That is the question pinging around our minds as we ponder the events of the recent California Republican Party convention in Sacramento, where there was an alarming outbreak of Parsky Disease in the form of two of the malady’s most potent host organisms: Mario Rodriguez and Dora Kingsley.

Mario Rodriguez’s rise to CRP Vice Chair was as inexplicable as it was meteoric – and ended as inexplicably as it began. For any reader who doesn’t know, the CRP has a peculiar tradition when it comes to electing the state party Chairman. Candidates don’t run directly for Chairman (generally speaking). Instead, they run for Vice Chairman, and are more or less automatically voted in as Chairman at the end of their two-year term.

In other words, the whole point of running for Vice Chairman is to become Chairman two years later.

Back to Mario. Two years ago, he runs for Vice Chair with no apparent qualifications other than he has a Hispanic surname and he’s supported by Gerry Parsky (which isn’t really a qualification, but let’s not get hung up on technicalities).

Two years later, after leaving no apparent footprint on the CRP, Mario not only declines to run for the Chairmanship, he declines to even complete his term in office – but still decides to haunt the convention corridors like a ranting Ghost of Latino Outreach Past. Senor Parsky sure knows how to spot the up-and-comers.

But the biggest splash was made by Dora Kingsley, who is to Gerry
Parsky what Frank Nitti was to Al Capone. She is his long-time paid agent for Gerry Parsky – his enforcer, factotum and wet works woman. But now Gerry is rapidly fading from the CRP scene, and Dora’s influence is waning with it.

Maybe that is why she decided to go out with a self-martyring bang at this month’s CRP Convention. As the FlashReport reported recently, Dora Kingsley resigned from the CRP Rules Committee with great fanfare, even going so far as to send out a press release about it.

The reason for her grand and dramatic exit? The decision by CRP members to issue a pre-primary endorsement of Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger. Never mind that he is the incumbent Republican and has done more for the CRP in 14 months in office than Parsky during his entire ruinous shogunate of the CRP.

Somehow, Dora thinks this one-time rule change could "lead to loss of the voters' confidence” – as if the voters pay any attention to CRP rules changes.

CRP Communications Director Karen Hanretty put it best in the Associated Press report:

Hanretty said the party "welcomes Dora Kingsley's resignation," and accused her of "trying to draw attention to herself" by releasing the letter publicly and resigning instead of working within the Rules Committee against a change she opposes.

We assume that “good riddance” remark extends to Kingsley’s Svengali and controller, Gerry Parsky. Somebody send Karen a bouquet of flowers for that remark.

The AP story also notes: “Kingsley, a conservative [sic], is aligned with former party chairman Gerald L. Parsky, who has been in a running battle with Sundheim for years.”

Readers will be interested to know that Duf – the first CRP chairman ever elected to a second consecutive term – presented Parsky with a plaque at the convention’s Saturday luncheon, thanking him for all his services to the party (one of the painful duties of being CRP chairman). This is known in the trade as “being plaqued” – a symbolic way of saying, “don’t let the door hit you on the way out.”

Parsky took the plaque, briefly bragged about his failed and forgotten “reforms,” and quickly left the room – apparently hurrying to answer political oblivion’s call. Duf stayed to continue presiding over a lovely lunch.

Guess we know we won that “running battle.”

So let’s see: Gerry Kingsley has been “plaqued” over to hasbeen-ville, Dora Kingsley has committed hara-kiri in a way that makes her and Gerry look foolish, and Gerry’s lap dog Mario Rodriguez has suddenly and inexplicably decided that this CRP stuff just isn’t any fun anymore and resigned the Vice Chairmanship. It looks like all we need to do is hire an exorcist for a ritual cleansing of CRP HQ and perhaps the long Parsky nightmare will be behind us.

But we’ll be on call, just in case.