Update on Whitacre vs. OC GOP lawsuit
OC Register columnist Frank Mickadeit wrote a recap of the latest scuffle between Tim Whitacre and OC GOP Chairman Scott Baugh, in today’s paper, which I am including below. As usual, Mickadeit bends over backwards to put the OC GOP machine in the best light. However, as I have seen no other articles regarding this matter, save for my own, it bears scrutinizing.
Monday, May 15, 2006
Brouhaha over endorsement won’t blow over
By FRANK MICKADEIT
The Orange County Register
The News
So I’m tidying up my desk Friday afternoon, hoping Anna will let me cut out a little early, when in comes a call from a breathless Tim Whitacre, the Bill Hunt supporter who early last week sued the local Republican Party over its endorsement of Sheriff Mike.
Whitacre has just been tossed out of GOP Chairman Scott Baugh’s office in Irvine and the police and Jean Pasco have been called. A situation I thought couldn’t get any more bizarre just has.
Friday’s venue was the Executive Committee meeting of the O.C. Republican party’s Central Committee, which Baugh convened at his private office in a building next to the Hyatt Regency at Jamboree and the 405. Whitacre is on the Central Committee, but on Friday there was a huge row over whether he is also a member of its Executive Committee, which on this day was discussing, among other things, the very lawsuit Whitacre has brought against the party.
Whitacre said he showed up and Baugh said: “Tim, you’re not welcome here. Get out of my office.”
Whereupon, Whitacre says, he informed Baugh he had been voted onto the Executive Committee by the other members of the Central Committee who represent the 69th Assembly District.
Baugh said that he had seen no paperwork and that the vote wasn’t reflected in the minutes of any meeting. Whitacre still refused to leave. Baugh asked the sergeant at arms, Jack Anderson, a huge Sheriff’s captain, to escort him out, at which point Whitacre said: “Jack, don’t touch me. Let’s not get physical. If you want to call the police, call the police, but I’m not leaving. … You’re going to have to arrest me to remove me.”
So the police were called. While they were en route, Baugh attempted to move the meeting to another office. Whitacre finally gave in and went outside. But he insisted the 911 call not be canceled because he wanted the incident to be reflected in a police report.
“I was hopeful maybe we could talk and come to some agreements and I would back off the suit,” Whitacre told me.
Baugh largely agrees with Whitacre’s description of events, although he said that Whitacre specifically said his vote onto the Executive Committee was publicly announced at the April meeting. Baugh wasn’t at that meeting, but he said the minutes don’t show that. (I don’t recall it, but I wasn’t in the room the entire time.)
Even if it did happen, he says, it would be “highly inappropriate” for Whitacre, the plaintiff in a lawsuit against the party, to be at the meeting at which legal strategy was being discussed by the defendants. If he was interested in negotiating a settlement, that should go through the lawyers.
Is Baugh overstepping his authority? Does Whitacre have a martyr complex? I can’t know at this point. What I do know is that today’s hearing in the lawsuit before Judge John Watsonand tonight’s Central Committee meeting (which Whitacre canattend) should be interesting.
Copyright 2005 The Orange County Register
http://www.ocregister.com/ocregister/news/columns/article_1139832.php
Way to go Tim for not allowing the bullies in the Republican Party to push you around. If more Republicans acted like you, I’d be inclined to join your Party.
Hunt’s campaign has been emotional and pasionate but totally lacking in direction and strategy. Whitacre is articulate, but lacks a global understanding of the real world of politics.
It’s like the few “generals” that are upset with Don Rumsfeld. The majority don’t listen to disgruntled employees.
Conversely, Ralph Martin is quietly winning people over like me who did not know him until last February when I first heard him speak. Natural, humorous and totally in command of the issues facing the Sheriff’s office.
I was told that even Carona thinks he’s well spoken, mature and politically savvy. If he had more money and time, he could have taken this race in June.
We’ll know in 3 weeks if America’s Sheriff will continue in the OC. If there’s a runoff, you can bet that the Carona crowd wants it to be with Whitacre, not John Shallman.
Whitacre is a loser.