Several months ago, it became known to me that a group of business owners had formed a coalition, aka "CEB", for the stated purpose of electing a new District Attorney for Butte County. Soon thereafter, a spokesperson for the CEB called my office. This person identified himself as an Oroville businessman, I'll call him Mr. X.
Mr. X and myself had a conversation about the need to replace Mike Ramsey as DA, with the emphasis on who the CEB should back as a candidate. Mr. X informed me that the CEB was composed primarily of Butte County business people. Mr. X also implied that the CEB was supported by prominent conservative Republicans. Mr. X was aware of the fact that I had run against Ramsey in the 2002 DA race, and that I had made a decent showing with 40% of the vote. He wanted to know more about me.
I pride myself as being a "tell it like it is" kind of guy. And if there's one thing I'm not, it's a conservative Republican along the lines of Rick Keene or Wally Herger. So I told Mr. X that, based on my political views and personal philosphy, I was probably not the best fit as a CEB candidate for DA. I also invited Mr. X to contact me in the future for further discussions. I never heard from Mr. X again.
A short time thereafter, Lance Daniel announced his candidacy for Butte County DA. Obviously, the CEB had found a candidate more to their liking. As you can imagine, I followed this news with some interest. It turned out that Mr. Daniel was a DUI attorney from Sacramento. A coalition of business interests was bankrolling him. And judging from his Facebook page, Mr. Daniel was reaching out to conservative Respublican voters.
I now need to inject a short squib on the history of Mike Ramsey, DA.
Ramsey attained office by appointment in 1987. He easily crushed an opponent in the 1990 election. No one stepped up to oppose him again until 2002, when I did, unsuccessfully. He ran unopposed in 2006.
So, up until this year, throughout the last two decades, only one person had opposed Ramsey in an election; and that person was yours truly. That would make me the expert, in my opinion. And the announcement of Lance Daniel put me into a quandary.
I truly believe that Mike Ramsey needs to be removed from office, and since he won't step down gracefully, he must be ejected by popular vote. I also believe that public support for Ramsey has continued to erode since the election of 2002. However, the more I pondered the situation, the more I became convinced that Lance Daniel could not defeat Ramsey. And if Ramsey were to be beaten in 2010, it would require me stepping up to the plate.
It needs to be understood that running for county-wide office is not a spur-of-the-moment type of decision. In particular, it takes a certain amount of personal grit and moxie to challenge an embedded public official. In the 2002 race, I learned that I did not like the grubby business of soliciting contributions, nor the distasteful commerce of tv ads and campaign mailers. And I had made a personal promise to myself that I would not thereafter take money from others in a political campaign. That meant that the necessary fees to file for candidacy would have to come out of my own pocket. On March 7th, 2010, my wife (Kristy Cowell Rasmussen) and I jointly decided that we would ante up the fees for both filing and a ballot statement, and that I would run for DA. FYI, those fees were $1748.85 and $829.19, respectively.
This concludes my first blog entry. More to follow.
