It is being reporting in the Washington Times today by FR friend and veteran reporter Ralph Hallow that the McCain for President Campaign, through former California Republican Party Chairman Duf Sundheim, is advocating (behind the scenes) for the California Republican Party to change its existing Rules, which currently require that you must be a registered Republican to vote in the upcoming Presidential primary. According to the Times’ story, Sundheim supports allowing non-GOPers (specifically independent voters) to be able to cast ballots in the GOP primary.

Such a change is not supported by Sundheim’s successor, newly elected California Republican Party Chairman Ron Nehring, who told me this morning, “We just completed our last state convention before the RNC’s June deadline for states to submit their delegate selection rules. Those rules are set as far as I’m concerned. Candidates should focus their efforts on persuading California Republicans they are the most qualified to provide the vision and leadership to carry the party’s banner in 2008.”

This morning I had a chat with a senior official with the McCain campaign back East,… Read More

GOP strategist Patrick Ruffini (a Giuliani partisan), blogging Monday on Hugh Hewitt’s TownHall site, labeled the FlashReport one of the best places to go for an ’08 Presidential fix. In fact, he called it THE state website for California:

At the state level, Iowa leads the way with Caucus Cooler and Krusty Konservative. South Carolina has the Daily Chaser. In the critical GigaTuesday state of California, CRP vice chairman Jon Fleischman’s Flash Report does a great job of carpet-bombing Left coast liberalism. Read the entire post here.… Read More

Over the course of the last few months, I have had the great privilege of meeting with hundreds of folks, each advocating one position or another. In the lingo of the biz: meet & greets. These encounters typically are cordial affairs, and are designed to familiarize the member (that would be me) with particular issues and to establish working relationships. All that to say, I get paid by the good folks of California to listen, learn, and often, debate the merits of thousands of concerns.

More interestingly than the fact that these meetings occur may be the fact that so many of them are with groups and individuals from the Left. These meetings tend to go something like this:

Lefty: We are so happy to have you here in Sacramento. Congratulations. Me: Thanks. It’s a real honor to be here. So what’s on your mind? Lefty: We just wanted to talk to you about [fill in the blank] Me: That’s great that you are working on that problem, but what should government do about it?

And this is the point where more money is requested and/or, more governmental intrusion.

When I raise the obvious concern that… Read More

Last night, the Bay Area Chapter of CWLA (California Women’s Leadership Association) hosted Assembly Leader Mike Villines at their annual meeting in the posh Banker’s Club of San Francisco. As the sun set over the Bay, audience members were treated to a panoramic view of the most gorgeous city in the world (no bias on my part), and the Leader’s speech entitled “Straight Talk from the Capitol.” Last year, Assemblyman Villines authored the workplace flexibility bill, which would give non-union workers the same right to a four day, ten hour day work week that union members can currently negotiate. Several CWLA members, including yours truly, testified in committee alongside Cal Chamber, but not surprisingly, the Democratic legislators whose bread and butter comes from unions did not allow the bill onto the floor.

This was the Leader’s first Bay Area appearance, and from start to finish, he had the crowd eating out of the palm of his hand. Just before he came onstage, the annual officer election took place for… Read More

Inanother suspense filledvote, SB 113-Calderon, passes off our floor tonight on a straight party line vote, 46-29, Dems aye, Reeps no. This of course was the bill that moves up the Presidential primary in California to February, 2008…and becomes the vehicle for the term limit extension initiative to be "in time" for those who would be termed out in 2008. The cost to California counties and, ultimately taxpayers, could range as high as $88 million according to county representatives I spoke with. All for a shot at term limit extensions that have virtually no chance with fed-up voters. This without the promised redistricting reform as even a measure of balance. The Governor has indicated early on he would sign this if there was a bi-partisan effort at redistricting reform. There has not been a good faith effort at that by the majority Dems.The bill will soon be on his desk,he has 30 days to sign or veto it. Ihope heuses his leverage to extract true reforms in redistricting now that, if he chooses to sign it, we willget stuck with this multi-million dollar bill.… Read More

Yesterday, the Country’s preeminent conservatve talk show host, Rush Limbaugh, raked California Republican State Senator Bob Dutton over the proverbial coals for his brief but notable co-authorship of legislation to create a new state entitlement program, redistributing $500 cash into state accounts for every newborn child in the Golden State.

You can listen to Limbaugh’s report here (worth listening to!).

You can read the transcript here, though I will reprint the final paragraph of Rush’s comments below — as it is ‘classic Rush’ — This is what I mean when I say I’m getting a little concerned as the Republican… Read More

Thanks to our development team over at Cloudspace, we have a new feature for the FR main page — the ability to feature YouTube videos! Check it out now — at the top of the left column, I have inserted a video of a classis Reagan speech, Rondevous with Destiny. Check it out.… Read More

Our website development team is working on some upgrades for the main page. In doing so, it has caused some technical issues with the tool that we use behind the scenes to post up the links for news stories. Because of this, look for today’s main page to be updated by 10 a.m. Our apologies for the inconvenience.… Read More