Divided Party Raises Questions About GOP’s Ability to Hold Critical California House Seats
IRVINE, CA – ‘An abhorrent devolution.’ ‘A terrible thing.’ ‘Circular firing squad’ – that’s how Republicans are describing the state party convention in battleground Orange County this weekend, honoring white supremacist Steve Bannon. The event was so over the top, even Dana Rohrabacher – under fire from the Anti-Defamation League due to his association with Holocaust denier Chuck Johnson — declined to attend, although that didn’t stop Mimi Walters from making an appearance. But instead of speaking out against Bannon like many of their local GOP comrades, Orange County Republicans Ed Royce, Mimi Walters, Dana Rohrabacher, and Darrell Issa were silent.
“California Republican leaders said it best when they called Steve Bannon’s appearance this weekend a moral outrage. But instead of joining them, Reps. Royce, Walters, Rohrabacher, and Issa remained conspicuously silent as a white supremacist was honored in their own backyard – just as they’ve remained silent on the Republican agenda of vilifying immigrants, ripping healthcare away from millions, and hiking taxes on Orange County families,” said Drew Godinich, DCCC spokesperson. “Do Reps. Royce, Walters, Rohrabacher, and Issa stand with Steve Bannon or with Paul Ryan and his record of failure? Orange County voters deserve to know.”
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POLITICO: California Republicans go gaga for Trump
The state’s withered GOP base loves the president, even if he drags down their House incumbents.
His former chief strategist pillories fellow Republicans they once loved. His dreadful poll numbers here might drag their House incumbents down next year.
But with little else to cheer in this heavily Democratic state, the California Republican Party is falling hard for Donald Trump.
Rallying their dwindling ranks at the party’s fall convention over the weekend, Steve Bannon drew applause when he called former President George W. Bush a “piece of work” and said “there has not been a more destructive presidency than George Bush’s.” As for another Republican who once led the party ticket, Sen. John McCain, when Bannon mentioned his name at a dinner banquet here, someone in the audience yelled, “Hang him!”
Bush and McCain both won more votes in California in their respective presidential campaigns than Trump did last year. And the most recent Republican presidential candidate to carry the state was Bush’s father, George H.W. Bush, in 1988. It was California’s own Ronald Reagan who popularized what he called the “Eleventh Commandment,” which declared, “Thou shalt not speak ill of another Republican.”
But none of that seems to matter anymore. California GOP activists now celebrate a president who violates that commandment on a daily basis.
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State party leaders’ decision to showcase Trump and Bannon — the most fire-breathing expression of his administration — startled many members of the GOP’s professional and political classes, who fear Trump could hurt Republicans in competitive House races and further damage the party’s long-term effort to rebuild in a state he lost by a landslide. The GOP’s share of statewide registration now languishes below 26 percent, in large part because of the party’s inability to attract young voters and Latinos.
Sean Walsh, a Republican strategist who worked in former GOP Gov. Pete Wilson’s administration, called the decision to highlight Bannon “a terrible thing.” And Mike Madrid, a former political director of the state party, said he had “no idea” why California Republican Party Jim Brulte would invite the former Trump chief strategist to entertain “this peculiar cast of characters who somehow revel in this stuff.”
Channeling Bush’s denunciation of Trumpism last week, Madrid said: “This is not conservatism. … It’s an abhorrent devolution” of the party’s base.
“This emergent, dysfunctional wing of the party that used to kind of be on the fringes is now becoming more mainstream as the party shrinks,” said Madrid, a political consultant who specializes in Latino politics in California. “The base loves this guy. Well, you know what? That doesn’t make it right. It means there’s something wrong with our base. And leadership requires leading us out of this dysfunction … Nobody believes that this is a recipe to grow the party. That’s absurd.”
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“Welcome to Orange County,” Orange County Republican Party Chairman Fred Whitaker told delegates on the opening day of the convention. “We’re the new ‘ground zero’ or Ohio of the West.”
Democrats seized on the convention to further yoke the Republican incumbents to Trump and Bannon — who described himself at the convention as Trump’s “wing man.”
In a statement, California Democratic Party Chairman Eric Bauman said “Steve Bannon is a race-baiting thug masquerading as a pseudo-intellectual. Not since the days of George Wallace and Bull Connor have such prominent racists been considered political leaders, but it’s clear that the Donald Trump Republican Party has chosen to double-down on the alt-right, white supremacist element that Steve Bannon so proudly represents.”
House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy brushed off reporters at a luncheon Saturday, telling them he would speak with them later. Instead, he left the ballroom without taking questions after delivering a speech in which he praised Trump’s “character,” “vision” and “understanding.”
Walters was on hand for the event, but most of California’s House Republicans either did not attend the convention or kept a low profile — not unusual for state conventions in nonelection years.
Still, some of those Republicans have sought in recent months to inch closer to more moderate ground. Royce, Issa and Walters have joined the House Climate Solutions Caucus, a bipartisan group of lawmakers formed to address climate change. After Trump announced the unwinding of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, or DACA, many California Republicans called for legislative action to preserve protections for young immigrants.
But on health care, tax changes and other matters, said Dave Gilliard, a strategist for four of California’s targeted Republicans — Reps. Jeff Denham, Walters, Issa and Royce — any association with Trump’s agenda is unlikely to hurt.
“There’s certainly a lot of people questioning Steve Bannon’s approach,” Gilliard said. “But activists probably love it, and the convention is probably a convention of activists.”
Of Trump administration more broadly, he asserted, “In these [competitive] districts, his policies are not unpopular.”
SF Chronicle: California GOP has a plan for beating Democrats, if it can unite
California Republicans may not have well-known candidates running for governor — or any candidate of note running for Senate next year. But they’re settling on a two-point game plan for trying to return to relevance in a state where they’re a super-minority in the Legislature, have no statewide officeholders and can count only 1 in 4 registered voters as being a fellow Republican.
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But this plan may be easier to list than execute. The party remains at war with itself, both nationally and internally.
Former White House adviser — and self-described Trump “wingman on the outside” — Steve Bannon ripped Arizona Sen. John McCain, former President George W. Bush and top GOP consultant Karl Rove during his keynote speech Friday. Many in the audience booed Bannon’s mention of Bush and McCain.
Without mentioning his name, House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy criticized Assemblyman Chad Mayes, R-Yucca Valley (San Bernardino County), on Saturday. Mayes was the top Republican in the Assembly until he was ousted in August for voting with Democrats to extend California’s landmark climate change law.
“My advice for Assembly members in Sacramento: You will not win the majority by thinking you can be Democrat lite,” said McCarthy, a Bakersfield Republican. “You will not win a majority by voting against your own principles on a Democratic policy. You will not win a majority if you’re concerned about standing behind a podium with a Democratic governor instead of giving freedom to Californians across this entire state.”
Mayes, meanwhile, told The Chronicle that he is so frustrated with the GOP candidates for statewide office that he is considering a run for the governor’s office if he does not seek re-election to the Assembly. He chose to go fishing this weekend with his brothers rather than attend the convention.
“I do believe that it is important for us as California Republicans to differentiate ourselves from national Republicans,” said Mayes, who anticipates making a final decision on a run for governor within a couple of weeks. “And the fact is that California Republicans are different from national Republicans” — citing in particular how many West Coast GOPers are concerned about climate change.
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Then there is the question about what Republican candidates should do about Trump, who is wildly unpopular in California and lost the state by 4.2 million votes to Democrat Hillary Clinton last year. Only 27 percent of the state’s voters approve of the president, according to a Public Policy Institute of California survey in September.
On Saturday, McCarthy tried to make the case for Trump, lauding his “character and vision and understanding.”
But some new candidates for statewide office aren’t ready to go there. Steven Bailey, a retired El Dorado County Superior Court judge who recently announced his candidacy for state attorney general, declined to say Saturday whether he had voted for Trump, saying that his vote was private, because he cast it as a sitting judge. He said there are some places where he agrees with Trump and some where he doesn’t.
Anti-tax advocate Grover Norquist, an influential national conservative thought leader as president of Americans for Tax Reform, said that’s the way Californians should handle questions about Trump. “You say, ‘I agree with him here, I don’t agree with him here, and here’s where I stand.’”
Assemblyman Travis Allen, R-Huntington Beach (Orange County), criticized his main GOP opponent for governor, Rancho Santa Fe businessman John Cox, for voting for former New Mexico Gov. Gary Johnson, a Libertarian, last fall for president.
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LA Times: Divide in California’s GOP on display at convention: ‘We’re not offering anything hopeful’
California Republicans walked into their weekend convention facing a persistent question: What direction should they take to stop the ongoing decline of their power in the state? Three chaotic days later, there was little resolution.
Concern about the party’s future, decisions being made by its leaders and how inclusive the state GOP truly is — topics typically only whispered about at party gatherings — were openly discussed in Anaheim this weekend, spurred by a series of contentious events at the convention, which ended Sunday.
Stephen K. Bannon, a former top advisor to President Trump, criticized former President George W. Bush as the most destructive leader in the nation’s history and injected a nationalist tone into the biannual gathering. College Republicans selected an ally of conservative provocateur Milo Yiannopoulos over a centrist as their new leader in a contentious fight. And debates over resolutions pitted the so-called establishment against tea party members and other outsiders.
“I currently feel like a stranger in a place where I used to feel home,” said Francis Barraza, a top aide to San Diego Mayor Kevin Faulconer, one of the state’s most prominent Republicans. “I feel like the leadership has emboldened people that are not working toward what we’ve been working toward: being a party that’s more inclusive, more forward thinking … I feel like we have reverted 10 years.”
By their nature, political conventions function partly as debate clubs, and disagreements among factions are frequent. Democrats also saw internecine party warfare at their state convention following the bitter 2016 presidential primary. But the level of tension at the state GOP fall convention reached new heights this weekend, a reflection of a similar battle taking place nationally among Republicans — between nationalists and the establishment.
In California, the problem is compounded by the party’s lack of power. About 1 in 4 voters identifies as Republican, according to state election officials, and Democrats control every statewide office and super majorities in both houses of the Legislature. The chances of a Republican winning one of the top two prizes on next year’s ballot — governor or U.S. Senate — are slim.
The party’s top priority in 2018 is defending seven Republican members of Congress who represent districts that voted for Hillary Clinton in 2016, four of which are within driving distance of the Anaheim hotel where the convention took place. Just one of those members appeared publicly at the convention — Rep. Mimi Walters of Irvine. Some state lawmakers purposefully avoided it.
“There was just too much strife here to attend,” said an aide to a state legislator who asked for anonymity to freely discuss the matter. “I’ve been doing this for over 15 years, I’ve never seen it this bad, the infighting, the circular firing squad.”
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But a new hurdle could be be on the horizon. The state GOP’s biggest benefactor in recent years, Charles Munger Jr., has told party leaders that he plans to scale back his financial support, according to several of his allies who asked not to be identified to discuss their private conversations.
Munger demurred when asked about his plans.
“I’m interested in winning elections, and I don’t tell people what I’m willing to do to win a political battle in advance,” he said.
Supporters were despondent about the prospect.
“We need Charles Munger in the worst way, now more than we ever had before,” said Brandon Gesicki, a longtime advisor to former Lt. Gov. Abel Maldonado, adding the party would have had “zero credibility” in recent years without Munger’s efforts.
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Donnelly and Gesicki got into a heated argument about Munger at a hotel bar Friday. It was one of several public spats over the weekend, leading GOP strategist Alex Burrola to compare the convention to the “Red Wedding” scene in “Game of Thrones” — a celebration that ends in a massacre.
“I’ve seen a lot of different kinds of ideological movements and tug of wars come and go,” Burrola said. “I’ve never seen something this ugly, and frankly to me, repulsive. It’s really disheartening because there is so much potential and people do want another choice in California aside from Democrats. But what are Republicans offering? We’re not offering anything hopeful. We’re just offering ugliness.”
KQED: With Help From Bannon, California GOP Hopes to Stoke Voter Anger
With its share of registered voters continuing to slip and no particularly promising candidates for governor or the U.S. Senate, California Republicans are gathering in Anaheim this weekend in hopes of reversing their sunken fortunes by stoking voter anger.
“The party is focusing on some key issues of importance to voters, like the gas tax increase/repeal and other fiscal issues,” said Harmeet Dhillon, Republican national committeewoman for California.
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Sean Walsh is not one of them. Walsh, who worked for Pete Wilson when he was governor, said inviting Bannon to speak sends the wrong signal to Republican donors.
“It plays to the activists,” said Walsh. “But the activists are not the people who get people elected in California. It’s too big, it’s too complex. It’s akin to a cult. If you follow somebody who is too radical and too extreme, you’re going to run yourself right into the dirt.”
OC Register: Steve Bannon to kick off state Republican Party convention in Anaheim today fueling internal strife
While the California Republican Party’s convention in Anaheim this weekend will rally hopes for the party’s future, some insiders complain that President Donald Trump is undermining the state party’s efforts to regain its mojo — and that featuring Trump’s controversial former strategist, Steve Bannon, as the kick-off speaker only makes things worse.
The state GOP’s fortunes have been declining for a decade. Democrats’ advantage in voter registration has grown from 8 percentage points 2007 to 19 points today, in part because of the California’s fast-growing, heavily Democratic Latino electorate. Democrats hold every statewide office and two-thirds super-majorities in the both the state Legislature and the state’s congressional delegation.
Orange County, long a bright spot for Republicans, voted for the Democratic presidential nominee last November for the first time in 80 years. That further fueled complaints that the state party should distance itself from the likes of Trump and Bannon.
“I think the Republican Party is going through a moral crisis when we hold up Joe Arpaio and Steve Bannon as leaders,” said Republican consultant and former state GOP political director Mike Madrid. Arpaio, recently convicted for racial profiling while he was sheriff of Maricopa County, AZ., gave the keynote address last month at a Fresno GOP fundraiser.
“There’s this idea of cultural superiority and that’s very dangerous,” said Madrid, whose career has focused on getting Latinos Republicans elected and attracting more Latinos to the GOP.
“You’re seeing the Republican Party devolve into a race-based party,” he added. “The whole idea of America is that we’re open to everyone, that everyone has the same opportunity.”
State party officials staunchly defended the choice of Bannon, who is executive chairman of Breitbart News and continues to be an aggressive Trump surrogate. Bannon is headlining the Marriott Anaheim dinner Friday, the convention’s opening day.
“I share Mike’s concern with making the party appealing to all parts of the population,” said Harmeet Dhillon, a state GOP executive board member and member of the Republican National Committee. “But I think he’s reading too much into one speaker. We’re going to hear from a number of perspectives. I think it’s good somebody close to the president will share his perspective. … We’re not in the position of shutting out voices.”
“It needs to motivate the base and attract new supporters,” said Schnur, who has since left the GOP and serves as director of the American Jewish Committee, Los Angeles. “There’s no question Trump — and Bannon — can motivate the base. The question is whether they can attract new supporters.”
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In 1990, county Republicans boasted a 22-percentage point advantage over Democrats among registered voters. That declined since — it’s now at 3.3 points — thanks to an increasingly diverse ethnic electorate and that fact that county voters under 35 prefer the Democratic Party to the GOP by a broad margin.
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In next year’s election, the governor’s race will be at the top of the ballot and if there’s no Republican to vote for, it would likely contribute to lower GOP turnout.
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SJ Mercury News: Fasten your seatbelts: Steve Bannon to address the California GOP tonight
Not all Republicans are thrilled that the conservative provocateur is giving the keynote
Swamp-drainer-in-chief Steve Bannon is coming to the happiest place on earth, though not everyone’s happy about it.
The politically radioactive Bannon — former White House strategist and the one-time Dutch uncle who recently parted ways with his Dutch nephew, President Trump — will deliver the keynote address this evening at the California Republic Party’s semiannual convention in Anaheim.
Which, of course, raises a few questions.
First off, why would the state’s GOP, which has been circling the drain in recent years with an anemic voter registration of under 26 percent, want to bring in such a polarizing figure to rally their worn-out troops? After all, the right-wing provocateur and Executive Chairman of Breitbart News has made something of a cottage industry out of trying to blow up the Republican establishment. What could California’s GOP possibly gain by putting this guy on stage? And why would Bannon bother coming when there’s not much Republican establishment here to blow up?
Money may be one reason behind this evening’s awkward dance. As former Breitbart News exec Kurt Bardella points out in an article in the Sacramento Bee, while the party may be in the dumps out West, there is also a ton of Republican money floating around the state. And if Bannon hopes to start tossing grenades around the GOP camp by backing new candidates he favors, he’ll need big bucks to do so effectively. Plus, says the GOP’s state chair Jim Brulte, Bannon is a legend in the popular “drain-the-swamp” movement that some might say has stalled in D.C. in the months since Bannon took his leave.
“Steven Bannon is not shy about taking on the establishment on behalf of hard-working Americans,” Brulte told NBC News. “He is a leading voice in the effort to drain the swamp in Washington D.C., a change desperately needed since it has limited our progress.”
Republican National Committeewoman Harmeet Dhillon told the Los Angeles Times that Bannon is “very popular” among “the party faithful” who will be attending the three-day shindig at the Anaheim Marriott.
Still, his appearance has created what Phil Wilson in the LA Times called an “unsettled concoction of excitement, dread and rubbernecking curiosity for GOP loyalists in the state.”
When word came out last week that Bannon would deliver the keynote, Assemblyman Chad Mayes, a former Assembly Republican leader, unleashed a Tweet barrage against his party’s elders.
“I was shocked by today’s announcement by the CRP,” Mayes, R-Rancho Mirage, tweeted. “It’s a huge step backward and demonstrates that the Party remains tone deaf and intellectually dishonest with the vast majority of Californians. As in life, you can’t have it both ways and today’s announcement made clear the direction the party wants to go.”
And Republican political consultant Kevin Eckery of Sacramento told the LA Times that Bannon was a “fear-monger” who undercuts a party searching for political relevance in a state dominated by Democrats. “I think it contributes to the destruction of the California GOP. Bannon is not just divisive, but is literally intent on destroying the party in hopes that he can rebuild something in his image. And his image is not something we need to convey in California.”
Another question is what sort of reception will Bannon get outside the meeting hall. Activists are pledging that their protests before and during Bannon’s speech will be peaceful.
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