Jon Fleischman, FR’s publisher, has asked me to do a recap of some of the goings on at the CRA convention.

 

The first thing one notices about the CRA Convention in Bakersfield was how successful it was. We had a great turnout out all three days. The Salute to Don Rogers, the McClintock Lunch and the Tom Tancredo Dinner all required more tables to be put up. The Bakersfield Republican Assembly did a great job.

 

The funniest thing to me was the a news report in the Bakersfield area talking about the convention, then shifted to Kern County/ Bill Thomas political consultant Cathy Abernathy talking about how the CRA was irrelevant.

 

I had to laugh. Every local official from State Senator Ashburn, Assemblyman Bill Maize, The Sheriff, the Mayor, Several City council members, Former Assemblyman Wyman and Harvey all came by. As did…drum roll please..Assembly GOP Leader Kevin McCarthy. Not too bad for irrelevant. And of course there were the statewide candidates that came. McClintock, Mountjoy, Poochigian, Prosper, Parrish, Poizner, Lenning, Strickland, Leonard, Haynes, Steel, Williamson, Forsch, Wong. McPherson stopped by for coffee with some folks and me before the convention began.

 

CRP and possible CRP leaders came by including Sundheim, Nehring, Del Beccaro and Tom Bordonaro also came by.

 

 

Several stories have come out of the convention.

 

We passed a resolution calling on Bill Thomas to retire. He did. Thanks Bill!

 

The much focused on endorsement of the Governor was delegated to the Board of Directors. Tom McClintock asked at the last minute that CRA endorse the Governor/Tom as a team. It almost passed, as Tom had the support of Mountjoy and others. If the Governor had sent somebody would it have helped or hurt?? Tom does have the clout with the delegates. That is for sure.

 

Poizner stayed the entire convention and spoke to every delegate individually. I think many delegates felt he was coming our way and just having him there shows he was willing to work with and listen to conservatives.

 

Finally, the Steel–Haynes match-up is probably the most blogged event. Both sides hustled. The stories of confrontation between Haynes and Powers are overblown. It didn’t happen. I will say this before the fourth and final count. Both candidates were allowed to speak again or send representatives up. Haynes spoke himself and gave a great statesman like presentation. Of course, CRA didn’t endorse a candidate and that is my position as well. Steel and Haynes both worked the group hard during the convention.

 

Best of all I got through it.