It's been one of those weeks for Matt Hewitt, chairman of the Young Republicans of Ventura County.
Last weekend, Hewitt resigned his position as vice chairman of the organization's state federation after the group decided to endorse Steve Poizner for governor rather than Hewitt's preferred candidate, Meg Whitman. It had been just a little more than a month ago that Hewitt was elected to the state position, at the statewide convention held in Simi Valley.
Then, on Wednesday, some members who were disenchanted with Hewitt's leadership called for an election to replace him as chairman of the Ventura County organization. Numerous sources tell me that the meeting was quite contentious as well as confusing because: a) there was uncertaintly over the rules for conducting an election and b) because the county GOP Central Committee was also meeting at the Ventura County Republican headquarters building in Thousand Oaks, the Young Republicans were forced to move their proceedings into the parking lot.
In the end, no election was held.
Poor Matt - I remember seeing him at CSUCI. Somebody posted that the meeting was shut down by an elected lawmaker in Sac who didn't like how it was going. I believe the Young Republicans is an extension of the California Republican Assembly which is where all the right wing nutjobs hang out. If you look at their leadership, it is the same people that are on the current Central Committee. There is a College Republican Group and a High School Republican group and I halfway expect there will soon be a Grammar School Republican Group and a Pre-School Republican Group. These groups are endorsing groups - thus the recent fallout.
Meg Whitman has been under fire and deemed unelectable (rightfully so) because she didn't vote in numerous elections and in fact wasn't even regististered to vote until very recently and even then she didn't always vote.
Poizner has been flailing about and is surrounded by the wrong people.
Tom Campbell is the GOP's ONLY chance of winning the governship.
It does my heart good to see some turmoil among the Young Turkeys. The Young Republicans are the breeding ground for the next generation of right-wing insanity. Let them clean their own houses and leave the rest of us alone for a few minutes.