Plan B Forum

There is a veryveryvery rich California Republican, a Billionaire to be less inexact, who has given very large amounts to Calif. Republican causes more than $100,000,000 over the past decade named "Munger".

Republican Gerrymandering!)

in addition to their other moral failings, inherently cowardly.

What Charles Munger Jr. thinks about his GOP critics
Posted on October 29, 2013 | By jgarofoli@sfchronicle.com (Joe Garofoli)

In Wednesday’s Chronicle, we talk about a federal lawsuit over “the Munger Games” blog that anonymously criticizes one of the top GOP donors in California politics, Palo Alto physicist Charles Munger Jr. Or, as the blog refers to Munger, “the one-man maelstrom of money intent on remaking California Republicanism in his bow-tied image.”

“How much damage can one man do to a political party? In the case of Charles Munger, Jr. and the California Republican Party,” wrote an anonymous Munger Games poster, “the answer is: a lot.”

Ouch.

What’s so special about a lawsuit over a blog? As Bill Whalen, a Hoover Institution research fellow and a former speechwriter for GOP Gov. Pete Wilson, told me, “It illustrates a larger rift in the party.”

Munger is among those who think that former state party Chairman Mike Schroeder is the brains behind the blog. Schroeder would only say that he is funding the legal defense of the blog.

Munger is a fascinating character — and one who is a bit media shy. After dropping $98 million on ballot measures over the past decade, he’s been reluctant to make the story about him when he’s trying to get something passed at the ballot box. But he said he wanted to set the record straight about the anonymous bloggers who are ripping him in the Munger Games: He doesn’t have a problem with people criticizing him. He just has a problem with them doing it anonymously.

“If somebody wants to put up a website that’s critical of me, and sign their own their own name to it, God bless them. It’s a free country,” Munger said. “I’m a big boy. I actually welcome it, because in the long run, the truth will win out.”

Unprompted, he recites — by memory — one of the ballot argument against Proposition 20, which put congressional redistricting in the hands of a citizens commission. Munger largely funded the campaign. Included in the anti-Prop 20 ballot argument sent to every voter in California is this none-too-veiled description of Munger:

“Our democratic republic is not a toy to be played with for the self-aggrandizement of the idle second-generation rich,” Munger said, reciting it exactly as it appeared in the guide.

“I memorized it because it was so over the top,” Munger said. “It was actually wound up being one of the things that made that measure pass. People recognized that (criticism) might be one of many things, but an argument against the constitutional amendment, it isn’t.”

Munger’s money powered another successful ballot measure in 2010 that gave California a top-two primary. Conservative Republicans loathed both it and Prop. 20, saying they sapped the party of its strength. As it is now, only 29 percent of California’s registered voters are Republican, the GOP holds no statewide offices and is in the minority in both legislative chambers.

But Munger has been dishing out cash — at least $1.5 million through June 30 this year — to county party operations as part of the California GOP plan to rebuild itself from the ground up.

Here’s some other outtakes from the interview, which didn’t make into the nondigital confines of our print edition story. A running theme in his contributions is giving control to locals, not party bosses:

On his philosophy on political donations: Before Jim Brulte became chairman, “the state party was useless in getting Republicans elected. So I stepped up.” This year he has contributed $1.5 million up and down the state, mostly to county GOP organizations. Why? “The locals are best suited to best choosing” their own candidates, he said.

On giving to grassroots organizations like Grow Elect, which is focused on elected Republican Latinos: “I don’t choose the Latino Republicans who are running. For the first time in history, let us, as a Republican Party, not ask you for your input. Let us ask what we can do to put you into power. And you can then make the decisions.”

On whether he will seek revenge if and when he learns who is behind the Munger Games: “If by revenge you mean that everyone will know that these are Mr. Schroeder’s views and this is his website. If that to Mr. Schroeder is revenge, then that is revenge.”

A big shout out to Maplight.org, the nonprofit organization that studies the influence of money and politics. They did a breakdown of Munger’s contributions to GOP candidates and ballot measures over the past decade for The Chronicle for this story.