Longtime Democratic consultant, activist cautions Republican leaders about local club

by Brian Leubitz

Bob Mulholland rarely misses a chance to poke a stick at a gathering of Republicans, and an upcoming RNC meeting is no different. If you don’t recall the references, a RNC staffer was fired by Michael Steele at the nightclub reference below because of a 2010 incident.

H/t to Josh Richman/Political Blotter

To: Reince Priebus, RNC Chair

Jim Brulte, Ca Republican Party Chair

They’re Not in Kansas on Wednesday



Just some friendly advice since you have a RNC meeting on Wednesday (9AM) at the Loews Hollywood Hotel, located at 1755 North Highland Ave.

Your meeting is only a 2.3 mile Taxi ride to the Voyeur West Hollywood Club, an erotic bondage-theme sex simulating club, located at 7969 Santa Monica Blvd. in W. Hollywood, so you might want to assign Monitors (or GPS anchor bracelets) on your RNC Members, especially those from Kansas, Nebraska, Idaho, etc., if they don’t have their wives with them.

Just ask former RNC Chair, Michael Steele, who tried to explain why the RNC paid $1,946.25 for an “outing” at the Voyeur (2/4/10) by RNC people. Never did read if the RNC was reimbursed for that wild night of “relaxation.”

Stick to your meetings and avoid the “extra entertainment” options.

However, if some members need to get out and “experience” a Club, not seen at home in Kansas, Bruce Herschensohn and I would recommend the Seventh Veil at 7180 Sunset Blvd in Hollywood. Bruce always thought it was a discreet Club, and less than a mile from your meeting.

Sincerely,

Bob Mulholland

Disgraced California Democratic Party Chair Art Torres apparently intends to attend a small dollar fundraiser with Speaker Karen Bass this evening and make our Speaker look ridiculous by asking for Democrats to give $50 on actblue while the CDP is wasting $450,000 not electing Democrats. Those attending Reggie Jones-Sawyer’s home will be in the awkward situation of having wasted a contribution to the CDP while the latest scandal is being ripped on the editorial page of the LA Times:

Meanwhile, the Sacramento Bee reported that the California Democratic Party used $250,000 of its contributors’ money to pay the legal expenses that Perata (D-Oakland) has racked up defending against a criminal probe by the FBI.

It’s all perfectly legal, but it sure stinks. […]

As for Perata, Democrats not just in his district but anywhere in the state must wonder what their party is doing. They have every right to expect that contributors’ money will be pumped into districts where Democrats are locked in tough election fights with Republicans, or into struggles with the GOP over the budget. Instead, it’s paying the legal bills for Perata, who simultaneously is leading the fight against a redistricting measure on the November ballot.

When politicians demonstrate contempt for Californians, Californians respond in kind. Term-limits reform, badly needed to fix the state’s broken political system, lost at the ballot box in large part because voters mistrusted Perata, Nuñez and Schwarzenegger, and with some reason. The notion that elected officials are paid by the public to do the public’s work has become distressingly quaint.

This is clearly indefensible, which is probably why Bob Mulholland chickened out on debating the issue with Rick Jacobs on KPFA this morning. According to the host, Perata’s flacks also refused to go on the show. With today’s editorial rightly blasting the CDP, the press is trying to get people on record and the word on the street is that the CDP and Perata’s team are refusing to try and defend the indefensible. Props to any press organization that can get the CDP or Don Perata to debate this in public.

There isn’t a debate because there is no excuse for this waste of money. Don Perata needs to immediately refund all $450,000 and Art Torres must resign in shame before tonight’s fundraiser to avoid making a fool of Speaker Karen Bass. And then both should apologize to Hannah-Beth Jackson and every Democrat on the ballot this fall for having such contempt for the concept of trying to win elections.

[UPDATE by Dave]: The problem here is transparency, and it’s not limited to funding.  Watch palace courtier Bob Mulholland respond to the fact that his boss essentially lied about Sen. Feinstein and the FISA bill:

So I contacted the party today to see if Torres would comment on today’s votes. I got a callback from party political advisor Bob Mulholland, who noted Obama voted for immunity today too as a compromise. “Our attitude as a political party is, let’s win the election and we can start cleaning up the constitutional mess Bush gave us,” Mulholland said.

In other words, shut up and trust us, we know what we’re doing.  I think it would be easier to win the election if they weren’t laundering half a million dollars to the Senate leader’s legal defense fund and embarrassing the entire party.  Speaking of which, why IS he still the Senate leader?  Why haven’t there been immediate caucus leadership elections in the wake of this?  Nuñez at least had the sense to step aside.

Well, Day 1 of the CDP convention is pretty much wrapping up at this point, well, save for the hospitality suites. The caucuses went pretty much as you would expect them. Steve Westly was at the computer caucus, Karen Bass made an appearance as the Speaker-elect in the Progressive Caucus, and Carole Migden was pretty much everywhere with two people with signs following her everywhere. It was all rather royal entrance-ish (Disclosure: I do some work for Mark Leno).

The progressive caucus recapped all of the committee work for the past few months. The election integrity is working hard to have the back of Secretary of State Debra Bowen as she fights for elections we can trust. Marci Winograd discussed the massive prison bond package, and the subject of Bob Mulholland came up again. In fact, the ProgCauc passed a resolution urging the party to distribute a list of alternate press contacts, including several members of the ProgCauc’s board.

Mulholland must be loving life. I think for Mulholland, every time somebody talks about him, he grows another fraction of a millimeter. And if nobody talks about him? He slowly shrinks in his own eyes. Yup, Bob does the job of attracting fire, and he’s pretty darn efficient at the task.

Other topics at the ProgCauc included education, the war (of course) and the normal litany of bills and legislators. Dave Jones talked about a new healthcare bill, which Shiela Kuehl called the “2nd most important healthcare bill”. Not bad praise, really.

I stopped by the Youth Panel, although, at least one of the presenters didn’t get a chance to talk. But, I learned some interesting facts, like Asian-American youth are now going, in vast numbers, to Democrats. Over 45% are registered Dems, while only 16% are Republicans.  Or something like that. (Sorry, Claire, if I messed that up). At the LGBT caucus, we saw several LGBT candidates and electeds. Some are either termed out, or otherwise not returning. It should be interesting to see how many LGBT officials we have next year to continue the fight for full equality and civil rights.  I’m hoping that the marriage fight will already be concluded by the time these new officials get sworn into office, though.

Enjoy the video of the rally cries. Even 2 months after the election, a few people still have lungs to scream “Yes We Can” and “Hill-a-ry.”  Good times.  Save some of those lungs for the general, my friends. And for yelling “NO ON 98!”

( – promoted by Dante Atkins (hekebolos))

First and foremost, I appreciate Mr. Mulholland’s words of regret for his dismissive characterizations of bloggers and activists.  And secondly, I appreciate his and his family’s service to this country, as well as his sincere commitment to ending the occupation of Iraq.

I agree sincerely with Bob’s desire to end the war in Iraq–it is a goal that we all share as Democrats and progressive activists.

Where we disagree is on princples of scope and methodology.

More below.

To begin with, I must take issue with the fact that Bob Mulholland’s seemingly sole focus for both the Congressional election and the Presidency is the occupation of Iraq.  At the California Young Democrats retreat in South Lake Tahoe, Bob Mulholland expressed the opinion that no other issue mattered to voters besides Iraq; that the economy did not matter, that global warming and environmental concerns did not matter, that the energy crisis did not matter.

I disagree with this in the strongest possible terms.  Iraq–as well as Aghanistan and a potential impending strike against Iran–are obviously enormous issues, and voters are judging our Congress by its effectiveness in reining in the Bush Administration on issues of military foreign policy.  But I think it goes without saying that we ignore all the other areas of failed Republican domestic and foreign policy at our own peril.

But even when it comes to the objective of ending the occupation of Iraq, I completely disagree with the idea that standing up for Democratic values and encouraging our politicians to support the values the Democratic Party stands for–such as obeying the Constitution, for instance–hinders our ability to win back the White House in 2008.  This could have been a legitimate argument back in 2002 and 2003 when the traditional media was comfortable with calling Democrats who had concerns about the policies of the Bush Administration traitors or other such inflammatory terms, but I strongly believe that standing up for our values can only help our chances of winning back the Presidency in 2008 now that the public trusts the Democrats on just about every single issue around, including national security and taxes.

Even if it were true, however, that standing up for our values could potentially harm our chances in 2008, the things at issue are far bigger than just the Iraq occupation.  The fight we’re waging here–and the reason that we as grassroots and netroots activists put so much effort into the resolution to censure Senator Feinstein–is a fight for the future of our democracy, and what the values of the country will be.  Try to picture, if you will, an Attorney General being confirmed by the U.S. Senate who publicly professed that torture was legal and that the President is above the law before 9/11.  What we’re fighting for is to restore our country’s respect for the constitution, for equal rights, and for equal representation before the law.  We’re fighting to make sure that the the co-equal branches of government are actually co-equal, which will go a long way to making sure not only that we can end this occupation, but also that no president will have the executive poewr to singlehandedly start such a war ever again.

And when America sees a Democrat being a prime enabler of torture and of executive power, it has the effect of normalizing these concepts in the minds of the American public, and blurring the distinction between Democrats and Republicans that will be essential to the chances of Democratic victory in 2008.

And that is precisely why it is so important for us, as the Democratic base, to oppose those who, like Senator Feinstein, grant an air of acceptability to these notions put forth by the Republicans that are, in fact, in complete opposition to traditional American values.  It’s nothing personal, really.  But if our Democratic politicians will not draw a contrast with Republicans, then we as Democrats must draw a contrast with them.