N. Calif. is a hotbed of right-wing moderation ... flaming

[rubato]

A hotbed of right-wing moderation ... flaming


http://www.sfgate.com/politics/joegarof ... 937603.php

First we have to set the scene: 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".

He is a moderate Republican.

The Calif. Republican party is dominated by the nutcase fringe (otherwise) who think the slightest deviation from "stupidly conservative" is a sign of mental frailty and who think this sort of reasonableness is akin to treason. This is why they opposed their only occupant of statewide office in decades, Arnold Swartzennegger, at nearly every turn and even only supported him for the governor's office 1 week from his (by then inevitable) election. They have started a webblog devoted to mocking and reviling their biggest donor and hid behind anonymity because nutcase right-wingers are, in addition to their other moral failings, inherently cowardly.

What do they hate about him? He supported an initiative which took redistricting out of the hands of partisan politicians and gave it to a commission (say goodbye to Republican Gerrymandering!). And supported the change which put the two highest vote-getters into the general election which eliminated the Tea-Party tactic of knocking off moderate Republicans in the primary.

So far it is clear that both of those initiatives have made California politics more democratic (small "d") more fair and more representative of the will of the people.

Of course they hate him.

They want Calif. to be like Tejas where the nutcase fringe right can rule with a minority of the vote.

But its a good article. If the Calif. party and the national party cannot move back to the center-right from the extreme fringe they now represent they are doomed in Calif. and all of the high-functioning states.

yrs,
rubato

[MajGenl.Meade]

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".

Thanks rubato. I was wondering what to call the past decade.

[Lord Jim]

Yeah, The Munger Decade...

That works for me...

[dgs49]

I wonder if rubie would be willing to list specific policy initiatives that he considers to be representative of the extreme right-wing, nutcase, Tea-bagger Republican agenda.

And he might mention the human (rather than imaginary) and influential Republican officials who hold them.

[Lord Jim]

The ridiculous verbiage aside, (I can't tell from that post if this is some sad effort of rube's to express himself, or if he copied and pasted it from one of his moronic pipelines to reality...) I'm all for anyone who wants to infuse cash into a battle against Tea Party types...

As I've said, these people have declared war on the rest of the Party, and they need to be defeated...

That having been said, this:

Republican Gerrymandering!)

Is a staggeringly ignorant statement, even by rubatoan standards...

To find a time when both the governorship and the state legislature of California was in the hands of the Republicans, one would have to go all the way back to the 1960s...

Gerrymandering is about incumbent protection, designed by state legislators, for the purpose of saving their own seats; it's not party specific...

Oh yes, can't let this pass:

in addition to their other moral failings, inherently cowardly.

rube knows a good deal about being "inherently cowardly"....

Over the years, he has made numerous laughably ignorant assertions, ("The British have had a fourth rate navy since the American Revolution", "The Poles weren't victims of the Nazis", "The Japanese intended to declare war before Pearl Harbor", "Rousseau was a reactionary", "There was no genocide before Christianity" and on and on and on ad nauseating....)

Each time, his fractured fairy tales have been buried under an avalanche of factual data; but on no occasion...

Not once, not a single time...

Has he ever exhibited the moral courage, sense of personal security, and testicular fortitude, to return to the discussion, man up, and admit he screwed the pooch...

So, if you're looking for a line that's painted a "bright safety yellow", you'll easily find one running up and down the middle of rube's back...

ETA:

If rube's lying face down on the ground with his shirt off, nobody's ever going to trip over him....

[rubato]

No one so far had the wit, or education, to respond to the substance; why is the California Republican party attacking their biggest donor? The center of the party is biting the hand that fed it.

http://www.sfgate.com/politics/joegarof ... 937603.php


And why are they such cowards about it? If they don't like his policies they should have the balls to say so in public instead of the equivalent of writing graffiti on bathroom walls.

Cowards.


yrs,
rubato

[rubato]

The Republicans are inept for the same reason that all responses to this thread have been inept; they have not learned that denying reality won't make it go away.

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.

http://blog.sfgate.com/nov05election/20 ... p-critics/


GOP: "If someone has a different opinion let's punish them and hope that our crackpot broken ideology starts working."


yrs,
rubato