In With The New - Some Inside Baseball

Introduction

It was cold, icy, and sunny December day at the Fairbridge Hotel on North First Street. I was having a hard time finding a place to park in the large, crowded parking lot. The annual Republican “organization meeting” was about to kick off and we were electing who was going to lead the Yakima County Republican Party.

I made my way to the bustling conference room where more than a hundred PCO’s and a little under half that many spectators blustered and hobnobbed with enthusiastic rancor. The usual bland proceedings typical of the Yakima Valley Republican Party was displaced by an air of enthusiastic optimism. The two dominant political wings were about to vie for the future of the party.

I grabbed a cup of coffee and nodded to a few family members. We’ve been Republicans since the civil war, hating abortion as much as slavery and for nearly all the same reasons.

Autumn Torres handed me a slip of paper with a list of names.

This list was the preferred candidates of City Councilman Brown’s faction. These upstarts have been working the more libertarian wing of the party to replace the county Chair, Vice Chair, and about three other seats. Effectively wrestling control from the “Old Guard.” I was asked to consider voting for the names listed and I grinned as I looked them over.

The current Chair, Deb Manjarrez, was stepping down and Matt Brown had been hard at work filling out vacant Precinct Officer slots. Word on the street was that Brown and his core of volunteers had been more than successful enrolling the requisite number of seats to take control of the board, but would it comprise a super majority?

Up ‘till now…

Bruce Smith is the owner and lead editor of The Yakima Business Times. Long ago, Bruce forged an alliance of PCO’s and board members that guaranteed his preeminence and title as “King Maker.” While this title was begrudged by some, his dominance was nearly total, as evidenced by his selections for vacant county commissioner offices.

It is state law that if a county commissioner vacates his seat during his term the party that the retired commissioner is affiliated with must appoint a replacement. This replacement is voted in by the respective parties PCO’s. When both Districts 1 and 3 were unexpectedly vacated, Bruce Smith’s pick for each seat carried the day. First Vicky Baker, then LaDon Linde were appointed to their respective offices, despite hot opposition in Linde’s case.

This state of politics, amplified by the attacks and endorsements made in the Yakima Business Times, gave the impression that the Chair served at the pleasure of Bruce Smith, an impression that lent credibility to a consensus that Bruce’s faction comprise what’s known as Yakima’s “good ol’ boys club.”

To be clear, I am of the opinion that Bruce was doing a job nobody else wanted to do. And just because someone is willing to do the work doesn’t make them a villain…far from it. I know I don’t want to run the Republican Party. There are few who do. So why would I begrudge those who are willing to carry all the water? The parable of the Little Red Hen comes to mind.

But here’s the rub…

Bruce Almighty picks people who kiss the ring…and that’s not been working out very well.  Allow me to provide a few examples.

Bruce’s pick for County Commissioner was a woman named Vicki Baker. Baker demonstrated that she was virtuous, competent, kind, and gracious. She wanted peace, not drama. She did this by prioritizing department proficiency and streamlining processes to decrease waste while improving the government product. This is more than laudable, yet her legacy is not an enviable one. She was not a fighter.

The county electorate suffered badly during the deceptive “two weeks to slow the spread” lockdown decreed on the State level. The County, under her leadership, screwed a lot of families over when its three commissioners assented to Inslee’s mandates. You might recall the decrees that shuttered all the states “non essential” schools, churches, businesses…but kept the pot-shops and strip clubs running. Baker’s own business was deemed “essential,” and it was essential, as was every other business and institution in Yakima County.

And you know what? I get it. There’s a place for compromise. But we needed leaders who would have defied petty tyrants— not peacemakers. Despite Bruce’s best efforts, Baker lost her commissioner seat to Amanda McKinney a year after being installed.

Bruce’s second pick for County Commissioner, LaDon Linde, has suffered from the same revealing shortcomings exemplified by Baker but without her “streamlining” accomplishments.

LaDon Linde’s behavior around the COVID lockdowns was pointedly absurd. He parroted leftist media talking points, championed the moving of goalposts, and consistently deferred to Olympia and the Biden administration. When the policies he pushed proved to be founded on bogus “science,” he declined to reverse course or explain his failures.

As a result, Linde is a darling of the Yakima Herald Republic and the Yakima Business times. Critics of Bruce Almighty’s guy in the lower valley have persuaded a great many republicans that he lacks the integrity to resist egregious government overreach. Despite this, Linde has narrowly defeated several challengers.

Critics of Commissioner Linde accuse him of misleading the public about the C-19 vaccine, which has proven to be ineffectual. They allege Linde failed to protect his district from government tyranny. [caption for picture]

After all this failure, who was enabling Bruce Almighty’s agenda of promoting “peace in our day” bureaucrats to run the County? That would be Bruce Almighty’s supporters. But their days as the governing majority were numbered. COVID was about to deliver some changes to Yakima’s “good ol’ boys club.”

Matt Brown grows irritable…

I first got to know Matt Brown when he worked at EfCom on Second Street. The old  camera shop turned Mac repair and Apple retail store. Sometime before the shop was mothballed, Matt started working full time as a Pastor at Yakima Foursquare. When the pandemic hit, he began taking an interest in the COVID data. He quickly grew frustrated by the apparent inability of local media outlets to accurately relay that data to the public.

To counteract local news outlets and educate his neighbors, Matt Brown created a social media page entitled “Real Covid Data.” The page became a consistent beacon of accurate and consumable data regarding the actual effect of COVID on the community. It was a consistent irritant to the far left in Yakima who rightly believed the information was hobbling the ability of government agencies to execute a totalitarian approach to public health.

Brown went on to win a seat on Yakima City Council.

Now here we are

In order to understand the full scope of the drama involved, you, dear reader, must keep in mind that Matt Brown and his crew respect most of the Old Guard.

The Old Guard consists of stalwart volunteers who are often virtuous, long suffering, and extraordinarily generous. They have stewarded the ship for the last forty years and, understandably, believe themselves a little entitled to their various positions. That being said, nearly all of them are just plumb tired.

There are a few, however, who are incompetent, devious, and vindictive. These few…these ignoble few, these cowardly custards have wrecked havoc within the Republican Party over the last two decades. The stupidity of this small minority was made apparent over the last three years.

It was in the midst of the COVID-19 mandates that the principles of uncompromising, stalwart Republicanism were abandoned. During the Chinese pandemic, an active minority of these elderly lickspittles traded their children’s inheritance for a false sense of security.

But there were some who resisted.

Inspired in part by men like Steve Bannon and Dan Schultz, a roadmap was outlined for Americans to revitalize the Republican Party through what has been termed the “Precinct Strategy.”

In Washington State, a Precinct Committee Officer (or PCO) is an elected official in the County political party system. The PCO position establishes a direct link between a political party and the voters in a neighborhood or subsection of the county. The PCO’s also serve as a voting body for the county level Republican or Democratic Party, electing Party leadership and assisting in numerous party events.

After winning his city council race, Brown and a newly minted coalition of amateur politico’s set to work, identifying and recruiting a number of angry Americans to fill vacant PCO seats.

The Flip

Due in equal parts to my work as a muckraker and being an all around pain in the neck, I’m rightly kept at a safe distance. I don’t mind. Keeps things simple. So when Brown and his grass-roots organizers set about recruiting PCO’s to fill out vacant positions I was delighted to find myself in the company of the unaligned.

As I glanced around, grinning at the afore mentioned slip of paper, I recognized several names but not all of them. Somehow, I knew that every person listed was not going to take orders from the benevolent Bruce Almighty—if they pulled this off, the sheriff would lose his job to the posse.

ACT 1

“Neither the Central Committee nor the Executive Board shall endorse, rank or rate any candidate for office if more than one Republican or GOP candidate for that office is listed on the ballot.”

After everyone was seated and the preliminaries were taken care of, the first major item was an alteration to the bylaws. It had to do with the power of the party to recognize and endorse candidates during the primary.

The idea the at the Republican Party should get involved in a candidate’s race during the primary began picking up steam after notorious turncoat Dan Newhouse squeaked out a primary win against a crowded bevy of contenders.

Newhouse would have most definitely lost had his own party decided to endorse any one of the competent businessmen who were diluting the “not Newhouse” vote. Nearly every serious minded Republican voted against him, but there was no consensus formed around who would be the best replacement.

In order to propose a “get rid of Rino’s” solution, some changes to the bylaws had to be made, the first of which involved the prohibition placed by the party upon its self to endorse during a primary.

Some muttered objections by a few PCO’s signified that the “good ol’ boys” didn’t like these changes, but the motion passed and the endorsement prohibition was struck from the bylaws.

ACT 2

"The Central Committee may endorse, rate, or rank any candidate with a two-thirds (2/3) vote of the committee members in attendance. One candidate per office may be endorsed. Proxies shall be allowed."

"The Executive Board shall vote to approve financial campaign support for endorsed candidates at the following Executive Board meeting."

"Additional financial support may be approved by an Executive Board vote at any time thereafter."

"The Executive Board shall prioritize marketing, social media, and grassroots campaigns on behalf of endorsed candidates following the endorsement meeting through the general election in November."

The majority of PCO’s at the meeting were enthusiastic about this change. I was sitting off to one side and had a good read on the room. When Dan Newhouse refused to resign after being censured by his own party, he inspired a great many otherwise preoccupied voters in his district to sit up and pay attention to local politics. Many of them began to ask, “How does he pretent to be a Republican?!”

He got away with it because the Republican Party didn’t have this spicy little bylaw in place. They were unable to push back on establishment “K-street” pretenders. Even though Newhouse didn’t know it, the day he impeached Trump he changed politics in Yakima.

But here is where Bruce Almighty’s faction began to squawk.

The objections were well articulated by various old-school Republicans, but the most persuasive argument was made by County Commissioner LaDon Linde. It should be noted, however, that his argument was weakened by his record. A great many of the values he was articulating — fair play and laissez-faire principles — had been abandoned during the Kung-Flu. Abandoned, I might add, by LaDon Linde himself. Ultimately, a paper vote was called for.

The proposed change passed with a hand vote of 69 in favor, 19 against, and 3 abstaining.

ACT 3

The nominations and voting in of new members on the board was brief and brutal. Everyone of the persons on the slip of paper I held in my hand were voted into office. It was a clean sweep for the angry Americans. The meeting was adjourned and the respective political cliques wandered off to party or commiserate.

What now?

As of May 20th, the Republican Party has voted to endorse several primary candidates in local races. This development may significantly diminish the power of the Yakima Herald Republic and Yakima Business Times. If a majority of candidates endorsed by the Republican Party go on to win their respective primaries, then the power of those publications to shape our local governments will diminish significantly.