(update: Frank Russo reports that the Speaker of the Assembly will introduce various bills tomorrow regarding refinery capacity and gas prices. I believe that this is an attempt to allay the Foundation for Taxpayer and Consumer Rights' concerns; they have distributed petitions for a special session of the Legislature, after all. I give tentative support to the Speaker's efforts, and hope that it won't befall the same fate as Joe Dunn's bill last year, which never made it out of the Assembly. This is the beginning of the fight, not the end. The rest of my article, which deals with the CDP and really not the Speaker, holds.)
I appreciate all the comments in my somewhat provocative diary on Chevron's $50,000 donation to the CDP and why I think there's a better way to do business. I'm no hallowed saint when it comes to politics, and I understand that right now it takes lots of cash. But my main point is that money received from this particular company at this particular time with these particular underlying scenarios, whether taken in good faith or bad, will not do as much to reach new voters as it will alienate old ones. People have every right to assume that a politician or a party who receives a large donation from a corporate entity will be expecting something in return, as the instances of such exchanges being consummated are too numerous to count. And $50,000 buys 1 ad in LA during election season, maybe not all of it, but it drives hundreds of activists crazy, and every decline-to-state voter that hears about it just shakes their head and continues to believe the perception that "they're all the same" in politics. I know personally, from the reaction this has gotten, that people are upset. It doesn't mean they'll stop working for the party, but maybe they'll stuff one less envelope. Maybe they'll make one less phone call. And maybe they just won't feel as invested in a big-donor top-down party as they would in a small-donor bottom-up one.
I don't know if everyone's aware of this, but the CDP has a horrible reputation in this state, if it has a reputation at all. At a time when people are deserting the GOP in record numbers, we're barely moving the needle. The only way to turn this around is to erase this idea that both parties have their own special interests and that politics is politics and "a pox on both their houses." This donation, particularly from this company (I wonder how Steven Bing feels about it?), particularly with gas prices and oil co. profits both at an all-time high, particularly where the company is artificially decreasing supply like they're OPEC, is to me a no-brainer. It hurts the party. To those who think that parties rise and fall on candidates rather than who gives the candidates money, I advise you to consult Wikipedia under "corruption, culture of," which was universally given as the biggest reason for the Democratic success nationwide in 2006. I fail to see why you would willingly invite comparison, when there's a better way to raise money that brings more people into the donor pool and proud to be a part of the party at the same time.
Further, something the party did in the past doesn't innoculate it from future criticism. Just supporting Prop. 87 and abandoning the issue when it loses is not enough. The gas crisis is playing out right now. CA Democrats have done nothing about it, haven't really talked about it, since November, save for spending money on infrastructure bonds that call for more roads and make the problem worse. Maviglio has said "just wait, we're working on it" so we'll see. But I can't help but believe that pressure LIKE WHAT I AM NOW DOING is a driving factor in that.
What this is all about is how the party can break with the past and move into the future. Taking a stand on this particular contribution, coming up with a more innovative and respectable solution, will reap a hell of a lot more goodwill than $50,000 ever could.
There is a draft letter being circulated among delegates requesting respectfully that Chairman Torres returns this money and works on better funding solutions that are more about party growth. If anyone would like to sign on to it, email me through the site and I'll send you a copy.
