Parsky in The News Parsky Watch Archives
More Parsky Watch Parsky Watch - The Magazine Take the Parsky Watch IQ Test Visit the Parsky Watch Store	Back to Parsky Watch archives Spending money on Gerry’s friends, starving CRP Parsky Watch #21 August 24, 2002 PARSKY PUTS CRP ON THE ROAD TO PERDITION Two important events are fast approaching: the November election and the first anniversary of the pact giving Gerry Parsky dominion over the California Republican Party. With the fall convention at our heels, now is a good time to reflect on these interrelated events. The tacit understanding underlying adoption of the Parsky Plan was de facto control of the party would be transferred from an elected chairman to Mr. Parsky, in exchange for the anticipated fundraising flood that Gerry and his money men would then unleash as they applied their business expertise to “professionalizing” the state party. That was then. Where is the state party now, after nearly a year of professionalization and less than three months before the election? In a state of total disarray – and that’s being charitable. BLEEDING THE CRP Far from infusing the state party with loads of cash, Parsky and Co. are bleeding it white. For example, The CRP pays its Finance Director, Jane Clark, $12,500 a month to generate $10,000-15,000 for the state party operating budget. Yet, she spends most of her time working for Team Cal, which doesn’t pay her a red cent. This is typical of Parsky’s approach to the CRP: imposing huge drains on resources that could and should be channeled elsewhere. CAL PLAN Another shining example of Parsky’s utter ineptness as a political leader and manager. In his most recent happy-talk e-mail, Parsky noted that “Cal Plan priorities established by the Simon campaign include voter registration, absentee ballots and printed collateral materials in addition to support for GOTV programs, including the 72 hour GOTV plan for voters, if needed.” By the way, the e-mail is replete with references to “Simon campaign priorities,” part of Parsky’s ongoing attempt to wiggle out of responsibility for the party’s disarray by claiming he was only waiting to hear from the Simon campaign, which PW has noted. In any case, let’s check the status of these priorities: VOTER REGISTRATION: Following adoption of the Parsky Plan, a goal was set to register 500,000 new Republicans for the November election. Thus far, we have harvested about half that number – solid, to be sure, but far short of an eminently achievable goal. Furthermore, our efforts in the state’s 10 biggest counties can collectively be characterized as being at a stalemate, or worse. While the GOP is gaining ground in traditional strongholds like Orange, Riverside, San Bernardino and San Diego, it is losing ground in Alameda, Contra Costa, Fresno, Sacramento and Santa Clara. In fact, the GOP has surrendered the registration lead we claimed in Fresno County just two years ago (more on that later). Given there are only about 9 weeks left until registration closes, the party will have to generate nearly 28,000 new registrations a week to meet its goal. That’s a tall mountain to climb when current efforts are producing less than 10,000 registrations a week. This is even more depressing when you realize the bounty program is the one party operation that Parsky has enthusiastically supported and funded! A solution was recently proposed to increase the bounty by $3.00, hire 100 additional experienced registration workers, and deploy them to Los Angeles, Riverside and San Bernardino counties to collect 2500 registrations a day, 5 days a week. To date, Parsky has declined to support boosting the registration program. So much for that priority. ABSENTEE BALLOT PROGRAM: What Parsky doesn’t tell you in his e-mail about the absentee ballot program is it is targeted at high and medium propensity voters. Spending precious funds on high propensity voters is a colossal waste, because they will vote in any case (that’s why they’re called high propensity voters). The absentee program should be targeting low propensity voters, instead. That would make sense, unless you’re Gerry Parsky and wished to starve Bill Simon now in order to further your personal agenda for President Bush in 2004. In other words, spend scarce resources now, so the future absentee voter’s campaign will have been paid for in 2002. PRINTED COLLATERAL MATERIALS: In his happy e-mail, Parsky states, “We are now going to follow up this good work with a letter from President Bush to all of the newly registered voters as part of our program to make sure that they vote for our Republican ticket in November!” Hooray! But as alert PW readers already know, this particular piece would have begun going out in April – except Parsky withheld the funds necessary to print and mail it. It’s four months later, and Parsky’s still speaking of this piece in the future tense. Maybe we should put one of those “75 days until the election” calendars on Parsky’s desk. CAL PLAN ITSELF: Only Gerry Parsky could manage to make Cal Plan both too big and too small. Cal Plan currently has a staff of 13, who are being paid out of a CRP operations budget that is not designed for that purpose. As a result, it is a strain for the state party to make the payroll for its permanent staff. Cal Plan is supposed to be financed separately by the CRP’s finance team – i.e. Parsky and his moneymen. Like so much else that was promised with the Parsky Plan’s adoption, these funds have failed to materialize. At the same, the Cal Plan staff is too small to be effective. It is only a fraction of what previous, “unprofessional” party administrations have fielded during past cycles. For example, in 1998 (the last gubernatorial cycle under an “unprofessional” administration), Cal Plan had 19 field operatives and 125 additional field staff. As a consequence of this severe understaffing, there is no ground game. No face-to-face voter contact – just calls, mail and 15% kick-backs to vendors. No real way to achieve real registration gains. No new field operations to enhance real registration work. We enjoyed the disclaimer Gerry inserted into his e-mail: “As always, the political plan is subject to change as priorities change during the election cycle.” Really? So why didn’t Parsky start funding needed priorities months ago when he was begged to, and simply adjust if the Simon campaign requested changes? We could go on and on, but this PW is long enough. There’s more to come in upcoming issues. And by the way, stay tuned for our website, that should be up soon!