Why Does Tom Cagley Have My Email Address?

When you enter the voting booth and pull the lever for a candidate, what expectations come with this tremendous act of faith? What virtues and principles does this fortunate candidate have to posses and exude to convince you to bestow upon them the great honor of your vote? Electing a new person to represent you in government can and should cause you to feel pains of skepticism and curiosity. What if this person isn’t who they seem? What if they are being supported by political bad actors, people who would never be receiving your vote? What if you are voting for someone that you are hoping will fight for you, and will do so for as long term limits will allow?

Recently I shared here that I had heard that Tom Cagley, the most recently elected member of the Lake Forest City Council, is not planning on seeking reelection this November, when the term he inherited term ends. Cagley joined the council as the result of the recall election held in Lake Forest on January 2nd, the day after a holiday. I can admit that I was at one time seriously considering voting for Tom. Like any other citizen would, I started to do as much research as possible on the candidate. While I have never been a supporter of the multiple recall attempts that have recently taken place, I knew that it was possible that the recall petitions would be successful, and that it would end up on a ballot. If the first question on the ballot goes yes, then the second question comes into play: Who should take this empty spot on our council?

Tom seemed like a good option at the time. I knew that his name seemed familiar, and I had friends and neighbors tell me that they knew him and they had a generally positive impression of the man. This was a good start for me. More information rolled in that appealed to me as a voter; Tom is a veteran, and a Republican. Now things were looking really good. Most likely, I would agree with this candidate on principles and virtues. Most likely, he would represent me well.

There was still one major issue for me, and that was the recall itself. As a long time political activist here in Orange County, I have had the great dishonor of being witness to the recent happenings circling around the Lake Forest City Council. I am keenly aware of Adam Nick, as I was there when he was created with the help of the Republican Party of Orange County. I happen to be an Alternate on the OCGOP, representing my neighbors here in the 68th Assembly District. The OCGOP stepped in and supported Adam Nick, as he sought a seat on the council. Admittedly, I was an Adam Nick supporter at the time, and I voted for him. You see, as far as I knew, this new candidate shared my political philosophy and he would be a champion for the people who elected him into the future.

If you have been watching along with me, you know now how sad this story truly is. Adam Nick was an unmitigated disaster on the council. Having no political experience whatsoever, he flailed and failed left and right on the council. In fits of tantrum, he lashed out at his Republican colleagues that shared the dais with him, the very people that brought him to power. The citizens of the city heard of his bombastic attitude, they spoke amongst themselves of the outlandish things that he would say at council meetings, and they would eventually see him in the news accompanied by the iconic flashing red and blue lights of the Orange County Sheriff. The OCGOP would withdraw their support of him, and he would ultimately lose his place on the council.

To bring us back to 2017, there I stand, considering to support a new, unknown, reported Republican for our council. I had been burned before, so my skepticism was at an all-time high. As I dug deeper, I realized that this name was not entirely unknown, as I had heard it before. You see, Cagley did run for council previously, as part of a slate of candidates that included none there than the aforementioned disgraced former council member! My skepticism had a home and a place to begin growing. How could anyone with full knowledge of our shared political history make the decision to run alongside this person? There were only two possible answers to this question: Either Tom did not know, or he did not care.

Either one of these answers came with some seriously negative baggage. If Tom was not aware of Adam Nick’s history, he must not be qualified to run for council. Adam Nick was the biggest, loudest, most embarrassing thing to happen to our city since its inception, and someone who was unaware of this history must not be at all politically engaged or aware. We could not afford to elect someone that was politically inept to the council again. Now, if Tom was aware of all of this recent history, but choose to run alongside him anyway, this was a non-starter. Any assessment that led to the concussion that what Adam Nick had done with his time on council was anything less than completely unacceptable was false. If Tom was a happy traveler with this character he would absolutely not be getting my support.

At this point for me, I was out. I there was no path that I could see that would lead me to vote for anyone that was allied with this shady character, or to vote for someone who was too detached from this reality to be aware of the history. I was wrong. As I had mentioned before, I am an Alternate on the OCGOP, but I am also the President of the Saddleback Republican Assembly. We are the local unit of the California Republican Assembly, a statewide club for conservative political activist. Our unit does regularly get involved on the politics of the cities that we cover by endorsing and supporting candidates for council. While the endorsement of the OCGOP is by far the the most sought after endorsement in the county, an endorsement by the CRA is a strong second. A candidate that carries the support of both the OCGOP and CRA has a very high chance of winning their election bid in our county.

I was contacted by Tom Cagley with a request that we meet. While I was not inclined to support him based on what I have already outlined above, I was genuinely curious to meet the man himself and ask a few questions. Obviously, I understood that this was an attempt to obtain political support from my club, and if Tom were to convince me that he was the right man for the job, it would go a long way with my fellow board members. So one night directly following an OCGOP meeting at Hotel Irvine, we sat down to talk at a quiet table near the bar.

Tom provided me with a short introduction and some about himself, and even provided some printed material for me to read, which I love. My quick glance at the handouts revealed a number of the talking points I had previously heard parroted by recall supporters, and the points were as unconvincing as ever, and I told Tom as much. I explained to him in no uncertain terms that I was present for and aware of the events that led to the political nightmare that our city is facing, and that I would not be supporting anyone allied with the people that did this to us.

Tom then did what many who seek office do in a situation like this; he lied. Tom went on to explain to me that despite his history with the Nick/Gardner cabal, he had severed his ties with them. He spun a tale about how the petition itself was hijacked from him by his former friends, and about how he was now running independent of them and their money. Tom Cagley had seen the light, admitted that he had made a mistake, and was now a truly independent candidate for office, and for this reason, I should support him. So for a short time, I did.

I took Tom’s word and I brought the idea of endorsing him to my club. As fortune would have it, we were unable to lend our support to Tom. We had already endorsed the councilman that was the target of the recall, as well as issued a resolution in opposition to the recall, so our club could not endorse this newcomer even we wanted to. I wrote Tom an email and I expressed to him that while the SRA could not endorse him, I would support him on my own. I wished him the best, and I truly meant it.

As time went on, I realized that I had been deceived relatively quickly. As a consumer of social media, I saw evidence almost daily that directly contradicted Tom’s disavowal of the recall proponents. Gardner openly and enthusiastically supported Cagley online. If Tom had separated himself from these people, why would they still be pushing him? On Facebook, I saw Tom interviewed by recall supporters, and I saw him block traffic in a parking lot standing shoulder to shoulder with people he had assured me that he no longer stood with. It was not my first time, but it is never a good feeling to find that you had been lied to, and that you had attempted to spread this lie to your friends. I made sure to contact anyone that I had encouraged to consider voting for Tom and explain to them that I was wrong and that they should not vote for him after all. I apologized to my friends for misleading or confusing them, and I hoped that they will be inclined to trust my political insights in the future despite this little mishap.

Now this is again history. We know what became of the recall, and now we wonder what will come next. I had assumed that I would at least get a chance to support someone come November to challenge and unseat Cagley. He was able to win in a special election with a relatively low voter turnout, but would he be able to win in a general election against a new challenger? I was truly looking forward to finding out, but I know now that I will likely never get to have this experience. I posted here about how I had learned that Tom is not seeking reelection, and about the response I received from him via email that did not include anything in the way of a denial. If you are a person that reads The Patch regularly, you may have read that one of the biggest recall proponents to write for The Patch also wrote recently on this topic. The writer seemed to still be unsure about Cagley’s plan, despite clearly being a friend to the councilman and his allies. If you are still unsure about his plans, if you were a Cagley supporter that thought he was running to represent and support you into the future, I suggest you go ahead and ask him yourself.