What does Sue Horne's Endorsement of Tom McClintock really mean?
Posted by Aaron Park on March 02, 2008 at 10:48 AM
McClintock’s announcement into the 4th CD race was broken on this blog Wednesday afternoon. An email went out from team McClintock yesterday. So why would Sue Horne jump the gun and endorse McClintock a few days before he becomes official?
To understand the connection of Doug LaMalfa, Sue Horne, Jim Nielsen, Dick Dickerson et. al… you have to go back a little ways.
It was 1999. Assemblyman Rico Oller was going to Run for State Senate against Assemblyman Bernie Richter.
Former State Senator Jim Nielsen endorsed Richter. David Reade, LaMalfa’s current Chief of Staff was on board with Richter as well. In the prior election cycle, Reade ran against Sam Aanestad for Assembly… at the time Reade ran as the moderate. Aanestad endorsed Rico Oller.
At that time, Chico City Council Member Rick Keene endorsed Rico Oller – a staunch Conservative. Doug LaMalfa stood behind his man Bernie Richter. Sue Horne was Bernie Richter’s district director.
Oller attacked Richter for talking Conservative in the district and going to Sacramento and voting like a Sacramento politician.
Apparently, a large part of the reason why Nielsen, LaMalfa and David Reade chose to stand behind a complete liberal like Doug Ose over Rico Oller relates back to past campaigns.
The other part appears to be more more idealogical – Nielsen voted more than a dozen times to send our water to LA, Richter was often counted on by Willie Brown to provide a crossover Republican vote for whatever Brown needed and the rest was previously written.
When the now 4th CD 2008 race was shaping up as Oller v. Ose… the Reade / Horne camp had completely aligned itself with Doug Ose.
With McClintock’s entry into the Congressional race, it effectively doomed Doug Ose’s Congressional Campaign. Now, Horne was facing a public outing – her campaign says she is a Conservative. The former GOP chairmen in Nevada County know better, Sam Aanestad who lives in nearby Penn Valley endorsed Dan Logue instead of Sue Horne.
The Nevada County board of supervisors’ behavior says something other than a Conservative History. However, shining a light on the behavior of local government is difficult – this blog has been doing as such for a while REMEMBER? and Remember the former Nevada GOP Chairmen?
Now Horne is breaking ranks with her team – bailing out on her expected endorsement of Doug Ose. Could Ose be bailing out of the 4th CD race in the face of superior force? Where will this leave everyone else on Ose’s endorsement list? Personal vendettas and multi-year grudges are no excuse for a moral compromise.
The people that know Horne the best have endorsed Dan Logue. Sue Horne must be feeling the heat as the Conservative backlash against the establishment rallying behind Doug Ose is moral outrage. Consistent with her past behavior – Sue Horne is apparently bowing to pressure. This time, however, to do the right thing as opposed to Beale AFB.
Meantime – Rico Oller gets the shaft for standing up for Conservative values in the North State. It takes a Conservative of God-like status to stop the freight train wreck – all because a whole bunch of people don’t like Rico Oller? There has to be more going on here. Sue Horne’s endorsement of McClintock is an obvious strategy – the list of people selling out their Conservative values to support Ose is far too long for it to just be about getting even with Rico.
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Some points about the history here:
Editor’s Note – this comment contained an unverifiable e-mail address and several of its’ assertions are disputable and unconfirmable.
1) Mr. Park neglects to mention the central force here, the past/present connections to Johnson/Clark for the elements of McClintock, Richter, Reade, LaMalfa, Horne (and you left out Maurice Johanessen!) crowd. This is the underlying (or perhaps overriding) glue here.
2) Mr. Park must be too young to recall distasteful 1992 3rd AD race (and, in some ways, the 1986 3rd AD race, the 1984 Senate race for John Doolittle’s nascent machine (itself an outgrowth of Bill Richardson’s). Many of the same players, or their proteges, have been involved all along.
The 1992 Aanestead/Richter race heightened animosity over the what were percieved as very personal attacks by Aanestead against the Richter family (Reade is the son-in-law of the late Assemblyman). Reade, correcting Mr. Park’s version, ran strongly TO THE RIGHT of Aanestead in 1998 (Reade was endorsed by the CRA)—losing largely due to first (and only) open primary held that year. Democrats participated heavily in the GOP primary.
Richter, Nielsen, Johannessen were/are not movements Conservatives. McClintock, Reade, LaMalfa and Horne are (to my experience). The back-and-forth about who are or aren’t “true conservatives” is not the big issue here- the decades old personal, political, church, and family relatonships are.
Oller and Ose are new players in this drama.
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