Welcome to my blog. I would *love* to have a detailed discussion with you in this public forum as it would give my own ratings the same rhetorical ‘kick in the butt’ I’m trying give you and Ed; it’s not easy being the new kid on the block. Instead though, I’m going to email you privately about specifics to prove to you that my true intention is to see Gary Miller ‘have a nice fall!’

I *will* address a few general concerns here though: the reason I’ve been scolding *both* of you guys is because you both have this idea that encouraging people to contact you can substitute for a well-crafted message that goes out to the people instead of making them come to you. I haven’t heard anything about Ed replacing me as Communications Director either, so as I’ve said, my criticisms apply to both of you.

Yes, I believe you’re guilty of political grandstanding and I made it clear why, but it should be noted that the point of quoting the comment in my story was to show that my own party had conspired against me in forcing me to resign from Ed’s campaign and then banning me from the ‘LBC.’ There was nothing controversial about it, and yet my comment was rejected, which is how I came to the conclusion that my ‘moderation status’ was not temporary; they just didn’t like that I disagreed with them and had banned me outright. Since then, Sean Mill has admitted to the ban.

As far as my contacting you directly versus taking my frustration out in public, well, aside from the reason I’ve already explained, that’s not my job. I’m a blogger. I have an agenda as well as you do, my own campaign if you will, and I don’t plan on ever dumping praise on people who haven’t put in the work with anyone other than party delegates, union officials, and the authors of plans that will fall into obscurity on November 8th.

I’m sorry Ron, both you *and* Ed need to step it up, get out to the people. and start talking about issues, but neither of you has experience running a campaign on the cheap. That’s where I was supposed to come in, but alas, Ed’s people chose the union over me. If Iraq has taught us anything it should be that bigger is not always better. Some jobs should be done with special-ops. Considering you’re a military guy, I’m really very surprised you haven’t looked at it this way.

Also, my reluctance to approach you about this directly is based on our mutual understanding that whoever warned you against engaging with me was spot-on. Whoever advised you on this certainly deserves a raise, but I also appreciate that you’re trying to stay positive and that you’re pragmatic like me, so I applaud your decision to ignore this ‘conventional wisdom’ as you’ve correctly pointed out that we both want the same thing – no more Miller Time!

I will email you to discuss details, but I would appreciate if we could continue to discuss the generalities on this site as well.

SMS

I’m fairly easy to reach and even easier to talk to in person or by email. I responded to a comment on the Bruin Democrats blog that I was willing to talk but the last time I looked I saw no messages from anyone to talk about this. Instead, I see another another dig and denigrating attack. Why? At first it was a “kick in the butt”. Fair enough but is this another kick or is it something else? Wouldn’t a kick be more effective in person?

I was warned about engaging with you but my personality and style is such that I must because I believe in trying to eliminate negative energy surrounding and associated with me. I think it’s destructive especially among allies and people fighting to reach the same goals.

Now that it’s connected with my campaign which is not about me but much larger issues it’s even more important to see what I can do with some effort.

I’ll take another shot at it – ron@ronshepston.com is my email address if you want to talk about it.