ENDS AND MEANS

I avoided commenting about the recent Board of Supervisors primary between Kristin Gaspar, Olga Diaz, and Terra Lawson-Remer. I had interests that lied elsewhere, and for another, I was facing some health concerns. (Non-COVID related- thank God.) Another reason I chose to avoid the topic is my correct assumption that the result would be a Democrat versus Republican choice in that District.

I have been on the receiving end of some of the heat that Ms. Lawson-Remer and one member of her extended family can toss, and seriously feared more of the blowback they are capable of generating. I do not believe in assigning the sins of the father to their spawn, but in concert with union bosses like the political hatchet boy in SEIU Local 666, Terra and the Remer family has tossed balls at people's heads for eons.

Its a signature of their operation that winning elections is never enough, but their opponents need to be vaporized both personally and politically. I have had cause to feel that heat in my own life. And I look forward to the day when I tell that story. I once told somebody's aunt (name redacted) "it must be horrible to be so full of hate." I was guilty of severe understatement. 

I have zero delusion by now that politics in San Diego County resembles a "shining city upon a hill." But there is a list I have mentally of the worst things I have ever seen, and Tera's fingers have been on them one way or the other. I'll confess that I have deeply personal feelings about things that happened when my wife ran against a candidate paying the Notorious TLR's good friend "Mandy" who is radioactive in her hometown. (It is no accident that she was the only person Michelle Gomez chose to pay who was not her husband.)

I've also had the honor of being put on blast by Terra's fellow trust fund kiddo, Dr. Cody Petterson, whose sense of personal entitlement also rivals "Jervanka's". The list goes on and on and on, of those devastated by opposing a machine often funded by family friend Hanoi Jane Fonda. 

The other night Dr. Petterson and Tera decided to pay a visit to her former opponent's Facebook page, to engage in a favorite ritual of her political operation, which is to rub somebody's nose into the excrement they left behind. That is exactly what happened in 2018 and since on behalf of Mendacious Mike Levin.

One of the reasons I have continued to comment with appropriate incredulity on certain surfers in Carlsbad is the graceless behaviors I saw when the usual suspects did that to her opponent in March. Cori is a saint compared to this crew.  Think TO vs. Dallas spiking the football on their star.

In this case, it's wrapped in what Cody himself said about Mikey, that the viciousness was always public unctuous, with denials of the depths that their supporters went to. In the 49th, the "whipping" operation against Applegate went so far as to get the Levin-Lawson-Remer-Lagstein bunch voted "unacceptable" several times for bullying high schoolers and saying they would never get a job at Wendy's.

I have little to add to the news stories about the "whipping" operation that was run against Ms. Diaz, but it is not an aberration. It has been employed in races for secondary party offices, local races, and anywhere that features somebody who stood up for themselves. They have to break whoever gets in their way.

I am not going to presume to tell you how to vote. Kristin Gaspar has advanced some policies I abhor. But when we vote in a local race, it needs to be measured against other factors like service delivery to constituents, responsiveness to their concerns, and many areas that the incumbent excels in. I do not believe that Terra cares too much about the key competencies of a Supervisor. Though she asserts she was a "Senior Advisor to Barack Obama" that claim resembles the blatherings of 2018 BOS candidate Michelle Gomez, who termed a point of light" certificate one self certifies for, as "an award from the Obama Administration."

Though I understand that there is a potent argument that Trumpism needs to be vanquished by any needs necessary, I do not know if I can morally make the argument that the cure is worse than this version of Donald's home remedy for COVID. What I do know is that it is profoundly disgusting that an entitled rich kid can parachute into a race, and elbow aside a Latina who broke the back of decades of evil doings in Escondido.

Though I can point at all the Republicans who are silently complicit in Trump's excesses due to their moral cowardice and judge them, I do not know how I can ever live with myself as a newly minted independent if I did not point out the severe ethical questions about Tera Lawson-Remer's political operation that I have developed from seeing the human wreckage it has left behind in its wake.

Robert Caro has written magisterial books about these very questions, which is the relationship between admirable ends and hideously unethical means. When do we hit the point where those concerns matter as much as winning an election? I cannot tell you, because I have not answered those to my own satisfaction.

It is ironic to this author that having been excoriated for shaking Supervisors Desmond's hand at a small event in 2018, and hearing it was akin to making a donation by interested buddies of this candidate, I find myself two years later writing something so many of my Democratic friends will only say in their votes.

I dread the blowback that may come from this and by interjecting myself where I do not even vote. But I just have for the simple reason why we have so much turmoil in our country, the simple fact that people seeing something wrong need to say something, if only so they can live with themselves. 

MANY BLESSINGS- NOEL

PS- If you are interested in a blast from the past, here's a piece I wrote in 2018 about Ms. Lawson-Remer's political operation. 

https://noelbreen.blogspot.com/2018/04/flippers.html