“Show Me The Money” | Jerry Maguire (youtube.com)
San Bernardino County Republican Party has a money issue and it has failed us in the last three plus years as an organization. Our chairman Phil Cothran Sr previously was finance chairman for the previous chair Jan Leja and spoke proudly about his fundraising prowess, but aside from his Team Fontana buddies our party has languished badly where we even had a 50,000 dollar debt to pay one of our county party employees.
After Phil Sr got his desired candidate for county supervisor, he decided to put the county party in hibernation where we had no executive director to finish out the 2022 election cycle and refused to use a targeted donation for paying Ryan Sorba until the end of 2022 where it also led us into more debt because the donor wanted his money back.
The membership would like to see a fundraiser like the one that was used to pay off the debt to that employee that had a huge debt to be held regularly so we could have the money to grow the party. We need an organization that can fund the pizza and hamburgers to feed the volunteers who canvas the neighborhoods. We need an organization that will work towards registering voters to make Senate District 29 and Assembly District 50 competitive. We need to bring back more factions in the party together instead of laughing them off as being insignificant.
If we want more volunteers we need to stop alienating various groups within our party. If we keep on alienating people we will end up having to pay people to be employees to canvas for our candidates and issues as a party.
As what Cuba Gooding Jr recited in that clip from Jerry Maguire, we need our current chairman to deliver results for the entire slate of our candidates not just the ones in his immediate nexus in Fontana. He has not shown us the money from his time as finance director and has not shown us the money as of right now where he and his allied PACS are spending more money to keep their positions than to help get out the vote.
2026 and 2028 can be thrown away in the garbage can if we make the wrong choices this March. Vote for the reform slate to make sure we have a party that works for all of us not just the ones who live in the chairman’s neighborhood.
I envision a county party where the grassroots shall invest in with their time and money. I want to meet with various groups involved within our party and ask them what would they like for us to do in the Republican Party of San Bernardino County. One time donation of 25 dollars, 5 dollars a month or even a 200 dollar yearly donation, it takes all donors to make the party what it can be.
We can not entirely run the operations on the dues from the members, alternates or ex-officio members alone. Fundraising should not entirely be the responsibility of the chairman, but we have to be a team to work together to get things done.