George Rebane
Two Nevada County progressives have claimed to receive different receptions from local folks and the established mover and shaker networks. In yesterday’s (12jan15) Union we had a long lament by Jim Firth, a leader of the Democrat Party hereabouts. Upon arriving, Mr Firth quickly jumped into local politics and came away a bit bloodied, having been rejected to seats on local commissions and received a drubbing from the voters in two elections. He puts the blame squarely on the shortsightedness of the county’s establishment, and an undeserved pummeling in the local blogosphere.
On the obverse side we see Ms Heidi Hall who has her eyes on Nevada County as a proper stepping stool for higher public office. Readers may recall that Ms Hall already attempted to unseat Congressman Doug LaMalfa last November. The lady has an impressive array of impeccable progressive credentials, and now a correspondent advises me that she will be able to promote her brand of politics through two significant Nevada County trumpets – KVMR and The Union for which she will do a weekly radio commentary and write a bi-weekly column. Quite a different reception from that received by fellow Democrat Jim Firth. (Full disclosure – I am a former Union columnist and do a regular commentary on KVMR.)
Both Firth and Hall are devotees of extensive government care, central planning, and a more economically homogeneous society. So it is a puzzlement why two people with such similar ideologies have fared so differently. But don’t get me wrong, the jury is still out. Nevada County remains a distinctly right-of-center county with an unusually large population of retireds. Perhaps Ms Hall has moderated her tilt to port to account for that. Her first Union column appeared today wherein she encouraged people to get informed and engage in politics. Within this seemingly neutral counsel was wrapped her enthusiasm and support for Betty Yee who was elected California Controller last fall. In there she pointed out Yee’s rejection of “corporate money” without even a whisper of the extensive union funding her campaign enjoyed. Fair enough – I, for one, do not expect nor want ideologues to attempt some claimed ‘balance’ in their advocacies and apologetics.
In sum, I hope Jim Firth keeps up the good fight to get into some public office of note, and in that pursuit continues to leave a trail of prescriptive opinion pieces in the paper and on blogs that extol the joys of expanding collectivism in our county. And I welcome Heidi Hall’s “joining the local punditry”, but do hope that Ms Hall’s future columns and commentaries will depart from her, perhaps understandable, cautious inaugural pabulum to give us all something substantial to chew on.
rebanesruminations.com 
Leave a comment