Is a Republican about to take Diane Feinstein's old Senate seat? Maybe.
A few months ago that would have been a pipe dream, and we didn't want to jinx it by talking about it too much. But, the MarinGOP Vice Chair, Mr. Thomas Montgomery, loves to crunch numbers and loves to focus on the "odd" races that other people --who don't understand the goofy ins and outs of California politics-- ignore.
Barely three weeks ago we were watching so-called "conservatives" --you know the types, 8 years ago they were Obama fans, then they were AIPs, now they're claiming to be "conservative warriors" and howling "RINO" at every passing Republican who dares to care about reality instead of social media hits-- tell people to vote for anyone BUT Garvey. Huh? You call yourself a "conservative" but you're telling Republicans NOT to vote for the most viable Republican candidate in a wide open and crazy race in a top-two state?
(In case you don't know what "top two" means, it means that in California the two candidates who do best in the Primary --regardless of their Party affiliation-- advance to the General. This means we can have major statewide races between two Democrats.)
Well, luckily about two million Republican voters --and probably some NPPs-- decided to ignore the anyone-but-Garvey drumbeat of the social media self described "conservative warriors" who were --for whatever crazy in-love-with-losing reason-- trying to split the Republican vote, and decided to coalesce around Garvey. (Btw: I have a few pet peeves of my own and I hate using the term "warrior" for anyone who hasn't seen combat. Attention social media "warriors" --unless you have seen combat you are not a warrior, you are just someone with questionable judgement on Facebook.)
The MarinGOP didn't endorse Garvey --we didn't endorse anyone for the Senate race, we figured it was a wide open race and we wanted the Primary voters to find their candidate. (We had some iffy candidates come knocking looking for our endorsement over five months ago. In retrospect we're really glad we held our ground and didn't jump on a train to nowhere.)
Dragging our feet and trusting the voters --and trusting Garvey's obviously amazingly focused communications team obviously paid off. For the first time in a generation California Republicans have a viable shot at a Senate seat. Four current members of the Marin County Republican Central Committee --Kernan, Oliver, Ben & Sarah-- were literally young children the last time California had a Republican Senator. (I'm fairly sure I was probably practicing my routine for the St. Patrick's Day dance competitions the last time California had a Republican Senator. Happy St. Patrick's Day by the way.)
This is going to be a legitimately exciting election year for California Republicans and I hope you will join the team in committing to engage in outreach. For too long, too many "conservatives" have been content to squabble with other conservatives.
Until November, I --hopefully we-- will be focusing on promoting our viable Republican candidates.
This isn't just about the Presidential race --we're going to have viable California Republican Congressional candidates this year. We have a legitimate Senate contender. And, we have Republicans of all ages up and down the state making serious plays for the Assembly.
We know a lot of people are still focusing on the Primary numbers, but so far Tom, Ben, Diane, Chris B., Oliver, Kernan, T.J., Brian and myself have all committed to focusing for the next thirty weeks on the General Election. Our volunteer job this year is doing everything we can to get our voters to the polls for our candidates in November. And, some of us have been working on the "plan" for over a year now. (Sometimes to the detriment of our personal plans.)
We have candidates to promote and a job to do. We're going to raise the rest of the money we need for our Fall Get-Out-The-Vote-Efforts, we're going to do outreach to people of all ages, we're going to promote our candidates and our platform, we're going to work our hearts out, we're going to have as much fun as we can, and we're going to keep our eyes on the November prize.
If you want to help, I look forward to seeing you. If you want a lawn sign, let us know. If you want to volunteer, great! (We're going to need in-person charmers to help work the GOP booth at the county fair. Last year I personally had to step in and cover forty hours worth of shifts personally when a couple of volunteers got sick. I hope this year the team will consist of more than a handful of people.
If you just want to meet some people and maybe contribute financially, please consider buying a ticket for our June fundraiser.
And please, start talking about our great candidates. Word of mouth is everything early in the game. And Garvey seems to be worth talking about.