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Melissa Fazli and Gil Cisneros, composite photo.
AD-55 candidate Melissa Fazli, who is challenging Democrat Gregg Fritchle for the right to run against Assemblyman Phillip Chen this fall, yesterday made waves in the overlapping CA-39 Congressional race with Twitter accusations that candidate Gil Cisneros made an improper sexual advance at her at the California Democratic Party (“CDP”) convention last spring.
Before this gets a word further, I want to remove myself from the story, so I will need to make extensive disclosures about both races — none of which will involve direct conflicts of interest regarding my daughter’s “compliance officer” business because I don’t know who if anyone in either race is among its clients. So skip this indented part unless that interests you.
- I think that I voted for Melissa Fazli to become an CDP delegate back in January 2016. I hadn’t known her going into the meeting, but as I recall she gave an impressive speech.
- I tried to talk Fritchle from dropping out of the AD-55 race in Fazli’s favor, being under the mistaken impression that he didn’t really care much about running this year, might not even be aware of Fazli’s candidacy, and might want to focus on a local race this year. It went quite poorly. Fritchle has since been publicly persnickety about people not rejecting Fazli in his favor, given that he is the endorsed candidate. I’m not particularly invested in that race.
- Since that time, I learned some disturbing information about Fazli’s financial dealings with a vendor that has soured me on her, but I have not confronted her about them and given her a chance to answer the charges, nor do I recall writing about them, so I’m happy for others to zero this fact out until and unless someone else comes forward with accusations. I simply can’t deny that it has affected my own thinking.
- In CA-39, I supported Jay Chen (as did Fazli) and still dearly with he’d gotten the extra vote or two needed for the endorsement. Then I was leaning towards Phil Janowicz. Then I decided that I’d best stop supporting people for a while.
- I’m on record as saying that Cisneros seemed to be a better fit for the district than his mail rival, Andy Thorburn, but that I (perhaps atypically for my district) preferred Thorburn’s style.
- I’m on record as doubting that either of the other two leading Democrats, Mai Khan Tran and Sam Jammal, can win, respectively due to lack of political skills and ties to the district and lack of money and campaign skills. I’ve said that I thought that NPP Karen Schatzle likely had the chops, but I haven’t checked her latest fundraising figures and given that she’s a non-Democrat I couldn’t endorse her anyway even if I wanted to. While I respect her, I’m not currently inclined to vote for her.
- I’m on record as being very, very, very negative towards the DCCC’s strategy in this campaign season all across the country, which from what I can tell is to try to purge the party of Berniecrats. That Cisneros was recently made a “Red to Blue” selection therefore doesn’t impress me, but out of fairness to him it also doesn’t really bother me. The candidates they choose to promote aren’t the problem; they are.
- I am, on the other hand, very concerned about the massive hit piece “report” against Thorburn. What I know of it suggests that at least parts of it are highly misleading at best, but I haven’t finished my draft of the analysis of it, which I hope to publish over the weekend. My biggest concern about this race is that I don’t believe that Cisneros is the one who initiated it, although he may have bought it and adopted it once it was presented to him. It looks to me like the hit jobs that the DCCC has done against other Berniecrat candidates in Texas and elsewhere. I haven’t written about this yet (and would not do so today, absent Fazli’s charges forcing it out of me), because I first want to give Cisneros a chance to answer my questions about how the report — which he has at least strongly implied that he commissioned himself — came into being. His having received it from DCCC and adopted it as his own strikes me as bad, but not necessarily disqualifying; lying NOW to cover up the DCCC’s role in producing the report, to save their hides, would in my opinion be disqualifying.
- The rest of what I have to say can be said below.
Fazli tweeted the press release found below, which has been tweeted enthusiastically for the past day by the NRCC (the Republican equivalent of the DCCC), which to this point has been trying to stir up trouble over the party dismissing the candidacy of Mai Khan Tran as having been over sexism — as opposed to its being over her having no substantial ties to the district and not being capable of saying much beyond “I’m a woman and a pediatrician” at those campaign events she doesn’t skip. (Seems like a nice person, though.) I’ll critique it after I present it; it’s a composite from the two pages of the release:
That Cisneros may have made a drunken pass at Fazli — though sometimes people do want privacy simply to talk — but for now I’m inclined to honor her instincts about this, presuming that it happened as she says — is disturbing … but mostly because he’s married. Other than that — well, these things happen among adults, and the power discrepancy created by his wealth shouldn’t prevent Cisneros from ever seeking a sexual liaison. So at worst this is a mark against him, but not a disqualifying him.
It’s the second interaction that troubles me. If he were trying to extort sexual favors out of Fazli in exchange for a contribution, that would be terrible and beyond acceptable norms. But if he were trying to get her to “be a spy for him” — well, that’s unsavory, but (to the extent that I can even figure out what she means) it’s not entirely out of bounds for this sort of race.
What shocks me is Fazli’s assertion that “this can be interpreted two ways: either” spy or sex. That’s ridiculous. It can obviously be interpreted in at least one other way — that Cisneros wanted to know whether Fazli was prepared to endorse him. Her first answer to that “what are you going to do for me?” question was, as she recounts it, to talk about what a great candidate she would be — which is a somewhat strange response. It’s strange enough that his answer: “no, what are YOU going to do for ME” (overemphasis mine) — unless accompanied by eyebrow waggling and licking and smacking of lips — seems like he was interrupting someone clueless about the fact that if SHE was coming to HIM asking for MONETARY SUPPORT, it’s reasonable for HIM to ask HER about POLITICAL SUPPORT. This is pretty damned basic. Fazli’s not picking up on it is weird — and her then hypothesizing about his having been a sad sack in high school is grotesque. I’m not “going after” Fazli here to protect Cisneros or to “publicly flog her for coming forward” with accusations of sexual impropriety: that’s fine. I’m criticizing her for, unless there’s more that was left out of her account, apparently being an idiot.
I can’t think that I can remember a candidate who has been more blessed in his enemies and cursed in his friends than Cisneros. Thorburn’s own criticism of his having left him an email calmly informing him that he’s going negative on him is itself weird. His having done so is unusual for a candidate — but only because it was a small courtesy (a “head’s up” about the coming report) that most candidates would have foregone while cackling about the surprise he had in store. (I attribute Thorburn’s response to his lousy PR team.) It’s not the stuff of a counterattack. THE REPORT ITSELF is the stuff of a counterattack!
So the best reasons to support Cisneros, aside from his money, are that Fazli’s attack on him and Thorburn’s attack on him seem bizarre and the NRCC seems desperate not to run against him. The best reasons to oppose him are that the DCCC is trying to cram him down everyone’s throat by (if my suspicions are right) producing for him (and making him lie about that) a vicious and at least substantially misplaced about Thorburn because Thorburn has Berniecrat support, and that he’s gone abong with it.
As for the NRCC itself — I’d suggest that it go to hell if it weren’t already halfway there. How about if it focuses on racism from Shawn Nelson, idiocy from Young Kim, and historical corruption of Bob Huff? That should keep it busy through the primary.
And why doesn’t the DCCC do so as well? Well, at least that much is obvious. Republicans aren’t the enemy to the DCCC — Berniecrats are. And so CA-39 continues to be an especially screwed-up race. At least Jay Chen’s withdrawal has kept the DCCC from having gone after him given his being a Berniecrat– because I wouldn’t have put it past those idiots.
First I heard of this was Thorburn, Tran, and Jammal issuing a joint statement demanding Cisneros respond to these allegations — but I agree with you, they seem awfully vague.
A drunken pass may indeed be ‘’inappropriate’’ but it’s hard to see it as harassment by itself, as she herself admits. The phone call is definitely open to many other interpretations.
And everything after that gets even more speculative, including the high-school-worthy ad hominem attack on his social skills. (Although if she believes that, I wonder why she wouldn’t at least ask herself if the phone call question and a ‘’look’’ that made her uncomfortable enough to leave the meeting (she doesn’t explain why) couldn’t be products of said awkwardness.).
I’m far from thrilled with Cisneros’ candidacy, but the details given seem way below the bar needed to throw this kind of bomb into the race. The NPCC’s joy about it is justified.
No Name – I found the “high-school-worthy ad hominem” the most telling piece of Fazli’s story. She knows she is dropping a bombshell into the media spotlight: she wants the bomb to explode, and had to add that one ‘extra nail’ that wrecks the credibility of the whole claim.
The whole thing makes me kinda … want to get behind Gil.
This charge is bs the more we look at it, and the way Republicans – and Gil’s Dem opponents – jumped on it… he’s the one that the powerful are scared of. As goofy as he may seem.
Oh, and Fritchle for assembly, even though he was pretty irritating when I met him. This woman is being manipulated knowingly or not, and either is bad.
I believe this is the blog for kids who had “social skills” problems.
The Liberal OC guys sat over there, and Cunningham’s friends sat over there by the burnt teddy bear. Remember those times we fucked em all up?
“That’s ridiculous. It can obviously be interpreted in at least one other way — that Cisneros wanted to know whether Fazli was prepared to endorse him.”
In this context, that would be the natural interpretation. The whole incident she described transpired not in some bar or random hotel, but at a Democratic event. Interpreting these statements as a ‘solicitation for sex’ – or espionage – seems… bizarre.
“So the best reasons to support Cisneros, aside from his money, are that Fazli’s attack on him and Thorburn’s attack on him seem bizarre…”
I can think of some better reasons. Let’s see how he weathers this storm.
Did anybody pick up on the hilariously unintended “quick pro quo?”
But seriously, do I have to point out the nonsense of anybody paying $4400 for sex? And the spy or sex formula is ridiculous, too.
Why am I suddenly reminded of Lorraine Galloway?
Maybe … I subconsciously was too. Hmmm…
Maybe because politics sucks in the megalomaniacs, the con artists and the marginally insane.
Vive La Republique!
That’s one of the reasons I like Gil. He isn’t a megalomaniac, and definitely presents himself as perfectly sane and normal.
I’m still undecided — now more than ever — but I don’t think that any of the four remaining Democratic candidates are megalomaniacal. Egotistical in the unfounded belief that *only they* can win the race, sure — but that’s not the same as megalomania.
I agree regarding Gil — his “regular guy” demeanor and conversational tone are the second-best thing about him (after the lottery winnings), but I don’t like the implication that Thorburn is anything but sane and normal. He’s quite sane, and his “lack of normality” in this district comes from his being a New York Jew. If one don’t hold this against Alan Lowenthal (and one shouldn’t), one shouldn’t hold it against Thorburn either. (Note: I can’t recall whether either of them got their accents from New York; but any Jew with am East Coast accent is automatically perceived from those outside of the area as being from New York.)
As for Tran — sane and normal. As for Jammal — sane, though not normal, due only to his having been steeped in politics for so long that aside from the best one-liner of the year (about scaring Trump as an Arab AND a Mexican), he’s not learned how to connect with non-wonks. He needs to work on that. (And he needs to win the lottery!) But all four of these seem like smart, decent, and caring people, which is more than I can say of (in order of emphasis) Huff, Vargas, Kim, and Nelson.
I’m still fascinated to see polling on how both NPPs are doing.
Three of the four remaining Democratic candidates haven’t raised any red flags in my book that I’ve seen, but then, I do not have eyes everywhere. One has.
“[Thorburn is] quite sane, and his “lack of normality” in this district comes from his being a New York Jew.”
My prejudices would ordinarily be to hold that in his favor, rather than against him: aside from the natural underdog appeal, the vast majority of the ones I’ve encountered were smart, competent, excelled at what they did, had powerful instincts for fairness alongside fierce competitiveness…If anybody in the district would hold THIS against him, I’d rebuke them.
But I learned painfully that a prejudice – even a favorable one – is still just a prejudice: it needs to be set aside to look more closely at the individual. I’ll enjoy discussing your conclusions on the ‘tax evader’ claim when you post, or if you ask, before that. As a prelude to that discussion, I’m less bothered by the ‘tax evasion’ claim per se (many businesses take similar aggressive postures) – so much as the others, and what they collectively suggest to me.
I met with candidate Cisneros outside the convention bldg. that night. He was sober, alert, very engaged. The Big News media, usually eager for sensational stories, has declined this for a reason. It cannot be corroborated? I offer this message freely. With all due respect intended. I have met all the Democratic candidates on a regular basis, and like them all, and can say that Gil Cisneros is by far, the straightest and most sober acting one. The tweets above appear as a character assassination in the Orange County “dirty politics” tradition. Not enough evidence, just “she said” anecdotal information. We cannot give in to the uncorroborated heresay that some of the #Metoo movement has also wrought. Most of it is real, and I applaud all the women for coming forward, but some of it is politically motivated. I agree that Cisneros at this point has the most visibility with the voters in the 39th and is on a path to a win, barring any further “scandalous” last ditch efforts to unseat him.
I agree Cisneros has the most viable path, but I haven’t given up on Sam Jammal yet. He’s certainly got a very steep path as a candidate, but I think he’d make the best actual Congressman for us. There is quite a bit of resistance to the millionaires and with most people just starting to tune in, I’m waiting to see if the support shifts at all over the next few weeks.
Great post Greg. My contact info is public. Please feel free to call me anytime so I can clear up that vendor issue for you. Just so you know I agonized about coming forward with my side of the story. I do truly believe there are always at least two sides to a story. This one is mine. Thanks!
Jammal does have the most experience and would make a great Congressman. I agree with you on that. he has a lot of work and needs alot of exposure to get there.
Don’t thank me yet; I’m not even sure what I think about all this!
The vendor issue doesn’t affect the content of this post, Melissa, and it doesn’t much matter at the moment because I couldn’t endorse you even if I wanted to.
What I’d like you to clear up HERE is why you think that the “what will YOU do for ME?” question had to involve either sex is spying, when the most natural inference seems to be that it was about your ENDORSING HIS CAMPAIGN specifically.
If you weren’t a candidate yourself I frankly don’t know that I would have published this — but you are, so it’s relevant to your race. I would like to know from other candidates whether they think that the natural inference, which Donovan also makes, satisfies their curiosity (as Gil would likely adopt it now whether or not it’s true!). You’d need to present more evidence about that interaction to convince me; until you do then it seems to me that — as Vern’s reaction suggests — you may have helped Gil here more than hurt him, and hurt the others more than helped them.
But you have space here to say what you will, and I hope that Gil and his opponents (perhaps through their staffs) will do likewise. Jay and Phil are also more than welcome.
You seem weirdly in a good mood.
Why even speculate on that? She’s implicitly denying being coached “this is my story…” etc.
If she did have a coach, she’d have to fire that coach for unpardonable error: how could anyone overlook the suggestion that a donor wants her to endorse him, rather than his rival? It would be tantamount to a football coach telling his players to stop messing with footballs, and shift to baseballs instead.
Greg-I would have responded earlier to your inquiry, but I just now saw your post. Sorry. Anyways to answer your question before Gil said “No Melissa, I mean what are you going to do for me,” I had already told him that I would support him 100% by canvassing with his materials with mine and that I would be a very active candidate. I told him if he didn’t win and two GOP won that my race would be finished even if I win the Primary because all of the GOTV money and volunteers would dry up and leave the district. He was 10 points ahead of Andy and I was also worried that 2 GOP could win, so I was going to endorse him. I provided all the reporters with multiple witnesses that I told quickly after the fact. My story was kicked up to legal and they are getting info on every law suit Gil has been apart of because he threatened to sue The Intercept. By the way Gil did not sue anyone including myself. Not even a cease and desist. I ran into a man a week ago who told me he asked Gil about my story. He said he didn’t like his answer. I said “Why? Did he deny it? Did he call me a liar?” The man said “No. He mumbled at me at first and I couldn’t understand him so I asked again. Then he said that he should have just given you the money.” So Gil in my opinion, still has not publicly denied it himself. Also on a side note, Orrin Evans, Gil’s campaign manager is a partner in a firm called Left Communications which has huge ties to the DCCC. The DCCC did not do their due diligence with him. In my opinion, they think a former Republican has a better chance to win CD39. I’m voting for Sam Jammal. I won’t be back to this thread so feel free to call, email, or text. Thank you.
Someone else can send this to Melissa; I’ve got other things to do.
The critical question about your story is whether “what are you going to do for me?” was a sexual come-on or just a sharp hint that you would need to endorse him before he would support your campaign financially.
So my questions still remain:
(1) Did you tell him that you would endorse his campaign?
(2) If so, when — as precisely as possible in the context of your other interactions?
(3) If so, after he knew that you were already inclined to endorse his campaign, did he THEN say (or continue to say) “what are YOU going to do for ME?”
Look, I’ve endorsed Thorburn. I’m not out to help Gil over him. Except for your story and his attacks on Thorburn, I have no reason to think that he’s a bad guy — and I believe that those attacks were shoved into his hands by the DCCC.
So, politically, it would be convenient for me to believe your story — and I was inclined to do so until I thought through what bothered me about it. But — unlike Gil has shown himself to be — I’m not willing to win using spurious accusations. Note that I’m not willing to accuse you of lying: it’s completely plausible to me that you’re only and accurately reporting what you believed was happening in that situation. The question is whether you overlooked an obvious alternative explanation for the sentence that bothered you that would exculpate him.
You’re explanation here is helpful, but not convincing. “Yes I will carry your materials” is an easy promise to make, commonly made among candidates, and few people believe it and it is my sense that the people making the promise generally don’t follow through. So if that promise didn’t move him, that’s a fair reason why. Saying “you may include my name among your list of endorsers” requires much less faith in you, as it puts all of the power to follow through into your hands. So unless you said PRECISELY THAT — OK, maybe rephrased a bit — then I think that he had valid reason to ask you if you would do PRECISELY THAT, and the notion that he was seeking sexual favors seems less likely.
That you told multiple people about your interaction was a very good practice in general — but it doesn’t really do much if you had misconstrued the situation.
The story of the hearsay passed onto you about Gil’s mumbling is also unconvincing. Whether your interpretation is right or wrong, I would expect it likely for him to react with embarrassment and to say — as someone who presumably gets hit up for money all of the damned time — that he should have just bought his way out of the problem. Why would he not follow through with a threatened lawsuit? Because it’s a pain in the ass and there’s much for him to lose (in terms of suffering through discovery) and little for him to gain.
Gil’s campaign manager — whose name I don’t recall but he certainly seemed like enough of a prick to have deep ties to the DNC or DCCC — did call me at one point because of an article I’d written here, and he accused me of being on Jay Chen’s payroll. (Never. A. Dime.) I was far nicer to him than I should have been. And, frankly, it’s hard for me to feel TOO sorry for Gil because of the hatchet job he participated in against Thorburn. In some sense, your attack on him, even if you did misconstrue him, is almost poetic justice. And were I in your position, I too might vote for Sam; I judy don’t think he could win both due to money and to his difficulty connecting to non-wonk voters.
So, in summary: I wish I DID believe you, because it would make my decision much easier and would help the candidate I prefer. But I’m not convinced that it’s not a bum rap — and so I’m not willing to run with it. I’m not calling either you or him a liar; my money, were I to bet, would be on miscommunication. But I’m unsure enough not to bet.
I’ve also endorsed Fritchle — with misgivings rooted mostly in the fact that winning the AD-55 primary keeps him from running and perhaps winning a race in the fall, without which I don’t think he’ll ever win in this district — in large part because you don’t seem to get that this alternative explanation about Cisneros remains open and if it should be closed you haven’t been able to convey it. Both of those bother me. But EVEN WITH ALL THAT, you, Gregg, Gil, Andy, Sam, and Dr. Tran all strike me as decent people superior in character to your Republican opponents — and I’d support any of you in November in an R vs. D race. That may not be enough for you — but that’s all I have to offer.
“I know there will be sceptics and people who will publicly flog me for coming forward…”
Skepticism is not a public flogging. Indeed, but-for the professional skepticism of the journalists who launched what became the #MeToo movement – that movement would have fizzled before meaning anything. Those journalists appreciated that they needed to corroborate, investigate, interrogate. I expect they agonized, because telling the victims’ stories would put all of their livelihoods at risk, and even potentially their newspapers and the livelihoods of friends and colleagues. They did their skeptical duty. If only their predecessors had done the same, in 2016, in 2003, or so many other times.
So please do not feel flogged if I am skeptical: I see it as a citizen’s duty, not to flog anybody, but to look at claims carefully and consider the evidence critically.
That said –
“Just so you know I agonized about coming forward with my side of the story.”
While you were agonizing, didn’t it occur to you that maybe you’d misinterpreted “what will you do for me” as “will you stop supporting my opponent, and support me instead?” Why not? While you were agonizing, didn’t you have a single friend who might remind you, “Well, you know there’s this cliche in politics that goes ‘you scratch my back, I’ll scratch yours…’ – so he might have propositioned you, but he might also just want you to endorse him rather than his rival…”
Again, please do not feel flogged by my skepticism: those who too easily believe any claim will spin with the wind – or are looking to play a game, using your words to achieve their ends, disdainful of your experience save to the extent it supports their agenda. My agenda? Well, I am volunteering for Gil. I have lots of reasons, including the high hope that a Democrat will finally take the 39th District, and a Democratic majority stop Trump.
I feel compelled to respond to Greg’s comment about me being “publicly persnickety about people not rejecting Fazli in his favor.” It would be silly to conclude that I don’t want to make it to (let alone win) the November election. Greg says that he “tried to talk Fritchle from dropping out of the AD-55 race in Fazli’s favor, being under the mistaken impression that he didn’t really care much about running this year, might not even be aware of Fazli’s candidacy, and might want to focus on a local race this year.” I don’t know where he could have gotten that impression. I have said through each of my five runs for the Assembly that I would step aside if a bigger name with better electability decided to run, but so far that hasn’t happened.
My issue has been with the way my fellow Democrats have responded to her statements, since I’ve always considered the Democratic Party to be the one that listens to victims of sexual harassment, and gives them the benefit of the doubt. But what’s happened here instead has been that fellow Democrats have put Melissa on the hot seat instead of Gil.
I want to be the Democratic nominee for this seat, and yes, I want to win in November. But I don’t want to do it by trashing a fellow Democrat. That’s certainly not helping us in the race for the 39th CD. (And, yes, I supported Phil Janowicz initially, and now Sam Jammal since Phil dropped out.) I’d like to win the way races should be won – on the issues. (I’m funny that way.)
Let me remind folks here what Greg said about me in 2014:
http://www.orangejuiceblog.com/2014/09/weekend-open-thread-the-ad-55-candidate-who-is-not-lying-about-a-resume-is-holding-sunday-fundraiser/
“Fritchle is SO honorable that he doesn’t believe in negative campaigning — at all. He knows that Chang’s primary opponent Philip Chen was all over her for making up facts about herself and her accomplishments. But he doesn’t want to go down that path. He doesn’t want me to go down that path either, because he is high-minded about politics.”
You know the kind of person that I am, Greg – and back then it seemed like you saw that as a good thing. Maybe that’s changed. The whole reason for the conversation with me that you cite was because I was wondering why you voted “no endorsement” before Melissa even declared as a candidate. (Even she voted to endorse me back then.) You didn’t sound to me like you were trying to talk me out of dropping out at all. Now, you’re “not particularly invested in that race.”
Wow, Gregg — OK, we can have this conversation here and now, if you want.
I have had the same conversation about you with at least a half dozen Democrats of our mutual acquaintance who have asked me about this race after interpreting your often-repeated assertion EXACTLY THE WAY THAT I HAVE: that you were running in AD-55 (and prior to that 57 or whatever we were) largely to “show the flag” because not running a candidate was humiliating to the party — in other words, for the EXACT SAME REASON that I ran for SD-29 six years ago and AG four years: that otherwise they were going to go uncontested, and I could stand that of either Huff OR Rackauckas. I never had delusions about winning (although I recognized that a scandal with either incumbent could have led to that.) The third time I ran — for Municipal Water Board against Brett Barbre was entirely so that I could extend the campaign against Poseidon Desalination into people’s voter guides (with a somewhat greater belief that it was possible for me to win, because Bardre is so damned crooked.)
That’s what pretty much EVERYONE seems to have thought about what you were saying all of these years. You only added the “if a bigger name with better electability decided to run” proviso THIS YEAR — believe me, I’ve checked with plenty of others about what they heard, and it’s all the same thing.
I understand why you added the proviso for this year: we’re looking at a blue wave, you do have some name recognition, and so you think that maybe this year you CAN win. Fine. You did not convey that to people, me included, and that’s why, KNOWING that Fazli was going to run, and believing that she had a case to make that she could raise more money and be of greater help to other candidates than you would. I voted against endorsing you because IF THAT TURNED OUT TO BE TRUE it would have meant that the better candidate — if she turned out to be that — could not be supported by state or county central committee members, and that seemed to go against what I had THOUGHT you were standing all of these years.
Turns out that — either since the start or just starting this cycle — you say would only step aside for a superior candidate, rather than one who could just “show the flag” as well as you could. OK, nice to know that; based on that information, I told people that I did in fact endorse you.
But as for the “persnicketiness” — that was quite a common reaction among people in AD-55 and elsewhere in DPOC although it was my euphemism for what at least two people asked me verbatim, which was a puzzled “what has crawled up Fritchle’s butt?” You’ve been slagging people for not donating to your campaign every cycle — which is the opposite of what I did when running for State Senate, which was to tell people in the area that they should vote for me only AFTER maxing out to Sharon Quirk-Silva in her race against Norby. (I got the lion’s share of my funds from friends outside of the district — and area.) They have not giving money to you because you don’t have a demonstrated record of plausibility as anything more than a placeholder and sacrificial lamb — a perfectly good role that, again, I have personally embraced repeatedly — and given more pressing needs people whose money is tight are going to place it where it is more likely to do some good. (That’s in the nature of being a sacrificial lamb.) Again, I think that everyone thought that you understood this — and that that’s why you were quite willing to pass on that role to whoever else would carry the baton.
Doing so, as I’ve written here for some time — most recently in responding to Melissa, just before reading your comment here — would allow you to put yourself on track to becoming someone who people might WANT to support due to your being a politician with a track record of success, by winning a (far easier) municipal race, because it would leave you able to run for such a seat in November. As a school board or college trustee — or even a City Council member, walking only Walnut — you would establish yourself as a potential winner. I believe that I’ve told you this very thing privately several times; maybe I just didn’t make myself clear.
I think that your view on negative campaigning — by which I don’t mean lying or twisting facts, but telling the truth about bad things that your opponent has done — is absurd. You can be scrupulous about what derogation you engage in, such as that it has to be true beyond caviling, but ruling it out entirely seems puerile to me. But hey — when you’re a sacrificial lamb-cum-placeholder in a deadly pointless race, you are doing the party a favor by running at all, so you get to do it your way. That was my point in the article you posted. It’s like the supposed Quaker approach to avoiding fighting — fine if it’s your own head that you’re willing to get smashed in to prove your purity; not fine if you’re responsible for the safely of others expecting them to protect you. (These map onto “in a doomed race” vs. “in a competitive race.”)
As for this:
It’s so wonderfully chivalrous for you to defend the honor of your opponent. You are doing so, it appears me, to once again prop up your image (mostly with yourself) as a deeply caring and decent guy. Well, bravo, sir! For my part, I strongly support the &MeToo movement and have been very critical of the &IBelieveHer movement because it makes a virtue of abandoning one’s own critical faculties. Frankly, it infantilizes women to say that whatever bullshit they might come out with — bullshit that detracts from other women’s powerful and legitimate stories about sexual violence and harassment — is automatically going to be credited as true. What complainants deserve is a fair and respectful hearing. In this case, there has been — MAYBE only until today — a strong alternative possibility to Fazli’s take on her interaction with Cisneros: that she was asking him for money because she was a virtuous candidate, when IN FACT the only thing of value she REALLY had to offer him was her endorsement, and odds are that was EXACTLY what he was asking about with the “what can YOU do for ME?” question. As a candidate she, like you, has some credibility that can help him get votes in his race. THAT is much more likely to be what he’s interested in than a fling — for which he could afford to jet to Paris or Tokyo to get, if he wanted, with FAR less chance of it being discovered by his wife. (Note: I have no reason to believe that Cisneros is DISPOSED to cheat on his wife, although I also have no reason to rule out that possibility.) I’d be happy to put Gil on the “hot seat” — but he’s not making the (not clearly coherent) accusation and he’d be an idiot to admit it to me either way; so, as should be obvious, my trying to put him on the hot seat in a he-said she-said where the charges against him don’t even really make sense is just a snipe hunt. Your position that “oh, our moral responsibility is just to believe them no matter what they say” — and you can back off from that any time you want to sharpen that description, which would be all for the good — strikes me as DEEPLY immoral and selfish, speaking as an attorney who has taken the cases of plenty of victims of sexual harassment and know that one does a client NO FAVOR by encouraging them to press forward with a case that will not stand up in court because it is presented incoherently. I haven’t put Melissa “in the hot seat,” you git; I’ve treated her as I would a client who I was trying to propel towards being able to make an accusation cogent enough to be believed. She doesn’t “deserve the benefit of the doubt”; she deserves the benefit of being asked to clarify her story to the point where, IF there is merit to it, it will be visible. Believe me, as a Thorburn supporter, I was willing to believe her — but not willing to believe just anything.
Having to deploy that professional skepticism often makes me feel bad. By being willing to credit her story without challenge, YOU get to feel great! So which of us is being selfish here? I’ll work with a client for YEARS for nothing by a speculative portion of whatever award I can win for her, if I believe that she has a plausible case. YOU can give lip service to her for a few moments and then walk away filled with warm fuzzies. And, you know, voters aren’t totally stupid; they can figure out when someone is acting out of rationality and when out of sentimentality — even though they often choose the latter.
Finally, as to this:
Your first sentence there makes no sense. If you’re talking about four years ago, I do not recall your wanting to drop out of the race. (In fact, wasn’t that the year when I wanted you and me both to run, because with so many Republicans running it was plausible that we could take both spots in the runoff? The one where I told you that if we did win both seats, I’d be happy to not campaign in the runoff and essentially cede the seat to you?) If you’re talking about this year, you did not intend to drop out at all. I didn’t want you to drop out; I didn’t want Fazli to drop out. I simply did not want the party to endorse in a race where we were already guaranteed one spot in the runoff. So I have no idea what you’re talking about.
And, yeah — I’m not particularly invested in the race. You’ll know that I and others are invested in the race when we give money to you or donate substantial volunteer time for you. Is that happening?
NEVERTHELESS, you are likely to be my party’s nominee, you’re a decent guy despite the above (and you’d be a good, if persnickety, Assemblyman), and I fully expect to endorse you in November, and I’ll be glad for your presence there, because you never know whether Philip Chen may be found with a freezerful of human body parts or something. (As a Republican, he’d get away with that in OC, but not in LA.)
As for the primary, though, you’ve simplified my task enormously: I’m not going to vote for either you OR Melissa. I’m writing in Gil Cisneros of Yorba Linda, and I will encourage others to do the same. If he can outpoll both of you, and doesn’t finish in the top two for CA-39, then he can accept the write-in win and maybe we could snag AD-55! Thanks for visiting here.
I can only echo your “wow” in response, Greg. So now my motives are selfish? I just want us as Democrats to do things the right way – otherwise we’re no better than Republicans. From that you spend several paragraphs trying to conclude that I’m “defending her honor” and that I’m coming to the conclusion that the allegations are true. That is not nearly the case. (This is not the first time you’ve come to the wrong conclusions about my motives, though.) My objection has been that a lot of fellow Democrats immediately went on the attack against her without even addressing the allegations. That shouldn’t be how we win elections. I still have hope we can someday focus on issues to win elections rather than on personalities. Those folks’ comments (and, frankly, yours too to a lesser degree) make clear that even we Democrats have a long way to go to get there.
Yes, I know I’m an underdog and always have been. That is not nearly the same thing as being a sacrificial lamb. And I have no intention of being silent on Phillip Chen’s voting record. I’ve been speaking about that for some time already. As a candidate, I won’t go after an opponent’s personal life, though in the 2014 blog I quoted above you heard me wrong in claiming that I didn’t want you to do it. I simply said that I want no part of it.
The year you wanted to run alongside me was two years ago, in 2016, Greg. And you’ll recall I had no objection to that. So I’m not sure what you’re talking about.
My issues with Gil go far beyond Melissa’s allegations. As a progressive, I can’t support a “Democrat” who still thinks Ronald Reagan was our greatest President, whose foundation funds a charter school, and who hasn’t demonstrated much knowledge of the issues. I’m also turned off by his barrage of negative attacks on Andy Thorburn (though I wasn’t crazy about Andy’s negative counterattacks either, although between Gil and Andy I’d vote for Andy every time). Gil got a grand total of one vote for endorsement at the pre-endorsement conference, yet the DCCC jumps in where it’s not wanted and supports him. That’s the kind of thing you’ve been among the first to condemn, and rightly so. This blog has rightly criticized other candidates’ lack of grasp of the issues relevant to the offices they seek, but maybe it doesn’t see Gil that way.
No, Greg, this is not about me, it’s not about Melissa, and it’s not about Gil. It’s about how we form our conclusions. Can we get back to the issues now?
No, we can’t “get back to the issues” because they don’t matter in AD-55. I’ve spent enough time on you for this election — and I’m not going to explain again why critically examining a charge of harassment is better than being such a good guy that one will simply take any charge for granted. Anyone who thinks that she’s made a legitimate case against Cisneros certainly has good reason to vote for her. I’m writing in Gil for AD-55 and voting Thorburn for CA-39. This way, I get to vote for both.
You still don’t get it, Greg. No one is saying don’t critically examine it. But there are a lot of people who have gone right past that directly to discrediting Melissa without even bothering to do any examining of the allegations. It’s that ingoing bias that I have a problem with. It undermines our credibility, and makes us no better than Republicans. If you’re okay with that, then fine, but that’s not the Greg Diamond that I thought I knew. Apparently I’ve had you all wrong from the beginning.
You think that I “didn’t examine the allegations”??! Donovan and I did, right here in this blog, at painful length. Did you just not READ that? Did it not strike you as an analysis? Did you see where we asked Fazli for clarification about what Gil actually said and in what context and — shockingly — didn’t get it?
Maybe Donovan can find the cites for you; I’m done. And I’m glad that I wrote in Cisneros for AD-55.
And don’t flatter yourself: You’re not “ignoring bias,” you’re just introducing a counter-bias. I’M ignoring bias. Unless you think that I’m among those people “who went right past that, then your comment, as directed to me, is LITERALLY nonsense.
It’s Election Day. You’re a candidate. Go knock on some doors.
The ‘charter school’ line is one that came up quite recently. Cisneros donated to a school targeting homeless and foster kids who’ve had trouble staying in public school. That’s been misrepresented to make him a ‘charter school guy.’ He isn’t.
When did I mention your name, Greg? The comment wasn’t directed at you at all. It was directed at other people who’ve responded to these allegations elsewhere. The “here” referred to this particular allegation as opposed to other topics. You read yourself into it, yet again forming the wrong conclusion. So much for ignoring bias. This is exactly what I’ve been talking about – people make this stuff personal and thereby miss the point completely. Calm down, Greg.
I’m not inclined to continue this conversation, Gregg. Good luck riding that “Blue Wave” up here. At least your victory last night will deprive you of the opportunity to run for local office in November — the attainment of which might finally get voters to take you seriously.