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DOOLITTLE DRIPPINGS — I was amused to read elsewhere that rookie State Assemblyman Ted Gaines has “expressed interest” (again) in running for the 4th Congressional District seat that’s been occupied by one of his mentors, fellow Republican John Doolittle, since 1991. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: Gaines would be nuts to give up his safe Assembly seat in order to take a run for Congress, with or without Doolittle, who’s still under investigation by the U.S. Department of Justice for possible corruption, in next June’s primary election.
Ted’s job in the Assembly is a soft touch with a fat salary and even
fatter benefits, including a leased car and a gasoline credit card to
make it run, plus that ripoff per diem they pay those birds. So think
it over, Ted, and if you’re smart you’ll shelve any idea of a
congressional bid, at least at this time. (Rob Haswell, the Democratic
nominee who lost last year’s Assembly race to Gaines, undoubtedly would
love to see Ted take a shot at Congress, thus leaving the Assembly seat
vacant and providing Rob with a better chance to win it in November
2008.)....I also was tickled to learn that Ken Campbell, whose name has
been synonymous with Placer County Republicanism for the past decade,
has announced that he’s no longer supporting Doolittle because, in
Ken’s view, John now has “wasteful spending patterns” and isn’t the
good ol’ boy conservative he used to be. Well, bully for Ken Campbell
for being so open about his opinion of JTD, who probably wasn’t
surprised to hear about it. After all, it was the Doolittle machine
that reportedly forced Ken out of the chairmanship of the Placer County
Republican Central Committee as a result of the bitter internecine
battle with Bruce Kranz, Ted Gaines (then a supervisor) and others over
that university advisory vote on 2005’s special election ballot (The
advisory measure passed 3 to 2 and the Tsakopoulos-owned land is still
sitting vacant, although officials of the private Drexel University in
Philadelpha PA are said to be considering setting up a campus there.
I’ll believe that when the first shovel of dirt is turned.). And as for
Doolittle and all those earmarks that Campbell equates with wasteful
spending, that’s why JTD was sent to Congress in the first place — to
bring home the bacon! I’ve never voted for Doolittle — the late State
Senator Ray Johnson, the best boss I ever had in any of my endeavors,
would turn over in his grave if I did — but I have to give him credit
for all the federal moolah he’s pumped into Auburn and elsewhere in the
district during the past dozen years. Chances are those salad days are
over, now that JTD is once again a backbencher in the House
minority...And one last item on the Doolittle situation. One of his
ex-staffers, Pete Evich, has been “talking” to federal investigators
about his former boss. Evich, who left the Doolittle payroll to become
a bigshot lobbyist, has numbered Sierra College as one of his firm’s
clients in recent years at about $60,000 per annum. The political
soothsayers who quaff dark ale in Old Town Auburn’s California Club are
willing to bet that the Sierra College-Evich arrangement will soon be
laid to rest.
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