If you can hear the thunder in the background, it is the sound of the Sacramento Bee attempting to change the current paradigm of how major newspapers deal with politics and the internet.

The Bee was on the front end of internet blogging, providing a forum and support for columnist Dan Weintraub as he attempted to pull together the first real blog on California politics with no road map to follow. From our end of things, how would it look? How often would he write? What would be the kinds of things he would write about? From the ‘back side’ — how do you integrate the real-time efforts of a blog with the idea that editors like to review what goes up on the website? Anyways, Dan plowed through all of the challenges, and the Sacramento Bee lead what has been large cadre of journalists who now blog for their newspapers, radio stations, and even some television stations.

Now, of course, with trends showing that all print newspapers are declining in circulation as more and more readers look to the internet to get their news (blogs, podcasts, websites and more) — the Sacramento Bee is now looking to see how they can make their… Read More

The California Republican Party, in conjunction with the Governor’s campaign embarked on a bold experimental Registration campaign in 2006.

All professional vendors were paid $13.00 an hour whether they produced or not. This effort was led by a Nathan Sproul of Arizona with his dba California Grass Roots Mobilization.Sproulwas paid over $2,100,000 last year.

This bold initiative was designed for threereasons: a ] to go to places where GOPers generally don’t , such as San Francisco. [ Sproul’s team never made it there ] and make it worthwhile to go door to door ,b] to avoid the nasty publicity two criminal investigations in San Bernardino and Orange County DA’s were conduction against fraudulent registrations, and c ] a new state law required, adding a considerableburden, that all registrations contain either a social security number or a driver license number. Who knew? . At $13,00 a hour how could this not work.

The Governor’s people, from the Bush 2004 campaign, insisted on the services of Mr. Sproul.

Sproul’s method of hiring was no different than anyone else in the registration business.… Read More

Kudos to FlashReport for bringing attention to the race for CCA. One of the interesting dynamics in race like this are slates. Candidates put together slates to help show a qualified group of leaders and to get votes.

I know Linda Boyd has a a pretty impressive slate that includes as candidates:

CCA First Vice President, San Mateo County Chairman Karen King (like Linda a 3 time County Chair}

CCA Second Vice-President, Del Norte County Chairman Scott Feller (added GOP Voter Reg in his county)

CCA Treasurer,Ventura County Chairman Mike Osborn. (Mike ran one of my favorite PACs. ABATE. I loved it when they showed up in their Biker gear to work precincts.)

CCA Assistant Treasurer, Tulare County Chair Laura Gadke for CCA Assistant Treasurer. (Another competent County Chair)

CCA Secretary, Inyo County Chairman Thaddeus Taylor. (There should be a monument erected in Inyo county for the work he has done over the last 25 years)

It will be interesting to see how this race plays out and the role of slates. (Full Disclosure CRA has endorsed Linda Boyd) I haven’t found anybody that knows who is on Keen’s slate. If anybody… Read More

Just a few minutes ago, I got off of the phone with a very excited Julie Soderlund. Those in the media, and anyone who followed the Gubernatorial Campaign of Arnold Schwarzenegger know that Julie (pictured to the right) served as the Governor’s Press Secretary for his re-election effort. In that capacity, I got to deal with Julie quite a bit. I can assure all FR readers that she is a really great communicator, and a consumate professional. Julie was sharing the news that she has decided to take the leap into the private sector, becoming the managing director of Wilson-Miller Communications. The "Wilson" is Marty Wilson, who is a chief political advisor and fundraising coordinator for Governor Schwarzenegger (he played a similar role with former Governor Pete Wilson), and the "Miller" is Beth Miller, whom I have know for many years, and who has a long history of working for GOP candidates and causus.… Read More

Rudy’s First Congressional Endorsement — Mary Bono

Rep. Mary Bono (R-CA)becomes the first member of Congress outside New York State to formally endorse ex-NYC mayor Rudy Giuliani.

He will be in the Coachella Valley next week for a fundraiser.… Read More

I’ve had the privilege of watching Keen Butcher, the county chair directly to my South, for the past year, and I am hopeful that his bid for the CCA Chair is successful for three reasons:

Keen gets Republicans elected. He doesn’t engage in squishy, nebulous measures of success – like how many sacrificial lamb candidates he can deliver up for slaughtering on the altar of the party. He has a very simple metric…how many Republicans in his county get elected. He realizes that the GOP will only be successful if our candidates are successful in getting elected. At the end of the day, we can have all the CRP conventions and party press releases we want to, but if we don’t put Republicans in office, we’ll go the way of the Whigs. Keen gets that…and he gets the job done. Keen makes people LOVE being a Republican. Last summer, about 300 Bay Area Republicans gathered at Mayor Charles Marsela’s gorgeous home in Atherton for the annual Rising Tide event. It was 115 degrees – though in typical GOP fashion, all the men were in coats and ties and the women were very professionally dressed as well, i.e. we … Read More

It has been a busy couple of weeks here in the Capitol, what with the budget, health care reform, the bond proposals, and everything, it has been hard to keep up. I thought I would let things settle down a little, and then comment.

First its time to give credit where credit is due. October, November and December were unusually warm throughout the country, and we were starting to read about how global warming was kicking in. Then, AB 32, California’s global warming solution came into effect on January 1, and within a week, California experiences a record cold snap. Good job, California government. I am sure that the country would not have experienced that cold snap without the hard work of our legislature. What is next? To paraphrase an old musical–"I know we made a law a year ago here. July and August mustn’t be too hot. And next, a legal limit to the snow here?" You finish the song. You’ll get the idea.

But what about health care? The Governor’s proposal is basically the old SB 2 on steroids. Remember SB 2. The Governor opposed SB 2, which was referended and defeated by the voters in 2004, saying… Read More

Okay, the Flashreport is supposed to be a site for interests of Californians. But today, the national interest must trump our State. Clueless Americans, being spoon fed a daily dose of negative news about the battle of Baghdad, just one front in the global war on terrorists (those that have killed our citizens, and want to end this country, placing her under Sharia law, or Islamic Courts), tell pollsters they don’t like the war. These poll respondents don’t have a clue about what is going on in Iraq, apart from biased news coverage. (What is the number one complaint of our troops abroad? Biased news coverage)

Politicians react to clueless Americans, so we get a clueless response in the form of a Senate resolution against the troop "surge" – emboldening terrorists to commit more terror as spineless liberals and a cheerleading press create a culture of surrender in this country.

Hagel and Warner – two more GOP Senators that deserve to lose – are doing Americaa great disservice as they themselves morph into "useful idiots". Is this 1930 or 2007? Hard to tell the difference. We need more Joe… Read More