The far left must love Jake Brown, Kenny Hackett and Baker County United (BCU)! Claiming to be constitutional conservatives, they helped organize recall meetings against the conservative members of City Council. They attempted an overthrow of the Baker County Republicans (BCRCC). Hackett just traveled to another failed overthrow attempt of the Hood River County Republican Chair! Why?!

I attended our recent Republican meeting. The BCRCC executive committee wasn’t removed, nor are they being “investigated.” Just because Brown writes long, tortured pages of “proof” doesn’t mean his accusations are real. They aren’t.

When BCU talks about “purging” the BCRCC, they’re talking about your friends and neighbors who’ve dedicated thousands of hours volunteering to help elect conservatives, spending thousands of their own dollars to represent at state and national meetings. I personally started with Reagan’s campaign as a kid, blowing up balloons for parades, all the way through co-chairing Kevin Mannix’s gubernatorial campaign locally, then working on Dennis Richardson’s gubernatorial and Secretary of State campaigns, with many in between.

My mother, BCU’s primary target, is the elected chair for Congressional District 2 and a Trump delegate sent to Cleveland for Convention. My ideologies are clear on Council where we stood up against the mandates and for our 2A rights. What were Brown and Hackett doing? Badmouthing these efforts systematically in and out of businesses across town. What triggered them in March 2021, before my gubernatorial race was even a thought, to begin their assault?

Most of the folks at that meeting had never participated in one before. They didn’t know the people they’d been made to hate. They’d never personally witnessed ANY of the “problems” they’d ardently bought into. Not even Judge Vance Day, a staunchly Christian conservative, passed their litmus test. They wanted HIM canceled when he decried their mob rule tactics.

Truth always bubbles to the surface, though it often takes longer than we’d like. In the big scheme of things, men like Brown and Hackett are impotent. As Day said, “They just want to burn down the house to rule over the ashes.” Antifa behaves like this. Conservatives don’t.

Kerry McQuisten

Baker City