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Contributor

Jubal

Jubal is the proprietor of the Orange County Insider [go to Jubal index]

Thank You, Bill Jones
Exceeding my expectations…
[Jubal] 11/24/04

I'd like to thank Bill Jones, the GOP nominee against Barbara Boxer. I'd like to thank him for confirming my belief, formed the moment I learned he planned to challenge the unctuous Boxer, that he would win the nomination and proceed to run an abysmal general election campaign.

Jones not only fulfilled my expectations -- he exceeded them.  I can't remember a worse statewide race in a generation.  Jone's nomination should have been reported in Boxer's campaign reports as an in-kind contribution from California Republicans.

His awful candidacy also vindicates my vote for Rosario Marin in the primary.  While Marin was definitely more moderate than Jones (no right-winger himself), at least she had vitality, belief in herself and the better fund-raising abilities than Jones.  She was weak on policy once she got past her talking points, but that could easily be remedied in the months before the media again focused on the general election. And in Ken Khachigian, she had a consultant who knows how to fight, and isn't afraid to.

Beside, Marin had a great story to tell, and could have cut into the Hispanic vote.  There was a rationale to her candidacy -- it made sense. There was no rationale to Jones candidacy other than Bill was looking for a new job. I don't know if she would have beaten Barbara Boxer, but I'm convinced she'd have given the old lefty a run for her money. Instead, thanks for Bill Jones zombie campaign, Boxer was the nation's top vote getter behind Bush and Kerry.

And while we're on the subject, the decision by Arnold Schwarzenegger and Pete Wilson to back Jones over former Wilson staffer Marin in the primary -- thereby severely crimping Marin's ability to raise money from the traditional donor community -- doesn't speak well of their political instincts. It's especially puzzling given the loyalty Wilson people show each other.  Marin loyally defended Wilson in the Spanish-language media for years -- no easy task. For that, ole Pete gave her the back of the hand. Perhaps he narcissistically believed what the California GOP needed was to nominate another boring white guy.  Or Perhaps it was a long overdue payback for Bill Jones role in dumping Ross Johnson as Assembly GOP leader back in 1991 and securing the six GOP votes necessary to pass Wilson's disastrous $8 billion tax increase.

Using the same judgment that led him to switch his support from George W. Bush to John McCain following McCain's big New Hampshire primary win in 2000, Jones believed it was smart for his cash-strapped campaign to pay $25,000 a month to campaign manager Bruce Nestande (whose duties no one could quite figure out). And why did Jones believe it was a good use of contributors dollars to pay the office manager, who had no previous campaign experience, $6,000 a month.

Multi-millionaire Jones, a multimillionaire who stands to make another $25 million from the merger of his business, made sure to re-pay himself a $350,000 campaign loan in the final weeks of the race -- the campaign equivalent of a do-not-resuscitate order.

I could go on and on. And I probably should. Yes, the election ended two-weeks ago, but I didn't think it right for Bill Jones to slink off into the political sunset without at least some accounting for the disastrous ego trip know as the Bill Jones for U.S. Senate campaign. CRO

copyright 2004 Jubal - OC Blog

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