Hillary vs. Barack? Here?
Hillary Clinton was here in Newport Beach tonight, hitting the political ATM. They only care about us when they need to pay off a $20 million debt, right? I have no idea what Clinton said at her rally with boosters at the Balboa Bay Club or how much money she raised because the campaign wouldn’t let us in. I managed to get a couple of Trojan Horses in there, but the Clintonistas cleverly caught the spies and booted them out so I wasn’t able to get you the insider account like we did when John McCain was fundraising here in March.
That’s OK, though. I got some better gossip for you.
This afternoon I got a call from Richard Lara asking if I’d moderate a debate between Debbie Cook and her Democratic congressional opponent Dan Kalmick. Remember Lara? Last we heard from him he’d dropped his own bid for the Democratic nomination to challenge Rep. Dana Rohrabacher and was alleging that he felt he was threatened to get out of the race. Anyway, I joked that I’d be happy to do it and I promised to press the candidates about flag lapel pins and how much they love America.
Rich indicated to me that the Cook campaign didn’t seem too keen on participating, but he was hopeful and thought that my participation would entice Cook to join the debate. A short time after that I was CCd on a letter from Cook’s communications director, Joe Shaw, to Lara. Shaw basically said Cook didn’t have time to debate Kalmick and suggested he get an earlier start next time.
I called Joe to find out what the real story was and he didn’t disappoint. What can I say? I’m a reporter and we love controversy. Joe said Cook didn’t want to be involved with it because they think Lara lacks “credibility.” It was a polite way to call him a gadfly. “We would want somebody reputable to organize it,” Shaw said, adding that Lara has been bashing Cook out in the blogosphere. Then Joe said Lara has a reputation for not following through on things he organizes and pointed out that Lara dropped out of the race before he even got it started.
Ohhhhh, snap. It’s on, I thought.
So I called Lara to get his side of the story and he started out trying to take the high road.
“I’m willing to step out of the way and let some students organize it if the issue is just me,” he said.
Lara heaped praise on Kalmick.
But eventually he worked up a head of steam and the strafing began. It wasn’t long before he got on the subject of environmentalist Cook’s ironic investment in oil companies. Money quote: “Cook’s got this whole business with oil investments. C’mon, that’s like the pope investing in Hustler.”
But where the conversation got pretty weird for me is when Lara mentioned he supports Clinton over Obama. Earlier he supported Obama, but switched when he felt the Republican attack machine would swiftboat Obama, paving the way for McCain. In short, he feels Clinton has more experience. But wait, isn’t Lara supporting the 25-year-old Kalmick because he represents a fresh face in politics? Everyone, I think, would agree Cook can argue she’s the more experienced candidate. When I pointed out the apparent disconnect he said, “You’re right, (Cook’s) a lot like Hillary. She’s presumptuous and acts as if she’s entitled to the nomination.”
That’s not what I was trying to say, but, oh well, it was a lively and entertaining conversation. It always is with politicians.
On a more serious note, Rich says he dropped out of the race when his father had a stroke and it was clear he would have to devote much of his time caring for him. The good news is his Dad’s showing some signs of progress in his rehab. That’s really good to hear.
And I hope someone can organize a debate. It would be great to see. I would like to organize one between Cook and Rohrabacher for the general election, so stay tuned…
I came across this post by chance and was shocked upon reading it, albeit it long after it was posted. (Mr. Anderson never informed me about this post.) Some of it is representative of our conversation, but important parts of it are not:
Mr. Anderson Writes: “But where the conversation got pretty weird for me is when Lara mentioned he supports Clinton over Obama. Earlier he supported Obama, but switched when he felt the Republican attack machine would swiftboat Obama, paving the way for McCain. In short, he feels Clinton has more experience. But wait, isn’t Lara supporting the 25-year-old Kalmick because he represents a fresh face in politics? Everyone, I think, would agree Cook can argue she’s the more experienced candidate. When I pointed out the apparent disconnect he said, ‘You’re right, (Cook’s) a lot like Hillary. She’s presumptuous and acts as if she’s entitled to the nomination.’ That’s not what I was trying to say, but, oh well, it was a lively and entertaining conversation. It always is with politicians.”
I find Mr. Anderson’s blog post, especially this passage from it, to be a bold piece of creative writing. Here is what I told Mr. Anderson when he asked about my views on the Presidential and Congressional elections: I initially supported Edwards because I thought McCain’s experience and Obama’s lack of it would be a problem for Obama – I was wrong. However, I began supporting Obama just as soon as it became clear that Edwards could get no traction during the primary. My only reason for not supporting Hillary was the fact that polls, like Rasmussen Reports, showed that a large percentage of the population had a very negative opinion of her and I thought she could not win given those numbers – I was right, though people have a much better view of her now. I explained that I had supported Kalmick because Cook was preaching that we needed to end our dependence on oil even while she had lots of money invested in oil companies, which, I thought, threatened to do Democrats in Orange County significantly more harm than good. Kalmick, on the other hand, might at least mobilize young voters and increase voter registration for Democrats. Moreover, integrity would be a good selling point for the Democrats who possessed it because the Bush administration had told us, contrary to fact, that Iraq had WMDs, and voters would find refreshing a candidate who was more faithful to the facts that the Bush administration had been. Given Cook’s investments in oil companies while preaching an end to our dependence on oil, Kalmick seemed to have more integrity than Cook. I never saw, and most certainly never heard Mr. Anderson allege, any “disconnect” inherent in my position. As Mr. Anderson himself pointed out in his post, I was concerned that Cook’s hypocrisy would be damaging to Orange County Democrats. Furthermore, this consideration outweighed, I thought, her experience as a city counsel member and unelected mayor. Cook had no experience serving in state or federal office, and her experience in city government would, I thought, mean little to voters in a Congressional race where the incumbent was a very experienced member of the House. [I remember my conversation with Mr. Anderson well because the views I stated in the course of it were views I had spoken about publically and published in Op-Ed pieces in the Orange County Register and other local newspapers.]
However, I could not have made it any clearer to Mr. Anderson that my reasons for not supporting Cook during the primary were, for me, all water under the bridge by the time I had taken on the task of organizing the Congressional debate at Orange Coast College between the Green, Libertarian, Republican and Democratic candidates.
Granted, Cook was the last candidate to enter the debate, and she was by far the most reluctant to do so; but her campaign’s attacks against on role as debate organizer were, I knew, just sour grapes over an article that I published during the primary about her oil investments. True, her campaign’s antics were the source of a lot of stress for me and for Orange Coast College, but I did not let it bother me because I knew she needed the debate way more than Rohrabacher needed it and that she stood to benefit from it way more that the Green or Libertarian candidates. I knew that Cook could not refuse to participate in the debate after the other three candidates, including the incumbent, had agreed to participate. Had she refused, her campaign, and possibly her political career, would have been over, and I knew it. So, I had nothing to worry about. All I had to do was remain objective and fair, and I would be able to deliver the debate that I had promised the public, which is what I eventually did. Orange Coast College dismissed her campaign’s attack on me as sour grapes over the Op-Ed I published on her oil investments, and the college let me continue to organize the debate in spite of the campaign’s attacks. Additionally, the primary was over, I had dropped out before the primary ended, Cook had beaten Kalmick, and Cook was the Democrats’ candidate. In short, I had no skin in the game and absolutely no problem with Cook by the time I spoke with Mr. Anderson about the debate. Moreover, Obama was the clear leader in the Presidential election in May of 2008, which is when Mr. Anderson wrote his short story, so I was not concerned about Hillary in any way that would inspire the comments about her that Mr. Anderson attributes to me. Again, I made it perfectly clear to Mr. Anderson that I had absolutely no problem with Cook or her campaign, and I said absolutely nothing to give him even the least reason to think otherwise. The only bias of which I may have been guilty at that time was my intention to actively support Cook once the debate was over. However, because I was the debate organizer, I felt obligated to refrain from actively supporting Cook while the debate was pending, and I did not actively support Cook while I was planning and organizing the debate. Once the debate was over, it was my impression that the Cook campaign did not want my help. Nevertheless, I voted for her in the general election. I most certainly was not, as Joe Shaw claimed, bashing Cook on the blogosphere. I have no idea how Shaw got that idea.
So, when I first read Mr. Anderson’s blog post about our phone conversation, I initially could not understand how he managed to derive, from my answers to his questions about my views on the Presidential election and Congressional election, such contrary impressions.
As I see it, the only thing “weird” about the conversation I had with Mr. Anderson is what I learned about it afterwards, namely that a significant portion of what Mr. Anderson wrote about it never transpired. I never said, in the context of the events leading up to the debate, that Cook seemed to think she was entitled; and I certainly never said anything like that about Hillary. So, I have no choice but to wonder about Mr. Anderson’s motive for writing what he wrote. I also have to wonder why he posted these alleged statements of mine on his website but did not mention them in the articles he published about the debate. Surely the public deserved to know that the organizer of a Congressional debate was seething with bias against one of the candidates, and a journalist with Mr. Anderson’s nose for controversy would not have missed an opportunity like this one.
Perhaps the fact that Mr. Anderson wanted, as he said, to be the one to organize the debate between Cook and Rohrabacher in the general election solves these mysteries: “I would like to organize one between Cook and Rohrabacher for the general election, so stay tuned…” Did Mr. Anderson think that if he discredited me, he would be able to step in and take my place as organizer and facilitator? This theory certainly would explain Mr. the tangents that Mr. Anderson made into creative writing while “reporting” on our conversation.
In sum, there is a great deal in Mr. Anderson’s post that simply was NOT “Supplied to Anderson,” who, judging from the quote he uses to inspire confidence in his blog posts, wants to convince us that he wants to be “an honest man and a good writer.” Well, I am not convinced. In my experience, Mr. Anderson sometimes lets his ambition trump his desire to be honest, but the person who really wants to be honest does not do this. Instead, the person who really wants to be honest chooses honesty over ambition; otherwise, that person really wants something other than to be an honest person.