Remembering Tom Fuentes: the world is leaving him behind, I hope

 

 

"Every lesbian spear chucker in this country is hoping I get defeated." 

— OC Rep. Bob Dornan, to a Los Angeles television reporter in 1992 re a female challenger during the primary

Tom supported the notorious
 John Schmitz

     Been thinking lately about Tom Fuentes. As you know, the fellow died a year and a half ago while still a member of the SOCCCD board.
     He prayed a lot.
     Been thinking in particular about Tom and his hatred of women.
     Here in DtB, I never got around to mentioning a remarkable old article in which a prominent local political advisor—and women's advocate—blasted Fuentes and his inner circle for being, well, profoundly sexist (Dornan Primary War Leaves One Bitter GOP Hangover, by Dana Parsons, LA Times, June 17, 1992).
     I correct that lapse here.
     The occasion was Judith Ryan's failure to unseat Rep. Bob “B-1” Dornan. You remember him. Dornan ran for President in ‘96. He was (and is) a flaming asshole. (He eventually lost his seat to Democrat Loretta Sanchez, in 1996.)

Quoting the Bobsters

     Defeating Dornan and replacing him with a female conservative: that had been the goal of political advisor Eileen Padberg (no, not Nancy: Eileen).
     You'll recall that, back in 2000, Padberg, a staunch Republican, was the paid campaign consultant for the anti-Board Majority “Clean Slate” (Shane, Loeffler, Hochmuth, Lang vs. Fortune, Fuentes, Williams, Davis). At the time, Fuentes chaired the OC GOP.
     Sadly, among the Clean Slaters, only Lang prevailed. (A few years later, for the sake of his political ambitions, Lang reversed gears and became Fuentes' chief ally on the board. Once Raghu Mathur's chief critic, Lang became the fellow's chief apologist. Lang's betrayal of earlier supporters—mostly at IVC—was profound. When challenged about his curious reversal, he had nothing to say. Eventually, Fuentes did back Lang in his bid for OC Treasurer, but the effort was disastrous.)
     Q: Why had the conservative Padberg backed the more-or-less moderate Clean Slate against a slate that included the GOP chair? A: She hated Fuentes and all that he represented.
     Eight year earlier, she was steamed, in particular, about the exerable B-1 Bob's victory:

     Eileen Padberg is toying with a Cobb salad over lunch while providing sparkling conversational theater. Equal parts anguish, earthy humor and vitriol, she's apparently decided not to trifle with merely burning bridges and opted instead to strafe them, rig them with TNT and personally push the plunger on the detonator.
. . .

Meant to say "[little] 'Judas' not [little] 'Jew'"

     …Judith Ryan's failed campaign to unseat Rep. Bob Dornan—a campaign in which Padberg was highly visible from the start—still has Padberg fuming.
     She's angry at the "little men" who she says pull the strings in county Republican politics and is particularly unhappy at what she sees as a personal campaign against her in the wake of the Ryan candidacy.
     She reserves her special dislike for party chairman Tom Fuentes and a small circle of powerful local Republicans, who are largely unknown to the public but have a lot to say about what happens in this county….
. . .
     Padberg says she's never been one to sit around with the power elite and listen to each other talk about how smart they are. In that sense, she understands that she's not a "player" in the inner circle.
     Fuentes and a couple other heavy hitters visited Ryan after the election and said it would be nice if she congratulated Dornan. Padberg says Ryan told them to forget it. Padberg continues to say that Dornan doesn't "deserve" to represent the district.
. . .
     While she found the Ryan campaign invigorating, the county party's response disgusted her, she says. "This party sucks," she says. "I can't believe that these guys have the balls to do this—they do it only because we're women. But they picked the wrong two women, they really did. The pressure we got before Judy filed was unreal. I got threatened, Judy got threatened." 

Eileen Padberg today

     I had been dancing around it, so I ask her flat out: Is it because you're a woman?
     "These people are very insecure," Padberg says. "I'm not a sexist, but they're very insecure about women, very insecure about people who are not like them."
     So, it's your feminine presence around them that makes them uncomfortable? That you're challenging their male power base? "I believe they know that I know they're (intellectual) frauds, and that's what drives them crazy," she says.
     "It isn't their power base. I can't do anything to their power base. I can't cause them grief. They can only cause me grief. . . . They're despicable people who are very intimidated by women. They think women should be doing something else.
     "All I can tell you is that there are other consultants who do what I do and they don't get threatened, ragged on, or beat up," she says.

"This party sucks"

     Uh, gee, Eileen, this isn't how Republican campaign consultants generally talk about the Mother Ship.
     "I know," she says, "but it's like I've had enough and I was not going to take it anymore. I have walked away every time and decided that it's just a small group of people, and who cares what they think."
     But the truth is, it does bother her. "I'm like anybody else," she says. "I don't like to be hated."
     I called Tom Fuentes for reaction, but he didn't call back. Greg Haskin, the county GOP's executive director, started out diplomatically. He said the party doesn't have it in for Padberg, but then he dropped a subtle reminder about Padberg's recent track record in campaigns. (Before the Ryan-Dornan race, Padberg was Sheriff Gates' consultant for last year's failed county jail initiative.)
     Oh well, a dig here, a dig there….

     For an account of an episode of knuckle-dragging sexism in the SOCCCD, read Turning point. For more of Tom's curious reputation among Republicans, see Tom Fuentes, Caspers' "bagman"? And don't forget DtB's the Fuentes Files.
     The truth is out there.