After six years of Mike Spence’s outstanding leadership, the California Republican Assembly has a new president.
This weekend the CRA met in Bakersfield to select their leadership, including a new president: Ken Mettler from Bakersfield. The new CRA national committeeman and committeewoman are Sergio Picchio (a CRA past president) and Karen England. Six vice president were elected: Ben Lopez, Scott Voigts, Celeste Greg, Cliff Wagner, Karl Heft and me (thank you to the CRA delegates for your votes!).
Congratulations to the Kern County Republican Assembly for putting together a fantastic convention. The entire weekend was packed with informative, engaging speakers. Coming on the heels of the extremely successful tea party rallies (most CRA delegates had participated in them), CRA members were excited about voters taking action against an elitist government bureaucracy—something the CRA has battled since its inception.
All of the GOP gubernatorial hopefuls visited the convention. Friday evening Steve Poizner spoke at the dinner, delivering his stump speech about California’s obtrusive government bureaucracy. Meg Whitman, with Congressmen Buck McKeon and Kevin McCarthy in tow, attended a reception on Saturday morning. CRA delegates were fully aware that neither Poizner nor Whitman are true “CRA” Republicans, particularly on social issues. But both candidates were, as always, treated with respect. Poizner has invested much time in building a relationship with the CRA over the years as evidenced in the many delegates wearing “Poizner 2010” stickers.
Congressman Tom Campbell had the hardest time at the convention when he spoke on Sunday morning. Campbell delivered a solid speech about the dangers of deficit spending and inflation, but when he took questions from the audience, his differences with CRA values were obvious. He affirmed his pro-abortion stance, expressed his opposition to Proposition 8, and—eliciting loud boos—stated that he thought Schwarzenegger was a good governor. Knowing his audience, I suppose it took guts to say such unpopular things to the conservative base.
The most interesting presentation was actor and comedian Paul Rodriguez’s speech at the Saturday evening dinner. A longtime Democrat, Rodriguez’s family farm in the Central Valley that has been affected by the outrageous judicial ruling cutting off water supplies in order to “save” the delta smelt. Rodriguez was stunned to discover that after years of fundraising for his “friends” in the Democrat Party, they wouldn’t even take his phone calls about saving California farms’ water.
It’s a harsh lesson to learn, but most people don’t become activists until they are personally touched by government bureaucracy. Mr. Rodriguez is one of those citizens who once had the luxury of being a generational Democrat—until he realized the Democrat Party and their union and environmental despots are the problem. Mr. Rodriguez is the best example of how the GOP can reach out to traditionally Democrat voters to reveal the hypocrisy of liberalism.
The entire CRA convention was recorded and is available as a podcast on iTunes. (Open iTunes and then type 2009 Annual.) If nothing else, I recommend listening to Paul Rodriguez’s speech—it will encourage you that conservatism is a winning political ideology when we articulate it in a way that touches the average voter.