In a bit of cognitive behavioral therapy \u2014 or masochism \u2014 leaders of the California Republican Party have invited a Democratic strategist to a retreat this weekend to tell them, more or less, how bad they are.<\/p>\n
The strategist,\u00a0Garry South<\/strong>, has been highly critical of the Republican Party\u2019s inability to adapt to California\u2019s changing demographics, among other failures. Republicans hold no statewide office, and party registration has fallen below 30 percent statewide.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s a pretty depressing presentation if you\u2019re a Republican,\u201d South said. \u201cSo I may have a doctor on hand to issue Prozac prescriptions.\u201d<\/p>\n South and former Senate Republican leader Jim Brulte, the new chairman of the state Republican Party, are colleagues at the government affairs firm California Strategies, and for several years they have made joint presentations to various groups about politics in California.<\/p>\n \u201cFor years, I\u2019ve read and listened to Garry South\u2019s diatribes against Republicans, sometimes when he was sitting at my elbow on panels,\u201d Brulte said in an emailed statement. \u201cI thought I would put him to the test and see if he would be willing to say the same things in a room full of Republicans, to their faces. To my surprise, he agreed.<\/p>\n \u201cSouth said his presentation to CRP board members in Ontario on Saturday will include no advice about a potential recovery, only an account of how low the state Republican Party has fallen.\u201dI don\u2019t think it\u2019s helping them,\u201d South said. \u201cIt\u2019s the same presentation I\u2019ve given to everybody from the dentists to the insurance agents.<\/p>\n \u201cSouth chuckled, said he\u2019s looking forward to it and added, \u201cI\u2019m wearing my bulletproof vest.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" In a bit of cognitive behavioral therapy \u2014 or masochism \u2014 leaders of the California Republican Party have invited a Democratic strategist to a retreat this weekend to tell them, more or less, how bad they are. The strategist,\u00a0Garry South, has been highly critical of the Republican Party\u2019s inability to adapt to California\u2019s changing demographics, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/garrysouthconsulting.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/142"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/garrysouthconsulting.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/garrysouthconsulting.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/garrysouthconsulting.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/garrysouthconsulting.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=142"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/garrysouthconsulting.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/142\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":162,"href":"https:\/\/garrysouthconsulting.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/142\/revisions\/162"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/garrysouthconsulting.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=142"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/garrysouthconsulting.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=142"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/garrysouthconsulting.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=142"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}