The following conversation never happened. It is for the reader to decide to what extent, however, this conversation reflects political reality in California today.
Candidate: It’s a surprise that you contacted me. I never thought I would run for office, I don’t know how to run a campaign, and I’m not well informed on any of the things I might have to manage if I get elected.
Government Union Operative: That doesn’t matter. We have profiled you and determined you will be a viable candidate and develop into a politician we can count on.
Candidate: But I don’t even know how to begin this process!
Government Union Operative: Don’t worry about that, either. Here are all the forms you need, already filled out. We’ll just put in your name and personal information, and then you’ll sign them. We will submit them. We will follow up.
Candidate: Where will I get my money to campaign? Where will I find a campaign manager?
Government Union Operative: We do everything for you. We’ve found a treasurer who will process all of your donations and expenditures, and all you have to do is approve them. We have a campaign consultant who will run your campaign for you. And we will run a separate independent expenditure campaign which allows us to avoid campaign contribution limits, and you will not have to do anything.
Candidate: What about my opponent?
Government Union Operative: Don’t worry. We will outspend your opponent by whatever amount necessary to ensure victory. They have to do everything themselves, knowing they’re going up against us. They have to raise money from small contributors. They have to constantly hold petty fundraisers. They haven’t got access to our government union contributions, and the corporations won’t help them because they’re all afraid of us. Unless your opponent is wealthy and willing to burn through a good chunk of their own personal fortune, they won’t have nearly enough money to compete with you.
Candidate: What will I campaign about? What will I say?
Government Union Operative: Don’t worry! We will tell you what to say. We will write your campaign literature. We will build your campaign website. We will handle every detail. We have all the money we will ever need, so we hire the best political consultants. We’ve learned exactly what voters respond to, and we will attack your opponent as an extremist.
Candidate: But shouldn’t I have ideas of my own? Shouldn’t I stand for anything?
Government Union Operative: No. Leave it all to us. Just be available for photos and to sign documents and checks.
Candidate: What if it’s a close election? Won’t all this be for nothing?
Government Union Operative: It probably won’t be close, but if it is, we know exactly what to do. If early voting trends show your opponent’s party turning out in stronger than anticipated numbers, we will invest more money in ballot harvesting during the weeks before election day. Our ballot harvesters know which household residents have registered with our party. Early voting lets us know how many votes we need, and ballot harvesting lets us control how many votes we’ll get. And it’s legal. You can’t lose.
Candidate: Can’t my opponent’s party do the same thing?
Government Union Operative: Theoretically, yes. But it costs a lot of money to engage in science-based ballot harvesting. And you see, ha ha, they haven’t got any money. What’s really funny, though, is that we’ve convinced Californians that we don’t have very much money, that we’re the underdogs, and that our opponents are spending us into the ground because they take contributions from “corporations and billionaires.” And guess what, we’re the ones who get almost all the contributions from corporations and billionaires, and they don’t.
Candidate: What if you can’t find enough households with voters registered to your party who haven’t voted yet, and early voting trends still show that I could be behind?
Government Union Operative: Relax. We have a lot of tools in our toolbox. Even though the last day to register to vote as a traditional voter is October 24, we can assist people with same-day registration as a “conditional voter” right up until and through Election Day, November 8. We know who to register. For example, our teachers union has ensured that the vast majority of young voters are thoroughly conditioned to vote for our party, and to despise your opponent’s party. We have a profile for every eligible voter in the state. We know where every person under age 30 is living, and if they’re not registered, we can get them a same-day registration, then we’ll harvest their ballot.
Candidate: Isn’t it kind of weird that California permits early voting to begin a full month before the November 8 election and allows counting and certification to last all the way up until December 16? Doesn’t it allow you to manipulate the election outcome during this extended voting period?
Government Union Operative: So what? It’s legal. We control the politicians, which means we write the laws, and we made all of this legal.
Candidate: What if my opponent questions the fairness of same-day registration and ballot harvesting to ensure victory?
Government Union Operative: You’re a quick learner, but you still don’t get it. We have all the winning messages. If your opponent questions the ethics of ballot harvesting, or the accuracy of the registered voter database from which ballots are mailed to everyone, or the injustice of taxpayer funded government unions recruiting candidates and paying for their campaigns, we will just call them an “election denier.”
Candidate: Oh, yes! I’ve heard that phrase a lot lately. Those people are fascists!
Government Union Operative: Right you are. Welcome to the team. Now just sign here.
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Candidate: What if I'm behind on election day by 1000 votes and it looks like my opponent will hang on to win?
Government Union Operative: We will mobilize our forces and canvas our members who have not voted. We will provide them with provisional ballots and bus them to polling sites. Since we will know by then exactly how many votes you will need to overtake your opponent - DON'T WORRY. The counting cannot end until you have enough votes to win. (This is what happened to Laxalt in Nevada).
P.S. I agree with the idea that a Trump-DeSantis ticket would be virtually unbeatable in 2024. The thought has crossed my mind and the reason I contributed to DeSantis (VP not POTUS in 2024). I hope it happens: https://justthenews.com/politics-policy/elections/gipper-strategy-six-bold-ideas-trump-republicans-rebound-2022-midterms.
This is exactly how it works. Rings true.
I was an elected official during the term-limit transition time to the Democrat super majority. I watched helplessly, like Cassandra, while this slowly evolved from the RINO Arnold Schwarzenegger bait and switch to this current cesspit of Democrat super-majority domination.
I always get asked, what is wrong with California. This "imaginary conversation" tells exactly what went gone wrong in California. "Election reform" in this state was the Trojan horse.
Start with Prop 98 putting an unfathomable amount of money on the table for K-12 education -50% of all general fund revenues automatically going to public education - which in return has given us a K-12 system now ranked near #50 nationwide.
Add the banking of years of closed shop government employment union dues to support a Democrat campaign war chest, to the now defacto mandatory union membership by thuggish in-house influences even after SCOTUS relieved government employees of this due-paying hammer lock. Average union dues is now over $1000 per government employee. Do the math - grow the government workforce and you grow the financial underpinning of even more union domination.
The equal growth of SEIU along with the teachers unions and you have the two twins of the political destruction of this state, all funded by our own tax dollars to work against us. The one Wall Democrats support whole heartedly - the massive Blue election wall.
We voted for "education", and we got the teachers unions instead. We voted for humane social services, and we got the endlessly open maw of massive SEIU hiring instead.
Now we can't get out from under this wholesale giveaway of our state - as noted - everything was made "legal" in our innocence of ultimate consequences. But they knew exactly what they were doing. There was no innocence on their part. AG Kamala Harris was able to block every attempt at ballot reform of this growing menace to our state and its future. Later court rulings cemented in this government employee union power over us. After all, courts are government operations too.
Cutting the tax dollar funding sources of this government morass is the only option left; which will harm us all due to the now thoroughly embedded Democrat government employee domination of this state. They move as a block, threaten one and the entire block moves against anyone who dares to take them on.
Other failed Blue States continue to sink into even deeper despair,, debt, crime and social malaise than California. There is no model showing how this can be turned around. Florida is one bright spot, but has little relevance to California due to Florida's far less confiscatory taxing schemes.
Imagine California with no state income tax first; then work up from there.
This is great. I really liked this method of painting the picture. (And bonus points because it goes beyond CA, of course.) It's bitterly amusing and ironic, which fits the mood of the moment, but it also spoon-feeds us what the typical such interaction probably actually looks like. So I get it, but (wink, wink) I think the profiled mythical candidate being recruited here asked WAY too many sensible questions.
Mr. Ring!
Nailed it!
The California Republican establishment is full of selfish lazy elitists.
They are perfectly comfortable acting helpless against the Democrats.
Mr. Ring, excellent article. I would have added one other question/answer:
Candidate: What's in it for me?
Government Union Operative: Well we can provide you with money, boys and/or girls, drugs and your own fixer. If you just want money that is easy enough, but usually it is not. So just let us know what you want, but remember you will always work for us.
Sad and depressing, but accurate depiction of the current voting process. It appears most elections are over before they begin. The only thing a voter can do to effect change is to close down a business, or quit a job and move, which is why so many corporations and people have left California.
Many states have outlawed ballot harvesting. We need a statewide push to do the same. With schools ranked 50th in the nation, rising crime, and the highest gas prices and taxes in the nation, parents would be the natural constituency for a movement of this type.
Suggest everyone take a look at this and just start thinking about it:
https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2022/11/how_wisconsin_streetfighters_disrupted_a_democrat_ballotgathering_system.html
I can shorten this : Take bribes... many bribes....
In today’s political climate one is made to feel like a conspiracy theorist if one believes this because of all the little catch phrases that are constantly being floated such as “election denier”. But this sort of thing is nothing new. If you have read the Pulitzer winning biography “Truman” by David McCullogh, you might recall that Harry Truman was hand-picked by the Kansas City mob to be local elected judge back in the 1920s. They then ushered him along all the way up to the US Senate and even towards the VP office.