Without a doubt, the Republican primary for California’s Fourth Congressional District was the highest profile legislative race taking place in yesterday’s statewide elections in California. Whether you look at how the race shaped up locally, or how it was covered Inside The Beltway, the battle between conservative State Senator Tom McClintock and moderate former U.S. Representative Doug Ose was truly looked to as an election-day indicator of where the heart and soul of the GOP was, and whether Republicans want to see change in direction that their party has taken in the United States Capitol.

Despite the massive financial advantage of Doug Ose, who cracked open the family’s platinum piggy-bank to spend a staggering some of personal money, well over $3 million, McClintock was victorious last night. Not only did McClintock win, he won in what can only be characterized as a blow-out, with the… Read More

Breaking news regarding the homosexual marriage ruling: the California Supreme Court has denied the motion to stay the court’s decision allowing homosexual marriage. This means that in just 10 days homosexuals will be allowed to legally be “married” in California. Traditional marriage advocates and many states with constitutional marriage amendments had petitioned our state’s highest court to stay their marriage decision until November when voters will decide on the Protect Marriage initiative (which just qualified yesterday). Unfortunately, the court has once again decided against the best interest of California.

If Protect Marriage passes in November, it will prompt a whole slew of new lawsuits against the state as homosexuals “married” in June-November will find their relationships in legal limbo. But it has become painfully obvious that at least four of the California Supreme Court justices would rather impose their political opinions on citizens than truly consider the long-term impact of their judicial activism. This is yet another sad day in the battle to save traditional… Read More

I just finished writing a column that will appear in tomorrow’s Capitol Weekly newspaper (we’ll link to it on tomorrow’s FR main page) that I think you will enjoy..

The piece is a more in-depth look at the blow-out victories of Assemblymembers Mimi Walters, Bob Huff and John Benoit in their successful bids for the GOP nominations in their respective State Senate races.

I think you will enjoy it. Look for it tomorrow!… Read More

I think the title of this postsays it all. Thank God we’re done.

Primaries are the toughest thing ever. Friends for years end up on opposite sides and their relationships are forever strained. People get mad. People get weird. People get angry. And on and on. . . . .

I just hate Republican primaries.

Having vented – I want to say —

* Congratulations to John Benoit, the new Senator-to-be from my district. John ran a terrific campaign and his win was impressive. This was the single most hard hitting election I’ve ever witnessed. Both sides got hit – and both sides hit HARD. Anybody that wasn’t receiving the mail, hearing the radio spots and seeing the TV commercials just can’t appreciate the intensity of this campaign.

I supported Russ Bogh, and I’m sad he lost. But the primary is over and we’ll try our best to put the pieces back together again. Again, congrats John – you’ll be a fine Senator.

* Congrats to Brian Nestande – John Benoit’s replacement in the Assembly. I’ve known Brian forever. He ran a great campaign… Read More

With the June primary behind us, fresh in my mind is how hard it is to elect people to be a judge in their county, especially large counties where the cost to campaign is prohibitive. Because of this, I am even more attuned to the fact that when some liberal gets appointed to the bench, it’s almost impossible to get rid of them, and it represents a missed opportunity to have someone on the bench whose values reflect those Republicans would like to see in a Judge.

I remembered that last month the Governor made a slew of judicial appointments but with the primaries in full-gear, I didn’t have time to review them. Today, I took a few minutes to do so, and frankly wished that I had not. Once again (this is becoming a trend), a majority of the Governor’s judicial appointments were NOT from the party of Reagan (or the party of Schwarzenegger, for that matter). Instead, out of twenty new judges appointed around California, only nine are Republicans. You can see the details below.

It is not lost on me that we got the raw end of the deal. You can be sure that if Phil Angelides were Governor, virtually ALL of his picks for the bench would be… Read More

Last night, San Bernardino County Supervisor (and former FR blogger) Brad Mitzelfelt handily avoided a run-off in securing his election victory. (In these multi-candidate skirmishes, if a candidate gets a single vote above 50%, it’s game over).

Brad’s ~62% obviously cleared that hurdle with room to spare.

So imagine his shock when the local newspaper came out this morning (at oh,4ish) withcoverage of the race included the headline "Vogler Still Has Chance At Win For County Supervisor."

Newsflash – Um, no she doesn’t.

I guess this is the High Desert’s version of "Dewey Defeats Truman."… Read More

Without a doubt, the Republican primary for California’s Fourth Congressional District was the highest profile legislative race taking place in yesterday’s statewide elections in California. Whether you look at how the race shaped up locally, or how it was covered Inside The Beltway, the battle between conservative State Senator Tom McClintock and moderate former U.S. Representative Doug Ose was truly looked to as an election-day indicator of where the heart and soul of the GOP was, and whether Republicans want to see change in direction that their party has taken in the United States Capitol.

Despite the massive financial advantage of Doug Ose, who cracked open the family’s platinum piggy-bank to spend a staggering some of personal money, well over $3 million, McClintock was victorious last night. Not only did McClintock win, he won in what can only be characterized as a blow-out, with the… Read More

With all the many candidates chasing few voters today, it brings to mind how interesting our traditional June primary could’ve been if our entire primary was today. Senator Clinton and Obama could have spent a ton of money in CA the last few weeks instead of a pittance in February’s term limit exten….I mean "presidential primary" election, not to mention the entertainment value of their hard fought effort to get all of CA’s delegates at this time.

We coulda been relevant! Would’ve helped our election vendors economy here too. Think of "all that revenue the state has lost" andat a time when the drumbeat for feesand taxes is getting louder because of our messed up budget…but hey, we know that the $90 million taxpayerspaid for a third election this year won’t be missed and will really help make the case for a subsequent term limit proposition to be embraced by the public! Meanwhile all you poll checkers, try to stay awake today, and thanks again Prop 93!… Read More