*While only a small fraction of FR readers are here at the State GOP Convention — this is a special request to each of you! For five years now, I’ve been publishing our famous (or infamous) "WINNERS & LOSERS OF THE GOP CONVENTION" column – and we’ll be doing that again later this week.
Often times, many of the ‘awardees’ are determined with help from you all — so if you were at some or all of the convention, and would like to suggest a winner or a loser, feel free! All input is taken anonymously, so your friend won’t know you think he is a loser! Join in the fun!*
Look for some comprehensive post-GOP convention analysis in the next day or so, but I will pen just a little here. One of the challenges of being a ‘blogger’ and a participant is that it means that…I’m late for the opening of the State GOP’s Sunday General Session already!
Tom McClintock’s speech was great (I live-blogged some highlights which are over on the FR Weblog), and we are so lucky to have him as our Lieutenant Gubernatorial nominee (the primary being a formality for the unopposed State Senator). He is really a great guy.
You can read many accounts in the newspaper coverage of the convention (all on the main page) about the broo-ha-ha here about resolutions, and drama (FR friend Mike Schroeder, the former Chairman of the Party, is a adept at maximizing this sort of thing) — but at the end of the day, the deal is this. GOPers want the Governor to win in November, and believe that the best way for him to do this is to run on the issues that helped him win big in the recall. Fiscal conservatism was a main part of his platform. And I can tell you from talking to HUNDREDS of delegates, away from the spotlight of the Resolutions Committee meeting (which I did not attend, sorry) and away from the myriad of Team Arnold senior-handlers that strolled the halls) – almost everyone wants the Governor to slaughter Angelides or Westly (whichever is the ultimate Dem nominee) but there is a feeling, and I will try to characterize it as a hesitancy-concern-frustration-lamenting about some of the policy shifts of this year. This GOP delegate is hopeful that coming out of this convention we will see more of a shift towards the fiscally conservative agenda that will help me to do my job in motivating GOP turnout for November to re-elect Arnold Schwarzenegger!
Yesterday we had a great 90 minute FlashReport.org panel discussion at the convention – a bunch of FR’s weblog contributors – Mike Spence, Amy Thoma, Joe Justin, Jennifer Nelson, Phil Paule and Adam Probolsky joined me where we woo’d a crowd of about a hundred conventioneers. Our topics of discussion ranged the gamut from Governor Schwarzenegger’s policy-missteps this year, and the race for Duke Cunningham’s seat in San Diego County, to the bizarre phenomenon that with Ron Dellums running for Oakland Mayor, he makes the retiring Mayor, Jerry Brown, look moderate! It was a fun time, and we really appreciate all of the folks that came, and helped to make it successful. We’ll be doing more of this!
A special thank you to Congressman Darrell Issa for including a ‘shout out’ to the FlashReport’s successful first five months as part of his "Team Issa" party last night!
Okay, I need to go downstairs now, and see if convention delegates are going to swallow the cool-aid, and also hear a dozen riveting speeches from various politicians.
One thing I can tell you is that despite the newspaper accounts of division, and some definite need for the Governor to change his election-year approach to motivating grassroots Republicans — this has been a great convention
