The goal is $7.5 million and Issa leads the charge…Calvert and Herger California captains…

Chairman Cole Announces Rep. Darrell Issa to Chair NRCC’s March Dinner

Washington – NRCC Chairman Tom Cole (R-OK) announced today that Representative Darrell Issa (CA-49) will chair the annual NRCC March Dinner that will be held on March 12, 2008 at the Washington Hilton Hotel.

“I am very pleased to have Darrell Issa taking the lead on this year’s NRCC March Dinner,” NRCC Chairman Tom Cole said. “This is going to be a very exciting election year and we need to work together to make sure we have the resources in place to be successful.”

Chairman Cole and Representative Issa announced a goal of raising $7.5 million at the dinner, headlined by President George W. Bush.

“It is an honor to chair this… Read More

Ten years ago, voters established the First 5 Commission to use tobacco tax revenues for improving the lives of California’s children. Its proponents argued that the First 5 Commission would "provide child immunizations, health care, nutrition services, domestic violence prevention, and treatment…" from the time they were born until they entered kindergarten. However, political gain and mismanagement have corrupted that noble goal.

To begin with, the First 5 Commission spent tens of millions of dollars intended to provide direct services to kids on ads advocating the virtues of preschool while an initiative to mandate preschool was being circulated by the First 5 Commissioner. Now it has been discovered that the First 5 Commission and its 58 county commissions are letting billions of dollars collect dust rather than be used to provide services for children.

According to The Sacramento Bee (January 17, 2008), the 58 "county commissions in California that decide how to use money from [Proposition 10] are sitting on a combined balance of more… Read More

This morning, I wrote about Steve Poizner being "all in" relative to his aggresive leadership role in working to defeat the Fabian Nunez Term Limits Weakening Measure, Proposition 93.

Well, apparently I was wrong.

Apparently Poizner, who already had made a personal contribution of $1.5 million to the effort to defend our state’s legislative term-limits, was a million bucks shy of being "all in"…

How do we know this?

Because NOW he is ALL IN.

Today Poizner opened up his checkbook and wrote another MILLION dollar contribution (FR readers will recall that Steve Poizner, before his involvement in politics, was very successful in the Silicon Valley hi-tech field, and is not hurting for cash).

I caught up with Poizner, who has this to say about his additional, sizable contribution:

It’s early, but not too early to chew on some fodder. The San Diego Police Officers Association has released a citywide poll (conducted by Dresner, Wickers & Associates) showing Mayor Jerry Sanders leading Steve Francis by 20 points and Jan Goldsmith ahead of City Attorney Mike Aguirre by 13 points in respective one-on-one scenarios. The 400-large sampling was taken the second week in January and mirrors the voter reg. throughout the city.

In the city attorney’s contest, the poll was done prior to Councilman Brian Maienschein’s announced candidacy, but lends significant credence to the contention that his entree would impact Goldsmith’s potential chance of winning a primary outright in a straight-up shot against Aguirre. Add to that the likelihood that Aguirre — if forced into a runoff — would much rather face an incumbent SD councilmember (and all the SEC and pension debacle baggage that goes with the title) than Goldsmith.

If Aguirre’s numbers show a runoff situation, watch him do anything to keep Goldsmith from making it into the final. On the other hand, if potential also-rans stay out, Goldsmith’s… Read More

Just received word that Duncan Hunter has endorsed Mike Huckabee for president. “I got to know Governor Huckabee well on the campaign trail,” said Hunter. “Of the remaining candidates I feel that he is strongly committed to strengthening national defense, constructing the border fence and meeting the challenge of ’s emergence as a military superpower that is taking large portions of ’s industrial base. "Along with these issues of national security, border enforcement and protecting the industrial base, I see another quality of … Read More

Councilman Ron Smith had thought of running for the Assembly in 2008. Instead he faces a recall and Lancaster politics is all upside down with his ally from just a year ago endorsing the recall. There are election in April that are dividing GOP forces in the Antelope Valley. More bloodshed to come.… Read More

For a solid day now, I keep hearing from different sources that Assembly Speaker Fabian Nunez and his "people" have been trying to buck up some of their insider supporters of his term-limits weakening measure, Proposition 93. Over and over I keep hearing that they are saying that "internal polls" show the measure ahead with 58% of the vote. What is the polite was to say this? I don’t believe him. Unless he has a totally biased pollster who is being paid to conduct a survey designed to give artifially high positives for his measure (perhaps to encourage more potential donors). From what I hear (from reliable sources), the measure is running neck and neck, with the numbers FAR below 50%. Normally we would just have to make this a "he said, she said" situation, and shrug. But I have learned that the latest Field Poll survey data on Proposition 93 will be publicly released tomorrow. It will be interesting to see what it says. Hey, if the numbers… Read More

When you play poker, the expression "all in" refers to when a player takes all of the chips in front of them, and pushes them all to the center of the table. It means that everything comes down to one hand. If you win, you win big. You win it all. If you lose, then you lose everything with which you came to the table. It takes a particularly gutsy or brave poker play to go "all in" for obvious reasons. But, while you take an incredible risk, you have the chance to reaping incredible rewards.

From time to time, we have situations in politics that remind me of the poker concept of being "all in" — and we have one such political situation going on in California politics right now.

The poker player? California’s Republican… Read More