindling southern California strongholds.  Yet, rather than lead the party from the wilderness, GOP leaders instead charge recklessly onward, unguided by any principle to light the way.

California taxpayers, individuals, and families need salvation from a state government that has been delivered into the hands of overpowerful special interests (labor and business alike).  These interests and shadowy political machines manipulate the electoral process and stack the deck against principled conservatives who understand that prosperity comes from a private sector that enjoys freedom and secure property rights – principled conservatives like Chris Norby and Tom McClintock.  The deck is stacked against them because, for them, government is not for sale –  an electoral dilemma facing any candidate committed to freedom and limited government.

That is why voters must take it on themselves to look past Linda Ackerman’s laundry list of endorsements.  Conservatives scoffed at Obama’s Nobel Prize because he won the prize for accomplishing nothing.  Similarly, Linda Ackerman is awarded endorsements for accomplishing nothing.  Critics of the Nobel Prize rightly recognized that award was pure politics.  Ackerman’s endorsements are the same – pure politics, and worthy of the same scorn.

Voters must take it on themselves to look past the negative campaigning and slate mailers stuffing their mailboxes.  They must educate themselves in choosing their candidate, rather than turn off (the usual reaction to negative campaigning).  The soul of the GOP, the soul of California, cannot be found in Sacramento.  It resides in each of us.  We remain a government “of the people, by the people, and for the people”.  That will only perish when we stop fighting for our principles and our freedom.  Voters should choose the candidate that has spent many years fighting for those same principles – Chris Norby.