I am NOT smiling with Cargile
As a local activist who was a county party committee member due to running in the past for State Senate in our shared district, I wanted to make sure that my vapid Congresswoman Norma Torres (D-Pomona) had a challenger. I signed the petition for Mike Cargile to become candidate for Congress in his first run in 2020 not knowing how much of a loose cannon he is. I was one of his nomination signers during that run not knowing that he was outside the establishment where he would later gain national attention for having his endorsement yanked by the state party.
I thought it was unjust for him to have his endorsement yanked by the state party in the first place because he symbolized the base of the party. However his social media was the bane with individuals such as Jessica Patterson, the two term chair of the state party where she felt he was a liability to our statewide ticket. They were afraid of his viewpoints would be smeared to the other nominees like Jay Olbernolte and Mike Garcia. He fairly won the primary and I felt the first yanking of his endorsement was just a way to weaken him in the general election and she wanted to decrease the number of potential delegates he may earn in the year ahead.
I can agree that the state and county parties are not representative of the grassroots, but the fatal flaw of Cargile and his friends is the lack of inclusion. I noticed that when the meetings in Rancho Cucamonga were held in a church that has doctrine beliefs that were not inclusive to non-straight people, which was a sign that perhaps I was wasting my time associating with Cargile and his friends even before his diatribe before the second time his endorsement got yanked. I defended him the first time, but I was about to defend him a second time until he wrote his diatribe before the hearing to yank his endorsement, using the party’s first transgender delegate Regina Roberts of San Diego County as a wedge issue saying that transgenderism is a perversion of truth, yes you can disagree with leftist LGBT people like the health official in the Surgeon Generals office Rachel Levine, but Regina believes in many issues that most Republicans could agree and support on such as the second amendment.
Not all of us in the LGBT community agree that smutty graphic novels belong in our public K-12 school libraries or public libraries in the children or teenager department. Not all of us in the LGBT community agree that teenage girls should get their breasts lobbed off at the age of 15. Not all LGBT people believe that we should let kids see drag performers do sexually explicit content no matter if it’s a monologue or a dance routine. Painting people like Regina Roberts in a broad brush is very irresponsible.
Mike wants to run for Congress for a third round, but before that could happen he wants to run for State Party chair. The job pays a decent wage and I can agree that he can motivate the Republican voters better. However the problem I see, is he wants to shoe horn the political culture of Oklahoma and Idaho into California. I agree that there are systematic failures in the California Republican Party. We have done a horrible job in statewide elections since 2006, we have done a horrible job in voter registration, a horrible job in getting candidates elected into the state legislature and a horrible job in places such as San Diego County where NO Republican is representing the San Diego city council, the majority of the Board of Supervisors has been lost since 2018.
I am worried that if Cargile had a prayer of winning, that he would want to get rid of the Log Cabin Republicans charter, the platform plank I helped put in with Reagan’s son-in-law will be yanked and all the clauses with animus to LGBT people will return. Cargile and his friends will basically tell someone like me that they are not wanted in the party, but political parties are operated like an orchestra where its not just one element that drives its success. I seriously do believe in the mantra that “Inclusion Wins”, if we want to reach out to young and highly educated voters in places such as CD-27, CD-41, CD-47 and CD-49 we have to bring the inclusion of Jessica Patterson and the reformer attitude of Mike Cargile.
Unfortunately, you cannot separate the best elements from both leading candidates for Chairman in the election in March 2023. We must choose Rob Bernowsky our 2022 Secretary of State nominee for chairman. Sadly, the California Republican Party is a trainwreck and the casting office should have delivered us someone more worthy to be elected chair of the state party like Harmeet Dillon.
