Interference From On High
Staff editorial

A Republican operative’s statewide strategy appeared in the Orange County Register [“California Focus: California GOP’s plan to expand,” Oct. 23]. Ron Nehring, a California Republican Party chairman, discusses the GOP’s intent to influence local elections throughout the state.

Nehring credits his idea to a leader of Mexico’s PAN party, which made inroads against its opposition by focusing on local contests. Nehring suggests local winners can become the “farm team” for higher office.

Meddling of outsiders is nothing new in Mission Viejo, where residents already feel the pain of interference. In the 2006 city election, nine Republicans were smart enough to find City Hall and pull papers on their own. A tenth Republican candidate, Justin McCusker, was recruited by the county GOP, according to statements made by party members associated with the Republican Central Committee. Taking credit for McCusker’s candidacy prior to the election were county party chair Scott Baugh and his buddy on the Mission Viejo council, Frank Ury.

McCusker, a Mission Viejo resident of two years, had no roots and was practically unknown in the city. Longtime residents found him to be uninformed about city issues. By Election Day, even Ury appeared to dump McCusker, promoting only Diane Greenwood, a longtime Democrat who switched parties when she decided to run for office. Ury came up with a goose egg: annoying his fellow council members for campaigning against them and selling out his party by supporting Greenwood, a Republicrat, who also lost.

Why would any Mission Viejo resident, Republican or Democrat, care about endorsements from county-level politicians? Names in the news lately include top dogs Sheriff Mike Carona and County Treasurer/Tax Collector Chriss Street, who are both subjects of federal investigations. A lesser-known Republican operative is Jeff Nielsen, who currently faces multiple felony charges as a sexual predator. Did the OC Register “forget” to cover the news of his arrest?

Independent county bloggers mention there’s more to come. One anticipates the indictment of County D.A. Tony Rackaukas and “kingmaker” Mike Schroeder. The blogger says, “The Orange County machine is going to fall.” Perhaps indictment of others will result from plea bargaining of the Sheriff, who faces up to 100 years in prison if he’s convicted on seven felony counts. The county’s GOP bosses appear to know something’s up. Almost everyone who was defending Carona’s behavior two weeks ago suddenly stopped talking (except for Schroeder and his associates at the Red blog, a/k/a the Red-faced blog). Rackaukas gives short answers when people ask why his office didn’t prosecute Carona. Nielsen, whose trial begins Dec. 4, has ties to numerous GOP bigwigs, who get hopping mad when their names appear in the same paragraph with his.

Shouldn’t the county chiefs get their own house in order rather than trying to “fix” city politics? Who at the county level could do the best job of cleaning up? Party Chair Scott Baugh was indicted more than 10 years ago by Or. Co. D.A. Mike Capizzi, but he beat the charges. (As an aside, a Mission Viejo activist said she met Nielsen when he was working in Baugh’s campaign in the late ‘90s. Nielsen also worked for D.A. Rackaukas as an intern.) Capizzi in the 1990s was chastised for his “overzealous prosecution,” especially when he went after his Republican brethren. He was replaced by Tony Rackaukas, who developed a reputation for political favoritism and selective prosecution. Interestingly, it took more than 40 months to bring Nielsen to trial following his 2003 arrest.

It’s difficult to give every higher-up a dishonorable mention in the space of two pages when the cast of characters rivals War and Peace.

What’s the value of a county endorsement for local candidates when the county has become an embarrassment? According to Nehring, the party recently decided to “streamline the process for bringing state party resources to bear for officially endorsed Republican local candidates.” Apparently, anointed candidates can expect to receive state Republican money.

In 2006, County Chairman Baugh appointed Ury as city chair of Mission Viejo. Ury was allegedly responsible for such activities as distributing the county-printed list of endorsed candidates, with volunteers placing door-hangers at homes of Republican voters. Did anyone get one? City activists found only one precinct (47-201, near Los Alisos and Muirlands), where a volunteer distributed about a dozen such pieces of literature. The volunteer, who didn’t live in Mission Viejo, told an activist she’d been asked by the county to walk Mission Viejo because of a shortage of Mission Viejo workers (“no workers” would be more accurate). Ury either didn’t or couldn’t find anyone who wanted to associate with him or distribute county literature endorsing such an odd trio – John Paul Ledesma, Trish Kelley and Justin McCusker.

McCusker, who finished near the bottom on Election Day, already had his Mission Viejo home up for sale during his campaign. He moved to Rancho Santa Margarita shortly after the election.

Given the embarrassment of county politics, perhaps the day is coming when such endorsements will have no impact at all in a local race. If the state party would instead like to donate its cash toward certain criminal defense funds, that would be fine.