The California Republican Assembly sponsored a Tele-Townhall with State Seneator Tom McClintock last night. What is a Tele-Townhall?? Basically it is a new way to communicate and get your message out. Instantly thousand of autodials can go out to a phone list and then patch through all the individuals to a conference call type event. Then our star, in this Tom McClintock” can discuss ideas and get feedback from the listeners. The listeners can ask questions. It has a radio talk show kind of feel. It is much more personal than a “live chat”. Last night’s call was for CRA members past and present. We had around 1500 connections. Those that weren’t home got a message referring them to the website. Tom was in Saramento; I was in West Covina then later driving to Fullerton as the call progressed. While at home on the computer, the hosts could see a panel that included who wanted to ask questions and how many people were on the call at any given moment. It was pretty cool. … Read More

What about ex-wives? I couldn’t help but think of the pain given to Doolittleover the hiring of his wife when I ran across this blog entry from LAObserved.Assemblyman Richard Alarcon spent over $400,000 running for Assembly and of course he DIDN’T have an opponent. Payments went to an ex-wife, a girlfirend and a fiancee. And Mitt Romney gets picked on about Polygamy. See it here.… Read More

Today’s front page story of the New York Times about the new importance of California in presidential politics as a result of moving our primary to February includes a quote from former State Senator Jim Brulte. Brulte’s comment is pretty simple: a candidate who campaigns in California will learn more about our state and be "a better president for California." As a result of the new primary, all the major presidential candidates are spending time in California seeking to be "our President."

And here today and this weekend in Washington, D.C. at the annual Conservative Political Action Conference at the venerable Omni Shoreham Hotel on Calvert Street, a bevy of the leading Republican presidential candidates are also seeking to be "our" president — the "conservative" one. With one major exception.

Every leading candidate, with the exception of John McCain (who has now passed on attending three separate conferences staged by National… Read More

ThoughMitt Romney’s speech at the Conservative Political ActionConference isstill one-halfhour from now, there is a standing-room only crowd of about 1,500 currently inside the Regency Room at the Conservative Political Action Conference waiting to hear the speech, and another 500 or more waiting in line to get in as the D.C. Fire Marshall has limited access to the room because it is so full. Guiliani similarly spoke to a standing-room only crowd earlier today. I have never seen such huge turnouts for non-meal function speeches at a CPAC, and I have attended about 20 of them over the years. This conference is HUGE!

Your author has noted other candidates for President, and their earnest supporters, such as Kansas Senator Sam Brownback (who spoke at 1:30 pm today). Governor Mike Huckabee of Arkansas spoke this morning and was politely received. Newt Gingrich has been very evident as well, attending the conference today and mingling in the halls with delegates even though his formal speaking role is not… Read More

I don’t agree with Democrat Assembly Speaker Fabian Nunez on much. As a matter of fact, I think that I would be hard pressed to agree with him on just about anything. But in an AP story today penned by Erica Werner, the Assembly Speaker unloads on the recent DC trip of Governor Schwarzenegger. You can read the whole story here, but here is the choicest excerpt:

Nunez also commented skeptically about Schwarzenegger’s newfound advocacy for what the governor calls "post-partisan" politics. While in Washington, Schwarzenegger repeated the phrase he coined earlier this year, referring to himself as a governor who accepts ideas from all sides.

"What he’s talking about sounds good theoretically. I think in practical terms the way I read it is it’s just semantics. Post-partisanship – what does that mean? I don’t know. It’s some word he made up," Nunez said.

"But I think he has a claim, in some ways, to that new term because… Read More

A h/t to Los Angeles Times blogger Bob Salladay who pointed out that in the most recent batch of Gubernatornial appointees, there is one, Gregory Bell, 21, of Los Angeles, who was appointed to the State Advisory Committee on Juvenile Justice and Delinquency, who sticks out because instead of being listed with his party registration (or DTS), his appointment is annotated with, "Bell is not registered to vote."

Of course, the Governor’s office knew this fact from the get go, as I just reviewed the application form and you are asked whether you are registered to vote as one of the screening questions. Apparently there is no right or wrong answer to this question, it would seem. I was curious about this, and so I thought, since I report on political news that I would just pick up phone and call Mr. Bell to ask him about this. I reached him at his place of work, at the Los Angeles County Children’s Planning Council, where, according to the Governor’s release,… Read More

I know I’ve been posting fun — not serious — stuff of late, but some things are just too outstanding to pass up. Consider John Hoy’s email today with the subject header"Another great story promo from the SD Union-Tribune online edition," referring to this:

Dismemberment details emerge

The suspect arrested today in the brutal murder-dismemberment of a man in the South Bay area is described by his former boss at a local porn store and others as polite and thoughtful.

Not that the story itself is fun or oustanding, but consider that the online promo writer was able to package the words brutal, murder, dismemberment, porn store, polite and thoughtfulall into one tightly-wrapped sentence.

Hey, whatever sells readership, but someone needs to hire that guy as a political hit-piece writer.

For extra credit, tell me from where I derived the title of this post.… Read More

This last week we have witnessed the declaration by Al (Sore Loserman) Gore that the problem of global warming is a "no longer a scientific debate, it is a moral issue." Yesterday, I saw a commercial that showed some old white guy who said that the "scientific evidence shows that the irreversible effects" of global warming won’t occur until thirty years from now. Of course, the fellow is standing on a railroad track with the train coming. He announces "that won’t affect me" as he steps off the track. The picture then moves to a little girl, who, the commercial implies, gets run over by the train. This obviously contends that an indifference to global warming now will kill our children.

As the rhetoric on the issue heats up (so to speak), we must congratulate the California government for solving the crisis. Less than two months after AB 32 took effect, California and the rest of the country have suffered record low temperatures. I am impressed at how well that bill has worked. Although, given its effectiveness so far, no further action is necessary to implement the bill, I… Read More