Change Is Coming To The OC GOP Endorsement Process

There is change in the air for the Orange County Republican Party endorsement process. After numerous botched endorsements the last few years, the Chairman of the party Scott Baugh has temporarily deep sixed the Endorsement Committee of the party and has created an Ad Hoc committee made up of myself, Craig Alexander, Nancy Padberg, Deborah Pauly, Valerie Dickerson, Linda Ackerman, and chaired by Mark Bucher. Our mission is to come up with with suggested changes to improve the process. One of the blaring reasons for change in my opinion was the endorsement of former Sheriff and now convicted felon Mike Carona. This kind of thing has to change. More recently was the endorsement last year of San Juan Capistrano Mayor Joe Soto. There were many good reasons not to endorse this guy before this story came out the other day that he is now being accused of over billing the county for landscaping services rendered the last few years. Diane Harkey was adamant that he be endorsed. I was leading the charge to stop the endorsement even though I wasn't a member yet of the Central Committee. I was then accused by some Harkey people of "trying to pick a fight with Diane". That's the furthest thing from the truth. I didn't want the party to endorse someone like Soto who had bad policies and as it turns out now is accused of being a crook. The voters obviously didn't like Joe Soto either because they voted to kick him out of office despite the backing from the party. Maybe it was all the illegal alien coddling or helping to keep the city a de-facto sanctuary city. Who knows. Anyone driven through SJC lately?

How do we then fix the process or can it even be repaired? There is a good argument to be made to just get rid of the beast altogether. A lot of the local elected officials that ask for the party's endorsement haven't done much to promote the party anyways from what I can tell. They just come around during election time hoping to be able to use the GOP brand in their mailers and then are never from again until their next election. I would love to hear from others what their thoughts are about this.