GOP Consultant and Supervisor Says Pro-Publica Story “Something about Nothing.”

by Brian Leubitz

Robert challenged the ProPublica story very effectively, but today we here from an involved Republican consultant (and Yolo Cty Supervisor) that there really was no there there.

Matt Rexroad has been involved at many levels in the GOP establishment. He writes prolifically online as well. His work has appeared on FlashReport many times, but he’s a GOP consultant as a day job.  In his latest bit of writing, he called out the ProPublica for the snow job that it was.

When you start the process telling people not to be involved and then end the process complaining that others were too involved, you have created your own emergency. In the end, the ProPublica story was something about nothing.

Did Paul Mitchell and the Democrats win in redistricting? Maybe, but it was not because of some corrupt process. It was because they showed up and engaged with good data when the issues were presented to the commission. Meanwhile, the only active Republican engagement with the commission was actually from the business community with little or no involvement from either the party or the legislative caucuses.  

As Republicans, if we did get beat at redistricting, we should blame ourselves for being outworked by people that engaged the process while our party stood by waiting for things to happen. (Capitol Weekly)

As Robert has said many times, and I have commented in the same vein on Twitter, there really wasn’t anything here.  Did ProPublica expect both parties to simply stand down? Democrats organized. Republicans well, they did something, but as Rexroad says, if “you haven’t used an astroturf organization, you aren’t a professional.” Both sides knew the game coming into the process.  Democrats did a better job organizing.

Olga Piere and Jeff Larson wrote a splendid hit piece, but I suspect that rather than exposing the Commission for any sort of scheme, other than mere good government hopefulness, the only targets that they really hit were their own careers.  

I don’t normally comment too much on the FalseReport. It’s just generally not worth my time to quibble with inanities. And my disagreeing with those folks would kind of be a little too expected. So, I generally focus on those who are supposed to be “balanced.”  But, I’ve been tempted by this little piece of so-called analysis on SD-03 by Yolo County Supe Matt Rexroad (hey, Yolo, WTF? Do you let just anybody become supervisor?):

In a one on one race with Migden and Leno — I like Leno’s chances.  He is every bit as liberal only he is much nicer.  That is not saying much.  Leno had done a great job of gathering up all of the anti-Migden forces until others started having the same idea.

“Another clinging on to glory days” Alioto jumped into the race.  He divides the anti-Migden forces once. Now Joe Nation has opened an account.  He is a former Assemblyman from Marin County that might make a play for the Marin County part of the district.  He would divide the anti-Migden forces again..and almost certainly hand her re-election.

The problem with this? Well, apparently Mr. Rexroad didn’t bother to talk to anybody who knows the district, knows the personalities involved, or  do any research whatsoever on this before he wrote this.  If he had, he would have seen a few statements like this from people who actually know the San Francisco-based district.  From Luke Thomas, a local photographer/journalist:

Conventional wisdom, however, suggests Nation, who lives in San Rafael, will likely draw votes away from incumbent Senator Carole Migden who is already facing stiff challenges from Assemblymember Mark Leno and San Francisco Police Commissioner Joe Alioto-Veronese. (FogCityJournal 11.28.07)

Or this analysis from one of the top pollsters in the City, probably the state, David Latterman of Fall Line Analytics :

David Latterman, president of Fall Line Analytics, a San Francisco-based polling company, said Nation’s potential entrance into the race “hurts Carole” Migden. That’s because while both Migden and Leno are well known in San Francisco, a Nation candidacy could take Marin votes away from Migden, which Leno has never represented, he said. (SacBee CapAlert 11.16.07)

Now, I’m not saying that Mr. Rexroad couldn’t be right, it’s just that he’s not even close to being right.  He frames this as a race between Senator Migden vs. Not-Senator-Migden.  And that’s just not the way this works. Assemblyman Leno and Fmr. Assemblyman Nation both have their own name IDs. Mr. Nation isn’t so popular up as he once was in the North Bay considering his primary challenge to Lynn Woolsey. (By the by, Rep. Woolsey doesn’t look like she’s set to let that incident go so quickly either.)

Oh, and apparently Mr. Rexroad also missed the latest self-injection of cash into Sen. Migden’s campaign. The funny thing is here that Mr. Rexroad actually seems to well, dislike Sen. Migden. Now, that’s probably a badge of honor for a progressive like the good Senator, but the article is an odd way of stating that distrust. Maybe next time Mr. Rexroad spills pixels, he’ll think of making sure that he has a solid grip on the facts.