By John F. Berry
Posted on February 20, 2012 at 11:48 pm
Only the biggest of political wussies would claim a scheduling conflict to flee a candidate forum.
Yet James Ramos, after agreeing to appear at a March 1 forum with the Redlands Tea Party Patriots, did just that to escape appearing with his competitors for Neil Derry’s seat on the San Bernardino County Board of Supervisors.
It’s absolutely clear that Ramos is afraid to appear before our standing-room-only candidate forums. I have covered about every type of board, council and commission in my 20 years in newspapers, and I never met a politician who wasn’t aware of the trappings of an appearance before accepting an invitation.
When I was a reporter, I would have to squelch my laughter when I heard talking heads like Ramos’ Andre Levesque, according to the Loma Linda Patch, talk in such nonsense:
“Unfortunately, the other commitments that we have we simply couldn’t get out of but there will definitely be plenty of opportunities for voters to come and see James,” Levesque said. “And they are definitely encouraged to come to our many public meet and greets or one of the forums and debates we’ll be scheduling down the road.”
Politicians are aggressive chess players when they’re in campaign mode. They don’t make a move without first war-gaming each scenario. To accept an invitation without knowing the sponsoring group, as well as the possible impacts on a campaign, is an amazing rookie mistake.
Another possibility is that Ramos has been living under a rock since the tea party movement burst onto the national scene in 2009. How else could you accept an invitation from any group with “tea party” in its name and not realize who it is?
What most likely happened is Ramos’ supporters saw publicity about his appearance and began to panic for no good reason. The news that all five candidates then in the race had accepted our invitation had been in the media for almost a week. We’ve hosted liberals at our forums and they walked out just fine.
To read entire column, click here.
I’ve really enjoyed the 2 Redlands Tea Parties I’ve been to and have been very impressed with the meetings. I think Mr. Ramos would get a fair hearing. Hopefully, there’ll be a chance for another debate where he can participate.
That was the problem Ramos had…HE WAS INFORMED THAT THE REDLANDS TEA PARTY WAS FAIR.
Ramos will have nothing to do with FAIR, THAT WILL PUT HIM AT A BIG DISADVANTAGE, and FAIR is something that make him very uncomfortable.
HA HA HA HA, “plenty of opportunities to SEE James”, and “GREET” him?
Yeah, we get it…
We can SEE Ramos
WE can TOUCH Ramos
BUT DO NOT ASK HIM ANY QUESTIONS!
BTW…what is there to see about him? And do we have to BOW our heads when we greet him?!!
Conflict of interest?? How about conflict of knowing the issues ! At a meeting held in Big Bear last year, Mr. Ramos was asked what he expected to do for the Big Bear Valley that Supervisor Derry hadn’t done already. I stated that Supervisor Derry had been up to the valley over 200 times in his less than three years in office. Mr. Ramos’ response – ” I have a place in Big Bear and when I’m there, I go to the Copper Q to have coffee and talk with folks to see what their concerns are”. He also stated that he wanted to bring more tourism to the mountain. He stated, ” maybe we could build an 18 hole golf course to bring more conventions up here”. When I asked him where it would be built, he said, “I don’t know”. This man was very unprepared to answer questions. Most of the folks in the audience were very much disappointed in his responses. There will be no excuses come April 3rd in Big Bear. Mr. Ramos has agreed to participate in the Candidate Forum being held at the Masonic Lodge at 6:30 PM. This forum is sponsored by the Big Bear Valley Democratic Club. He will be forced to go one on one with Supervisor Derry. Mr. Jim Bagley has also agreed to participate. I am very much looking forward to this gathering.
Mr. Ybarra will be disappointed to know Ramos will cancel Big Bear as he did Redlands… AND especially since the Masonic Club in NO CHILD’S PLAY!
Ramos was also very angry that the Bear Bear Valley Democratic Club did NOT automatically RUBBER STAMP HIM being he was a Democrat.
AGAIN… IT GOES TO SHOW THE VOTERS that Ramos does not know who is who in the Third District.
In the Third District he has found that neither voters, Clubs nor Political Organizations are for sale.
The BBV Democratic Club is TOTALLY SEPARATE AND INDEPENDENT FROM FROM THE INFLUENCE OF Joe Baca’s “for sale” looney Democrats!