Bill Christiansen To Be Interim COO of the CRP

I've learned Bill Christiansen, former long-time executive director of the Republican Party of Orange County, will be tapped as the interim COO of the California Republican Party. COO Michael Kamburowski resigned yesterday when the San Francisco Chronicle revealed how "the Australian immigrant hired as a top official in the California Republican Party, was ordered deported in 2001, jailed three years later for visa violations -- and has filed a $5 million wrongful arrest lawsuit against the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, according to U.S. District Court documents."

Hiring Bill is a smart move.

Unlike the crew of foreign nationals Michael Kamburowski and Christopher Matthews that CRP Chairman Ron Nehring brought in, Bill is savvy, organized and brings years of experience to the job. After leaving the OC GOP a few years ago, Bill served as executive director of the Arizona Republican Party, and returned to California last year to run the Victory 2006 (or whatever they call it nowadays) effort for the CRP.

Nehring and the CRP Board should act poste haste to make Bill the permanent COO and get on with restoring the state party to proper working order.

Good luck to you, Bill.

Comments

[Phil Paule]

What a great choice !!

Bill will do an outstanding job !!!

The CRP is already looking better

[Not Today]

Quite possibly the smartest move the CRP has made. Bill will bring a sense of intelligence not seen inside the walls of the GOP organization in a long time. Gives me hope for the future of the Grand Ole party in California. And right when I was ready to change my registration. Well, it looks like the tide has turned. Now let the silly season begin!

[George Andrews]

I love bill. Great hire!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[Gustavo Arellano]

"foreign nationals"...Huh?

[francis barraza]

Congratulations and good luck, Bill!

[Hard Headed]

Why didn't they do this in the first place.

Fixing the dumbest move of the century with a good one shouldn't get Nhering out of the kettle on this one.

If there was a CRP convention this week, I'd say dumb Nhering.

For Ron's benefit, he has three months to regain the membership's trust.

[Chris]

Great move, guys. Bill is a stand-up and a stand-out guy. Congratulations Bill and the CRP.

[V6 Fiasco]

Uhhhh, ok well good luck to Bill in mending those burnt bridges from Victory '06.

I hope the best for him as you try to gain the support of those county parties who were betrayed by the Governor's campaign and V6.

Where's that public audit of the V6 operation by the way???

[Kathryn]

What a good pick up - Bill has worked his way up the CA GOP, knows it inside and out, and was able to lead the efforts for record breaking voter contact effort in '06 - and that was all DESPITE those who were less than cooperative with the team effort.

Congrats Bill!

And he is a citizen and is registered to vote. I'd bet he is even a Republican.

[Jarryd Gonzales]

A smart choice! Bill will be outstanding. Kudos to Ron and the rest of the board.

[just..asking]

Sounds like a strong candidate for the job. But this seems like a knee-jerk reaction to some bad decisions. Did anyone do a background check? You can bet the reporters will. Less than 24 hours since the resignation doesn't seem like much investigation could have been done?

[re: Just Asking]

That is the difference from the aussie and Bill. We all know Bill and respect him. The party faithful knows him and respects him. The Board knows him and respects him.

We didn't know that other dude at all. He threatens Karen Hannerty in a outragous email after she brings up some legitamate concerns regarding his experience. Then we learn about his sorted criminal past in the Chronicle. That is the outrage. Not that there wasn't a background check.

[Victory '06]

Would this be the same Victory '06 operation that squandered a ton of money, still unaccounted for, on an "operation" that did nothing to help Tom McClintock, Bruce Mcpherson, and Tony Strickland?

I fail to see how one can use his experience as Victory '06 coordinator as a positive thing. That operation was a miserable failure, turnout was terrible, and it was a total waste of money.

The CRP needs to move forward, not backward.

[Bladerunner]

From a Dem perspective i would have preferred to have had "the foreign nationals" worked until next year and had this blow up in 08. Now it just one more piece of bad news to the GOP who haven't ebbed this low since the Watergate era but bad news that will have been forgotten when most voters start paying attention.

Christiansen is a good selection, will do a good job and as somebody else noted, should have been selected in the first place. Dems would have been all over Art Torres if he tried singing " Advance Australia Fair," by signing off on that visa application.

[Phil Paule]

Note To Bill

Don't sent out an e-mail to the Board like this one that the former COO did on June 14th

""Finally, and sadly, this story would not have the “legs” it does were it not for the role Karen Hanretty is playing in fanning it. I say “playing” because she continues to feed false information to the press and fish for more information on this even today. I do not know Karen, but I find the spectacle of someone who has fed at the trough of the CRP behaving in this way despicable and sad. If she desires a career in Republican circles in Washington as the new Kevin Phillips, she may find her career rather short-lived.""

[Paul Lucas]

Matt,
The link to Orange Juice is broken on your page.

[Re: Paul Lucas]

rofl

[Re: Victory 06]

Not to defend Team Arnold but when you raise it, you can spend it. He with the gold makes the rules.

That being said, they should have spent what they had and not leave us with the debt and campaign against initiatives that the membership endorsed. Both of these are indefensible, but hardly Bill's doing.

[Saulo Londono]

Congrats to Bill, best of luck.

[Re: Paul Lucas]

I'd be interested in seeing what/if Art's blog site has taken a hit in visitors since Jubal no longer so generously links it from this page.

[Bladerunner]

Jubal---It was funny linking OJ to Janet's web site but the jokes now a wee bit stale. Besides, even though Art does seem to have blinders on when it comes to Janet, Claudio doesn't and he is the co-blogger in chief with Art.

Be a compassionate conservative.

[Jubal]

BR:

I like and respect you, but Pedroza goes out of his way to use O-J try and attack my credibility and that of this blog. For some reason, the guy can never leave well enough alone.

If that's what he wants to use his blog for, that's his business -- but I don't have to direct our readers to it, and don't want waste time responding to his spitballs.

I'm sorry about Claudio and Larry, but they choose to be part of Art's enterprise. Maybe they should start their own blog. I'd be happy to link to that.

[Re: Jubal]

Good for you Matt. It was about time.

[Travis N.]

Congrats to Bill C. who's family still resides in East County San Diego and understands what Nehring's goals are.




Also kudos to Matt for breaking the OJ! link. I do read the blog, but only in the way I read the tabloids at the checkout lane, by just scanning the cover and not reading much into what's said.

[Milk Man]

Jubal is so funny for linking OJ to JN's website! I think that is very appropriate since Pedroza is pretty much the "propaganda minister" for Janet anyway.

I know some people will miss Claudio and Larry, but hey do not forget Ryan Trabuco, formerly known as Ryan Genes William, LOL.

[Art Pedroza]

Our numbers are doing quite fine despite the broken link. See for yourselves.

[Pedrozabot]

All we see, Art, is that your numbers have been

declining

every month this year.

[Richard Rios]

I am well pleased in the direction that the selection has gone. Congratulations to Bill Christiansen. He must prioritize with highest importance the task restoring confidence in the CRP leadership. Moving forward into 08, we (the rank and file Republican members) will need to crystallize behind the leaders when the time comes so we can synergize our resources for the elections at hand.

I have been outspoken on this issue since day one and would have continued if things had not changed. But they have started to move in the right direction and I look forward to being part of a cohesive political party and increasing our Republican presence at the local, State, and Federal levels.

My next big hope is that we get true Republicans and not RINO's who opportunistically use the party when their districts are heavily Republican voter based. I look toward our leadership to help guide this process.

Richard Rios

[Bladerunner]

Richard--regarding your RINO hopes--Care to name names? Which of your presidential candidates are the model Republicans and which are model RINO's? What legislative Republicnas are you referring to because last time I looked, all of them get great Chamber scores. And if thats not a good benchmark, what is?

[Bladerunner]

Jubal--- I get it. Thanks for responding.

By the way, since Art was born again I've been linking to OJ via the Liberal OC rather then OC blog..

[Richard Rios]

Bladerunner,

I will just use a couple of examples to clarify my comment. My hopes would be that if there were a field of candidates and one was strongly committed to smaller government and the other had a history of increasing size, the first would be backed even though he was not the most "popular".

Or, let's take taxes. Let's use the same scenario with two candidates. One opposes and one has a history of voting for taxes. The first should be chosen.

Per http://www.gop.com/media/2004platform.pdf "We must strengthen our Boarder Patrol... sufficient force necessary to secure the boarder."

So if one candidate is non committal for political correctness and the other is not, then the latter should be chosen.

Will on candidate have all the qualities outlined by the GOP... probably not but it will be clear if there is support or opposition to the general values.

And of course the support of a free market driven economy.

Now if a candidate were to show weakness on their stances on a common pool of stated values but is registered Republican my comment was I hope the leadership could filter those people out. The verb "we get" is not a past tense descriptive but implies future direction. That is what I am looking for, based on my comment, is the leadership to promote those with the strongest and historically proven voting records or opinions that most closely align with core Republican values.

[Richard Rios]

Bladerunner,

I will just use a couple of examples to clarify my comment. My hopes would be that if there were a field of candidates and one was strongly committed to smaller government and the other had a history of increasing size, the first would be backed even though he was not the most "popular".

Or, let's take taxes. Let's use the same scenario with two candidates. One opposes and one has a history of voting for taxes. The first should be chosen.

Per http://www.gop.com/media/2004platform.pdf "We must strengthen our Boarder Patrol... sufficient force necessary to secure the boarder."

So if one candidate is non committal for political correctness and the other is not, then the latter should be chosen.

Will on candidate have all the qualities outlined by the GOP... probably not but it will be clear if there is support or opposition to the general values.

And of course the support of a free market driven economy.

Now if a candidate were to show weakness on their stances on a common pool of stated values but is registered Republican my comment was I hope the leadership could filter those people out. The verb "we get" is not a past tense descriptive but implies future direction. That is what I am looking for, based on my comment, is the leadership to promote those with the strongest and historically proven voting records or opinions that most closely align with core Republican values.