It’s hard to get the full picture when you only see one or two pieces to a puzzle. With regards to David Harmer and his campaign the pieces are finally starting to come together. I can promise you that my campaign against Harmer IS NOT because I think he is the front-runner. I think a lot of people see him as the front-runner so they are naturally going after him. I, however, think that with all of his baggage, Harmer would be devastating to the Republican party during the general election and if he were to squeak out a victory would be devastating to our district.
With that being said let’s look at the puzzle pieces (keep in mind that this stuff will be used against him in the general if he wins the nomination):
Harmer got terminated from his job and is looking for a job: Harmer ran a failed campaign in Utah and just finished a failed campaign in CD-10 last November.
Harmer is carpetbagging into a district that looks a lot different than his. He cannot properly represent us. In his last failed campaign against Garamendi, Harmer accused his opponent of doing this exact same thing. Flip….flop. Lack of consistency. My own personal opinion is that it’s ok to carpetbag if there are no other alternatives and if you can properly represent the district you are wanting to run in. We do have other alternatives very capable of beating McNerney and they live here and are more capable of properly knowing our aches and pains.
Harmer has pulled out the religious card and has used it to gain more support from his church. David Harmer essentially announced his candidacy in the Mormon Times but when Elizabeth Emken posted a thumbnail of the Mormon Times article on a mailer he cried foul. I personally think that his response is dirty and desperate. We don’t need religious martyrs we need representation.
Harmer’s contributions are coming from outside of the 11th District raising concerns as to who he will actually represent. A lot of people in the party just want Republican representation. Am I wrong to want proper representation of my district on top of the Republican label? I’ve found that just Republican representation has not always been the best thing in the past. Here is an article I wrote on just this: If He Wins, Who Will David Harmer Represent?
Harmer did indeed refuse to take a position on gay-marriage in his last race back last November. If he does indeed have a position as I’ve been told by supporters, this will come up in the general.
Harmer aligned himself with former CD-11 opponent Robert Beadles by making him co-chair to the Harmer campaign. Beadles has a TON of baggage himself (9/11 truther, being raided by the Sheriff’s office, get-rich quick schemes etc). Whether or not that stuff is true, it’ll come up in the general.
Harmer has seemingly obtained at least one endorsement in a questionable fashion bringing in to question his honesty and integrity. This will come up in the general. Here is the article I wrote on just this: Did the David Harmer Campaign Steal the CRA Endorsement?
Harmer took an unemployment check for $2395 after receiving an alleged stimulus bailout severance and bonus that totaled $159992 from JPMorgan Chase. Here is the article I wrote on just this: David Harmer, “We’re Disgusted by It!” This will indeed come up in the general election if Harmer gets the nomination. It calls into question his conservatism among other things.
More miscellaneous items like opponents signs falling down, strange behavior in front of FOX News cameras etc. You can find videos at Conservative New Media.
All of these items help the picture come more into focus. David Harmer is not the guy we need going up against McNerney in the general. In my opinion he is a liability that us conservatives can’t afford to have going into the general. There are three other candidates who do not carry the baggage that Harmer does.
It’s no secret that my choice is Brad Goehring. Brad Goehring is a local farmer who knows the aches and pains of our district because he has grown up here. Brad Goehring is a patriot who’s devotion is to our Constitution before the Republican party and I respect that a great deal. Brad Goehring is a regular guy. He is not a politician but has felt the call of patriotism to step up into the public spotlight to represent a district that he loves enough to call it his home.
Originally posted at http://www.rtamerican.us and written by John Heida. John Heida is not paid by any campaign and is not paid by Conservative New Media. He is only a guest author and has his own opinions which you can find on his website at http://www.rtamerican.us. The views expressed in this article are John Heida’s personal opinions only and are meant for informational and entertainment purposes only. John Heida does not allege any facts, cast aspersions on anyone, or make any claims about what he says here, or in any of his other columns on Conservative New Media or on his site. Again, these are only John Heida’s own personal opinions and his First Amendment protected exercise thereof. These opinions are not necessarily the views of Conservative New Media and Conservative New Media does not endorse or represent or warrant any of the content of his articles in any way and is not responsible for them.
There is a very disturbing trend occurring with the signs of David Harmer’s opponents in the California 2010 Congressional District 11 Republican primary election.
At least some of the signs for Tony Amador, Elizabeth Emken and Brad Goehring — David Harmer’s three opponents in the upcoming primary — have been damaged in recent days.
Oddly enough, however, none of Harmer’s signs seem to have suffered similar “wind damage” or the like.
The video has more on this subject, including evidence of the damage that has happened to these signs:
Who or what is behind the damage which has befallen these signs, and why does it appear that the signs of David Harmer have not been similarly affected?
The problem with today’s political climate is that the voters just don’t trust their representatives any more! The tea party movement is pretty good proof of that. So we shouldn’t be surprised to hear that CD-11 establishment candidate and bay area lawyer, David Harmer, seemingly stole the California Republican Assembly endorsement with the help of Harmer’s paid deputy campaign manager, Sara Blicharz.
Though I wasn’t at any of the events leading up to this CRA catastrophe, I have been told that once all was said and done, Brad Goehring was likely to end up with the endorsement of the California Republican Assembly. Knowing that his endorsement would put the final nail in David Harmer’s campaign coffin (and make it his third failed campaign), it seems as though Sara Blicharz jumped into action.
You may recognize the name Sara Blicharz because back in April the CD-11 candidate Elizabeth Emken accused Sara Blicharz and the Harmer camp of rigging the open forum held at the San Joaquin Delta College.
“It’s just flat-out inappropriate,” Emken said. “This was the David Harmer show.”
Sara Blicharz, who is also a member of the San Joaquin Republican Central Committee and San Joaquin chapter of the California Republican Assembly (SJ CRA), organized the event and definitely had the ability to tip it in favor of her boss David Harmer.
In my opinion, the right thing to do would’ve been for Sara Blicharz to remove herself from organizing or having any hand in this event whatsoever. It seems as though that is not how she works. In fact, throughout this entire process, it seems as though Blicharz chose the wrong thing and quite possibly even the unethical thing. I’ll let you be the judge of that.
Like any other political organization, the California Republican Assembly has by-laws that are supposed to be followed at all times. From what I’ve been told, this wasn’t the case when the chapters involved in the endorsement of the 11th Congressional candidate had to make a decision.
It started in Sara’s San Joaquin CRA chapter. This chapter contained both Goehring and Harmer supporters. The other two candidates, Emkin and Amador, had little support. The numbers weren’t in their favor, so it was common knowledge that this would be a battle between only the Harmer and Goehring campaigns. It was finally decided to have a special meeting in which nominations for voting delegates would take place, and the first five vote-getters would represent the SJ CRA at the endorsing convention to choose these delegates. The votes were in and the top five were overwhelmingly in support of Goehring. The President of the SJ CRA was behind Harmer 100% so this nomination posed a huge problem for her and Sara. The meeting was ended and everyone went home knowing that they had delegates chosen to represent their charter. But some left unhappy.
Another meeting was held later on and it was brought to the attention of the SJ CRA that two people weren’t notified of the special meeting held earlier, so according to the President the prior nominations were void. A motion was brought to the floor to accept the previous nominations. In a clear violation of “Robert’s Rules of Order,” which is the set of procedural rules adopted by the CRA to adhere to, the motion was ignored. Somebody seconded the motion and again that was ignored. A call to a vote was also ignored. After realizing that they only needed to bring three delegates to the endorsing convention, it was apparently decided that, in the interest of speeding the meeting up, the SJ CRA would just use the delegates that the SJ CRA President had appointed at an earlier meeting back in January. Guess who was chosen back then? I’ll help you out: Sara Blicharz and the SJ CRA President.
I would think that as Harmer’s deputy campaign manager, Sara Blicharz would’ve recused herself from all votes. Did she? Absolutely not! Needless to say the Harmer fans and campaign staff came out of the second SJ CRA meeting victorious but not representing the SJ CRA chapter properly. To be fair to Sara, “Robert’s Rules of Order” does not require a person to recuse themselves if they have a conflict of interest, but it is encouraged.
The final endorsing players are the chapters of San Joaquin county, Gilroy, and Contra Costa county. Here are two problems; Gilroy was unable to send enough delegates to the endorsing convention and Contra Costa was supposed to be an inactive chapter for failure to follow the rules set forth in their by-laws which required a certain amount of meetings per year with a certain amount of members attending those meetings. I’ve been told that they had only met once in the last 18 months. To my knowledge, they haven’t met the requirement to continue their chapter so it is confusing to me as to how they were allowed to renew in 2010.
With Gilroy out of the picture and not able to vote for Harmer, Sara Blicharz seemingly wanted to cover her bases just in case anyone exposed her for the shenanigans it appears that she had pulled. She was able to somehow breathe new life into the Contra Costa chapter with members grabbed out of thin air. How do you have members when you shouldn’t have a chapter? How do you have delegates if you don’t have members in a chapter that shouldn’t exist? Good questions. It’s seems impossible, but they still showed up.
Seeing that something was odd when the three delegates chosen by the SJ CRA President showed up along with the five that were voted on by the SJ CRA chapter, statewide CRA Vice President Angela Azevedo called in Celeste Greig, the President of the statewide California Republican Assembly, to preside. I’ve been told that she ordered the SJ CRA chapter to caucus which basically means to have a meeting and figure out what to do. But seeing the numbers in favor of Brad Goehring (five for Goehring and two for Harmer), the SJ CRA President refused to, and decided to put everyone’s name in a hat and choose the three delegates that way. So that’s what they did.
So through manipulation, political maneuvering and parliamentarian gamesmanship, Sara Blicharz was able to yank the endorsement from under Brad Goehring’s feet and secure it for her boss David Harmer. The California Republican Assembly is usually conservative and I used to have the utmost respect for it. But I’m sorry, in my opinion the CRA needs to either investigate Sara Blicharz and how she handled this or lose a lot of supporters’ respect forever.
I have to assume that Sara is merely following the orders of her boss who, as a lawyer and big Republican party guy, has credentials from here to Timbuktu. It appears as though he knows how to play the political game. That’s what voters like right? This sort of action is exactly the kind of thing us voters enjoy right?
If you ask me, this is quite the embarrassing fiasco for the California Republican Assembly to let happen and to ultimately have an endorsement drawn out of a hat. Pretty amazing how essentially one person, seemingly on behalf of David Harmer, could bend the system to work in her favor as she did. I asked Sara about this myself and she responded, “Everything was done according to by-laws…you must be drinking the kool-aid.”
By-laws? Really? Which ones? The David Harmer by-laws that seems to say, “Anything for a vote? Anything for an endorsement? Anything to get into office? Anything for power?”
Those aren’t the by-laws I want to follow. Do you?
Written by John Heida
Originally posted at http://www.rtamerican.us and written by John Heida. John Heida is not paid by any campaign and is not paid by Conservative New Media. He is only a guest author and has his own opinions which you can find on his website at http://www.rtamerican.us. The views expressed in this article are John Heida’s personal opinions only and are meant for informational and entertainment purposes only. John Heida does not allege any facts, cast aspersions on anyone, or make any claims about what he says here, or in any of his other columns on Conservative New Media or on his site. Again, these are only John Heida’s own personal opinions and his First Amendment protected exercise thereof. These opinions are not necessarily the views of Conservative New Media and Conservative New Media does not endorse or represent or warrant any of the content of his articles in any way and is not responsible for them.
promise you that my campaign against Harmer IS NOT because I think he is the front-runner. I think a lot of people see him as the front-runner so they are naturally going after him. I, however, think that with all of his baggage, Harmer would be devastating to the Republican party during the general election and if he were to squeak out a victory would be devastating to our district.
