As most of you know, my Mayor won her election and my friend Jesse Torres also won a city council seat.

I am gonna tell you why I have been so pre-occupied and busy for the past week.

This is probably a boring story if you don’t live here, but it needs to be chronicled so that if Gary Gillen runs for office again and I’m not around, his opponents can put his name in a search tool and learn what to look for when he starts campaigning in his real special way.

You know the saying about the more a man talks of his honesty, the more you should count the silverware?  The same a true for a politician who feels the need to continually say that he is running a clean campaign.  The only politicians who keep saying that are those who are running a filthy campaign, dirtier than a horse blanket in a drought.

Gillen is a relative newcomer in my city and ran for mayor.  He’s an exterminator and a paid Republican political professional / consultant. He gives advice and runs other people’s campaigns.  (This becomes very important later.)  And he is no stranger to infighting and dirty politics.

His critics say their differences are mainly due to Gillen’s attempts to block oversight of the management of the party assets. It is not so much personality as good business process that is at issue here, they say.

In 2007, he resigned as Republican County Chair in Fort Bend amid charges of financial irregularities.  I honestly don’t think he stole anything but he was so damn arrogant that it was hard to tell.  So he resigned and formed a club called The Conservative Club.  All went well for a whole damn year until they started fighting with each other and it totally fell apart.

Fort Bend GOP Sues Its Own Chairman Over Rights To Lincoln Day Fund-Raiser
by Bob Dunn, Jan 03, 2007, 02 13 pm
The Republican Party of Fort Bend County filed a lawsuit today against its own leader, saying Chairman Gary Gillen abused his position by scheming to divert money from the party “for his own selfish purposes.”

And so it goes.  The infighting continued to 2012, when Gillen began gossiping like a little girl.

 The former-former chair even sent out an email of his own. Message from Gary is shorter. Here it is in PDF. However, he’s unwilling to take responsibility for his words and will only give you the names of people over the telephone if you call him. You know, gossip. Like a little girl. Good Lord, Gary Gillen, grow the hell up. When I’m hacked at somebody, I use their name, out loud, on the internet machine. Like I’m using yours right now within spittin’ distance of the word wimp. Isn’t it the Republican gossip machine that got y’all in this mess in the first place?From Gillen’s Facebook page:

Which kinda brings us to now.

Yes, we are morally superior, but – most importantly – we are clean.  And here’s another.

 

“Good, clean campaign” is a refrain that keeps resurfacing in his strategy.

I told you about Gary and the YMCA.  As a political professional he knew for a damn certain guaranteed fact that using the YMCA in political ads was putting their 501(c) (3) in jeopardy.  He was willing to do that, knowing that it was going to hurt the city’s most vulnerable children.  That’s about as clean as a coal fire.  The Y says the letter was not meant for that but, instead meant to go home in backpacks in May, which leaves the question:  why was it written and given to him in April, just prior to a major hotly contested election.  The Y has no answer for that.

But, there’s something I didn’t tell you about.  What I did not tell you was about Gary’s extreme, if not hinkey, weirdness with PACs.  This is not his first adventure into the land of legal money laundering.

Gary did a mailer to his Republican voters in my city.   He bashed my mayor because she donated lots of money to Barack Obama, Emily’s List, and other evil, evil things.   Here it is in PDF.

 

 

Gary also endorsed candidates for city council, including a black man to show that his ideal ticket would “represent the interest of the minority community.”  Yeah, right.  Republican Whisperer – “don’t vote for this guy, he’s black.”  Gary did not talk to this guy or ask him if he could “use” him to bolster himself and send the message that he’s black.

Now in the interest of a “good, clean campaign,” Gary argues that he did not pay for this ad and has no idea who did.  That’s plain ole fried poopie del pollo.

The ad says it was paid for by the Fort Bend County GOP PAC.  Now, some day when you have a free couple of hours (or when you’re running against him in the future), hop your smart self over to the Texas Ethics Commission’s website and search Fort Bend GOP PAC and Harris County GOP PAC.  You’ll also notice that some of the mailing addresses and PO Boxes come back to … yep, Gary Gillen.  It’s a money laundering operation.  Perfecting legal but not, oh how shall I say this, “clean.”  And certainly not courageous, brave, or true.  It’s weenie stuff.

I’ve got my copies ready.

You are not clean, Gary.  Your hands are filthy attacking a good woman who has given much to this community.  She never once mentioned your name and local Democrats said nothing about you that you weren’t proudly saying about yourself.  You didn’t have the courage to say it in the minority community so we did it for you.  You should thank us for making an honest man of you.

So, if he tries to run again, watch out for Mr. Clean.  You’ll know him by the trail of Republican slime he leaves behind.

There’s more.  He knows it and I know it.  But I’m saving it so if he sues me …

And I have another piece of good news.  Danny Nguyen, the man in this political ad, got his butt handed to him by a 28 year old African American male who is a loud and proud Democrat and a young man going places.  Well done, Chris Preston.

So, all in all, yesterday was a good day for my community.

Now that I’m not distracted again until November, I’ll be back at work Monday morning.