Went out to dinner with my political friend last night, and managed to lock myself out of the house for the past few hours. Broken glass and a hangover. What luck. Here’s the lowdown on what I found most interesting that he said, in his words as much as possible (different parts of a conversation that lasted several hours):
“(Assemblyman) Anderson had that race for Senate all to himself really. I mean it was his. There wasn’t any reason to play all those games with money. That kind of malarky usually only leads to trouble and it led to trouble. I had a buddy in the Nixon campaign that got in a real fix playing around with money and politics. Later I had a couple of friends damn near to go prison. Not worth it. But politics is a little strange. It’s not uncommon to do the wrong thing without thinking too much about it. I’ve seen many politicians do the right thing in that what they did was legal, but get pilloried by public opinion. That’s human nature I think, and why it’s best to have a few people around you who don’t put up with your crap, who are not afraid of you, and who will tell you when you are doing something stupid. But most politicians don’t like that type around, to tell you the truth. It’s uncomfortable when you are supposed to have all the answers to have someone telling you that you’re a half wit much of the time. But I’ll tell you, from experience, the penalties these days are so high for any type of playing around that I’d sure have a few guys like that around me.”
(Later…)
“I’m no expert at what goes on way out there, but I think both these guys Anderson and the Supervisor Stone have ethics issues that they will rip each other apart on. I guess Stone hired his sister or his daughter or his aunt or someone who made big bucks frankly I don’t remember but when I heard it my rear end puckered a little if you know what I mean. I think with ethics off the table the race is policy. It’s a GOP primary so the conservative, as long as he has money, wins. Don’t know the voting records, but I usually find local officials have more moderate records cause they actually have to GOVERN (long rant about governing vs. non governing here that has been removed because it was incredibly dull)… I think in a closed primary the state official will usually have an advantage so I give the edge to Anderson. And land use isn’t doing so hot so the Supervisor probably won’t raise the kind of money he would have a few years ago. Yeah, edge Anderson.”
(Later…)
“I hear the thing with the money is over. That there is a settlement with Anderson and the FPPC up in Sacramento, and with the different county Republican organizations that gave him the money. Yeah it’s just a rumor but I heard we are talking tens of thousands of dollars. My source is pretty good, but who the hell knows with stuff like this. I think really this is all crap anyways and that if the damn government just let candidates raise and spend and disclose there wouldn’t be all these problems. I mean I look at the paperwork twenty years ago and now and compare and it’s like, Jesus, are we just trying to employ accountants and lawyers and looking to curse these guys with paperwork? Let them pull it in and with the damn internet let them disclose the donor to the public that very day or the next day.”