Comes Now This Missive From the State Republican Party

Where Is John Burton?

Burton Strangely Silent on Brown-Clinton Democratic Family Feud

SACRAMENTO — California Republican Party spokesman Brian Seitchik today issued the following statement:

“Chairman of the California Democratic Party John Burton, known for his razor sharp retorts, has been uncharacteristically silent on the Brown-Clinton family feud.

Does Burton agree with Jerry Brown when he said last Sunday “Clinton’s a nice guy but whoever said he always told the truth?” Or is Chairman Burton willing to acknowledge the facts of the Whitman ad: Brown turned a $6 billion surplus into a billion dollar deficit, opposed Proposition 13, and increased the tax burden on Californians during his tenure as Governor?

It looks like Burton is following the age-old adage when it comes to Jerry Brown—can’t live with him, can’t shut him up.”

(Editor’s Note: As a bonus, Seitchik includes this fairly benign, by Burton standards, quote from a November 17, 1990 piece by Cathleen Decker in the Los Angeles Times.)

“Internal bickering among California Democrats over blame for Dianne Feinstein’s narrow gubernatorial defeat surfaced Friday in Florida as delegates to a meeting of state Democratic officials snickered over a letter harshly critical of state party chairman and former governor Edmund G. Brown Jr.

“In a letter dispatched to state Democratic Party chairmen meeting in Miami, California Assemblyman John Burton of San Francisco said Brown bungled the party’s get-out-the-vote drive and doomed Feinstein to defeat. Feinstein lost to Republican Pete Wilson by 3 percent of the votes cast.

“Brown ‘is the most self-serving, inept politician that I have ever met in my 35 years in politics,’ Burton’s letter to the Democratic officials said.”

(Editor’s Note: Curious if the assessment has changed in the intervening two decades.)

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