Death of the California Republican Party is Official!
Centrist/anti-Trump summit encourages California GOP to go its own way–80 Attend
Next to the "choo.......choo" to nowhere scam, the biggest political scam in California politics is “New Way California”, or as some call it, “Wrong Way California”. On Tuesday they rented a whole theater in downtown Sacramento, for the overflow crowd expected. Per the Crest, “With a seating capacity of 975, the Crest Theatre offers an intimate and dramatic setting.”
Per Ben Christopher a total of 80-100 people showed. When you take away the handlers, staff and people forced to be present, the total was very small. In fact, including everybody, it was 80-100 people. Yet, this organization owns the California Republican Party, has elected officials quivering.
Imagine, former Guv Arnold, former Ohio Guv Kasich, Bill Kristol, San Diego Mayor Faulconer (who is socializing energy supplies in his County) and others as speakers—like Chad Mayes and his friend Kristin Olsen. Both of whom demand the GOP not nominate Trump for President.
The media has been taken in by a few people with lots of money—they buy candidates, coverage and fear. With 80-100 people present they really bought sympathy for their dead cause. The Tea Party California Caucus, at the recent CRP convention had TWICE the number of people present at their conference. Of course, the Tea Party represents grass roots and Wrong Way represent elitist money.
Centrist summit encourages California GOP to go its own way
Ben Christopher, Cal matters
New Way California has a message for all California Republicans: You don’t have to be like President Trump. You don’t even have to like him.
“The California Republican Party must not be a carbon copy of the national GOP,” Kevin Faulconer, the Republican mayor of San Diego, said to the modest crowd of political centrists who had flocked to the Crest Theatre in downtown Sacramento this morning for the group’s second annual summit.
“California Republicans need to create a party tailored to the people of California,” he continued, pointing to his own example as a center-right politician who has authored a local climate change action plan and recently announced a five-year campaign to make the city more welcoming to immigrants.
“Let’s take him out of the equation,” former Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger said of President Trump. “It’s a mistake for a state party to mold themselves after the national party.”
New Way is the product of Republican Assemblyman Chad Mayes. As an organization it is eager to show after the 2016 election that California Republicans need not doubt the science of climate change, cater only to business or consistently stand by the president. Schwarzenegger sits on the board.
The morning’s event offered a notable contrast with the California Republican Party’s convention, held two weeks ago just a few blocks away, where headliners included Housing and Urban Development Secretary Ben Carson and President Trump’s former press secretary Sean Spicer.
At this morning’s event, there wasn’t a single “Make America Great Again” hat. It was also considerably smaller—some 80 to 100 attendees sat spaced out across the theater auditorium.
But crafting a more centrist GOP brand separate from the national party is likely a hard sell to both sides of the political spectrum. According to a recent poll, 77 percent of self-identified Republicans said they support President Trump’s job performance. Mayes, the former Republican leader in the Assembly, was tossed from that top job by the caucus for supporting a renewal of the state cap-and-trade program. Meanwhile, many Democratic and independent voters may be unable or unwilling to distinguish state and local Republicans from the policies and persona of Trump.
The day’s program offered a series of panels and guest speakers who touched on such indisputable but nebulous themes as inclusivity, economic mobility, and “bridging the partisan divide.”
As telling as what was said was who said it.
The early morning workforce development panel was composed entirely of people of color. That was followed by a short speech from Samuel Rodriguez, a Latino evangelical pastor from Sacramento who argued that “the future of the California Republican Party lies embedded in names like Sanchez, Miranda, Rivera and Rodriguez.”
Two moderate Republicans—former Assemblywomen Kristin Olsen and Catharine Baker—then spoke of bipartisanship with Sen. Steve Glazer, a centrist Democrat from Orinda.
The event also included a speech by Bill Kristol, the neoconservative political commentator and fierce Trump critic, and a short discussion between Olsen and Schwarzenegger about political reform.
“It’s important for the country to have healthy political parties if possible,” said Kristol. “Maybe we’ll have to go beyond the two-party system. I’m open to that.”
None of the other Republicans at today’s event went quite so far as to entertain abandoning the GOP altogether. But expectations about the future of successes of the party were tempered.
“A vibrant, competitive two-party system is essential for our state,” said Faulconer.
