It isn’t everyday that you get to shake hands with a man who put on the uniformof his country, suffered for years under tortuous, vicious enemy soldiers, and emerged grateful to his nation and to God, devoting his life to serving both. I got to do that today. I met John McCain.

Being in his presence for just a moment made me weak in the knees. Speaking with him for a few brief seconds reaffirmed everything that I know this nation and the GOP are capable of offering to the world. Those who know me best know that I do not engage in hero worship and am not star struck by anyone, but today was different. I met a real American hero. And as great as Senator McCain is…he thanked me for my service in the Navy. Unbelievable…honor and humility…what a an incredible comibination.

Before his luncheon speech today, we watched a video about the life of this Maverick. He’s led a life of leadership and in-your-face patriotism. He’s been a spitfire his entire life, and an… Read More

Greetings from the California Republican Party State Convention. As you can see by the timestamp on this commentary that it is very late, indeed, and so this will not be a long one. The State GOP is gathered at the Renaissance Esmerelda Hotel in Indian Wells, out in the Coachella Valley east of Los Angeles. I am not going to spend a lot of time talking about Governor Schwarzenegger’s speech to conventioneers at last night’s dinner banquet. You can pretty much read about what he said in a plethora of articles highlighted on our main page (look for various comments from me in the San Francisco Chronicle, San Jose Mercury News, and the San Diego Union Tribune). In short, the Governor came before us, declared that the State GOP was in trouble, and in essence prescribed that the ‘cure’ for our party’s ills is to move to the left on major policy issues in order to capture the political center. Frankly, and to be honest, I couldn’t disagree more. First and foremost, the purpose of a political party is to achieve it’s public policy goals. No where in our goal is a massive and costly… Read More

The last time Republicans won a serious majority in California was when Ronald Reagan was President. Yes, Ronald Reagan, the right wing nut; that seriously immoderate fellow. Yet we are now being told we must moderate our positions to win. But how do we moderate? Do we like some taxes but not others? Do some people have the right to life but not others? What principles do we abandon, which constitutional provisions do we ignore, to move to the "center" of the political spectrum? And what is the center? If our socialist legislature proposes Stalinist communism, is the the center to embrace Hitlerian nazism or Mussolini’s fascism? Should we be moderate communists to counterbalance our radical socialists in the Legislature in order to be popular "at the box office?" What do we do, what do we do?

Earlier this week, I talked about systems determining strategies, one of the two rules of politics. The other rule is principles, not popularity, determine policies. Let me explain why.

The first question anyone asks of anyone else who seeks political power is: why do you want power? What are you going to do with that… Read More

Update: The call was lifted earlier and only four more aye votes were cast, making it 32-34. There are 77 members present to vote on today’s file. SB 110, that would create a prison sentencing commission, basically allowing "another 2nd chance"for criminals convicted of serious crimes to have reduced sentences, was onour floor minutes ago. It has run into problems with even many of the Dems as it is on call with a 28 aye to 34 no count…wow. [6 Dems voting "no", all Reps present, "no"]… Read More

by a 34-37 vote… Read More

Mr. Mayor, please tell us in California that you didn’t mean to say what you said.

I don’t really watch Glenn Beck very often, but Rudy Giuliani was on today and said that it should NOT be a crime to be here in this country illegally.

Read the full transcript for yourself: http://www.glennbeck.com/news/09072007.shtml

My favorite part is below:

GLENN: Should it be [a crime]?

GIULIANI: Should it be? No, it shouldn’t be because the government wouldn’t be able to prosecute it. We couldn’t prosecute 12 million people. We have only 2 million people in jail right now for all the crimes that are committed in the country, 2.5 million. If you were to make it a crime, you would have to take the resources of the criminal justice system and increase it by about 6. In other words, you’d have to take all the 800,000 police, and who knows how many police we would have to… Read More

As noted here a couple of weeks ago, Shaun Flanigan recently left as Assemblyman George Plescia’s chief of staff, replaced by Janelle Riella.

The scoop today is that COS Chip Englander is leaving Assemblyman Joel Anderson’s employ, hooking up withMercury Public Affairs next month. Mercury is a part of the Fleishman-Hillard International Communications network (not the same spelling as the FR publisher’s last name). Steve Schmidt, former campaign manager for Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, is a Mercury partner and runs the Sacramento office. Another partner is Terry Nelson (former Bush-Cheney national political director). Many even say that Mercury houses thesingle largest collection of major Republican campaign consultants in America. Chip, who will bemoving to New York City to work out of the main Manhattan office,says "I’m deeply saddened to move on, but I’m getting married this month and this opportunity is too incredible to pass… Read More

I thought it was quite magnanimous of the industry group that represents private hospitals to summarily announce that they are "willing" to endure a $1.7 billion tax on all private hospitals as part of a "health care solution" for California with the notion that a huge percentage of this tax will come right back to them in government support.

A few thoughts come to mind. The first is that if the private hospitals in this association want to contribute $1.7 billion to some sort of program to assist those without insurance, that’s their choice. But leave government out of it. They can simply assess their members and use this pot of money to subsidize providing services in their hospitals to those in need. Of course look for a lot of that $1.7 billion cost to be passed along to those very patients seeking services. Why? Well, private hospitals are businesses. They cannot operate in the red. They have investors and stockholders who expect a return on their funds. The reality of the… Read More