This tidbit harvested from the Pacific Strategies billings to Rob Reiner’s OC Children and Families Commission was way too good to pass up.
Here we see Mr. Conservative Pundit Matthew Cunningham hard at work setting up and then eating lunch with former OC Register editorial writer Steve Greenhut back in 2008. Looks like Executive Director Micahel Ruane went along. Maybe Cunningham acted as interpreter between the libertarian Greenhut and the social services bureaucrat Ruane. I guess that’s what they call a business lunch.
I wonder if the suffocating welfare statists persuaded Greenhut of the need for their commission.
Last Friday afternoon KFI’s John and Ken got hold of our post on the subject, and shared with their listeners the amusing notion that Matthew J. Cunningham of Red County fame actually got paid $200 an hour to listen to their show one day last year.
Here’s what they had to say.
More publicity for the OC Children and Families Commission. Well done!
I would humbly like to thank the Academy for this recognition...
The other day Orange County’s Most Hypocritical Repuglican (yes, that is one Hell of an achievement) Matthew J. Cunningham coughed up this Red County hairball in criticism of Congresswoman Loretta Sanchez:
How very congressional. And also ironic to listen to Loretta Sanchez speaking to a crowd of immigrants who came here seeking the American Dream,, even as she has been voting to make American more suffocatingly statist like the countries they left.
Is he really that breathtakingly unaware of the irony of the mouthpiece for the OC Children and Families Commission dumping on “statism.” Or could it be that he figures that whoever reads his post won’t know about his real day job; and if they do any comments revealing that fact will be deleted.
Aw c’mon Mr. C from Suite C, ‘fess up. You really, really dig suffocating statism; you profit from it and you shill for it. In fact, it’s just about your only real source of income.
Own it.
P.S. Wordsmiths “at the top of their profession” proofread their copy for embarrassing typos.
Those guys don't scare me. I'm in this for the kids..
In our series documenting the PR/lobbyist hungry OC Children and Families Commission we have shown how they have employed local political operative and Red County blog bloviator Matthew Cunningham to propagandize their myriad big-government good works.
The toughest part of the job is thinking up new ways to spend all that gummint dough.
Of course you can’t really propagandize effectively unless you know what the opposition is saying. So enjoy this.
In January, 2009 Governor Schwarzenegger called for First 5 California to be eliminated in his 2009-10 budget. Regional commissions would have taken a 60% cut in funding.
KFI radio broadcasters John and Ken went on the offensive, and Cunningham was right there listening in at $200 an hour to formulate his defense of the Welfare State. Here’s the invoice entry:
As I said yesterday, it’s way past time to put this Commission under the control of the Board of Supervisors so that at least contracts and policy can be authorized by elected officials in a much more public forum. And maybe instead of fixating on PR the kiducrats can concentrate more resources on actually helping poor children instead of well-off, hypocritical Republicans.
The public relations and tax revenue fixated OC Children and Families Commission needs oversight. How do I know? Because of the amount of money these people pay to PR types and lobbyists – who just happen to be pals of Commission members. Hundreds of thousands of dollars a year, in fact.
Last year the Riverside County Board of Supervisors addressed the same issue when their “First 5” Commission members were busted for distributing grants to their own organizations. Here’s a 2009 article from The Riverside Press-Telegram that talks about the problem. The solution proposed by the Riverside BOS was to subsume their “First Five” Commission into the County government structure.
Whether or not this sort of thing has been going on in OC is not known without a complete shakeout. But what is known is that the Commission has been paying for things like toothbrush distribution and facebook editing at a rate of $200 per hour – to a Matthew Cunningham, a pal of the current Commission Chairman, and a running board occupant of the John Lewis political machine.
Then there’s the small matter of the hundreds of thousands contracted for lobbying services to Phil Isenberg as well as our own local big-government gold digger – Anaheim Mayor for Hire, Curt Pringle.
When you awake you will feel completely refreshed...
It’s high time to place this Commission in a chain of command that puts ultimate responsibility in the hands of elected representatives – people who will have to account for grants and contracts awarded to political operatives, and to decide what sort of political lobbying, if any, is appropriate. And that would be the County Board of Supervisors.
The largest monthly tax-payer funded haul for local Kiducrat spokesman Matthew Cunningham seems to be January 2010, when he racked up an impressive $10,840 to wordsmith and social network as a PR shill for the big-government OC Children and Families Commission. Click on the document below to see what a “conservative” Republican wordsmith does for a living – apart from writing op-ed pieces for liberal Democrats.
My favorite line item is the last one – a blanket $800 charged for “account management” for the month, whatever that may entail. Say what? You mean the folks in charge bought into that baloney? Oh that’s right – nobody seems to be in charge at all.
But hey! It’s all about the kids, right?
It's all about making people feel good about themselves.
With every passing second it become more and more obvious that the Children and Families Commission is in dire need of some outside oversight to stop this exorbitant waste of money on overpriced PR efforts doled out to political operatives.
More fun stuff from one of OCs repuglican welfare state spongers, Matthew J. Cunningham. $4,200 in 8 days, to be precise. And ten references to Facebook updates.
Funny how stuff kids do for free can be mined by a well-connected political operative for big bucks. Well it’s big bucks when you charge 200 clams per hour and have no competition.
I ran the table at the Children and Families Commission. Nobody seemed to notice.
What’s really startling is that the Children and Families Commission kiducrats are willing to pay somebody that exorbitant rate for a “social network” medium “work” that will have a completely negligible effect. Not negligible, you say? Prove it says I.
Oh, yeah. Be sure to reflect upon Mr. Conservative Republican’s daily billing totals and note the inevitable “account management,” whatever the hell that is. Who knew being a kiducrat payed so well?
Apparently part of Matthew Cunningham’s deal as wordsmith to the OC Children and Families Commission is to fill other functions from time to time – such as Ambassador to the Diocese of Orange with Dental Portfolio.
Here, in October and November 2007 we find Mr. Conservative Republican billing the taxpayers $200 an hour as coordinator of toothbrush distribution:
It seems as if the Commission was eager to insinuate itself into Catholic schools, too.
But did it not occur to anybody auditing these invoices at the Commission that it was a wee bit inappropriate to pay somebody that exorbitant rate to talk to somebody at the Diocese about handing out toothbrushes? Was anybody at the Commission even reviewing these invoices at all?
By the way, anybody out there know how many toothbrushes you can get wholesale for $200? Oy vey! Just more lax or non-existing oversight by our friends on the Commission.
Ironically, in the fall of 2007 Mr. Cunningham was hard at work in the trenches as a loyal foot soldier for the Diocese. But that’s a whole other matter.
Using kids as a front to support your bureaucratic empire is almost something of a cliche. The educrats and teachers unions have been doing it for years. And so naturally the OC Children and Families Commission sings from the same sheet music.
Check out these billing entries from Matthew Cunningham to the Commission.
Okay, on January 15th, 2010 Mr. Republican is ghost writing an op-ed piece for a Democratic politician – the former State Superintendent of Schools, Delaine Eastin. A dirty job, but somebody’s gotta do do it, right? Besides the money is great.
The inability to write is not a partisan political issue...
Then we notice that about five weeks later the beaver-like Cunningham is hard at work disseminating the “Eastin op-ed” to literally dozens of readers via “social media tools”
A little digging and we uncovered this Sacramento Bee op-ed “by” Delaine Eastin dated 2/24/2010. Delaine is fighting hard for the dough that fuels the kiducrat machine, and that, parenthetically pays Cunningham $200 an hour. Is this the very same piece he wrote for the otherwise mute Eastin? Check it out and see if the style isn’t 100% Cunningham schmaltz – including the obligatory quotation from Abraham Lincoln. Be sure to read the comments as a reminder of Eastin’s troubled regime as Superintendent of Schools.
I’ve said it before and I’ll keep saying it. The OC Children and Families Commission is paying hundreds of thousands a year in PR and lobbying expenses that are handed out to the politically well connected like Cunningham, who is good buddies with Commissioner Chair Bill Campbell and Hugh Hewitt. What is the procurement process for these contracts, and what quantifiable metrics are applied to judge the success and ultimately the renewal of these contracts?
It’s time to open the window on this Commission and let some fresh air into the room.
I never charge for reading the comics or the sports section.
One of the critical tasks assigned to Matthew Cunningham by the PR fixated and obviously rudderless OC Children and Families Commission is to “review” media, i.e. read newspapers and blogs, which is convenient for Cunningham because that’s what he does anyway – for free. Now he’s a pro at 200 bucks an hour.
Yes, Friends, you read rightly. He’s paid to read blogs.
This is exactly what I had in mind...only they were supposed to be Democrats!
January 25, 2010 was another banner day for Pacific Strategies. $700 for a few hours noodling around on the computer. Plus time for 18 holes in the afternoon after the siesta!
Oh, and look. A phone call to newly minted Assemblyman Chris Norby made from Suite C. Probably to assure Chris that Cunningham really wanted him to win all along and how much he really, really hates carpetbaggers and perjurers.
