A couple of days ago, I kinda loosely criticized the SD Union-Tribune for the lack of coverage following Ron Nehring’s Sunday election as chairman of the state GOP (see the post).

As it turns out, I missed the fact that two days BEFORE the "ascension," the SDUT ran a detailed story by John Marelius on the anticipated Nehring victory (read it here), including this great lede:

Ron Nehring’s lifelong political odyssey has taken him to some of the most turbulent outposts on the planet – Iraq, Bosnia, the West Bank, Haiti, the Grossmont Union High School District and now the California Republican Party. My reason for missing it — although I have no excuse — can only be explained by my travel to the Sacramento GOP convention the day of the story (who reads the paper on the plane, when there’s such good foodto be had?).

So, my apologies… Read More

I know this is not the trendy opinion, but I think the move to change the primary date to February is a foolish idea.

The first time the idea came up was in 1994, when the Assemblyman Jim Costa suggested that California move its primary to late March to "make California" more relevant. Costa said he was tired of California being the bank for the rest of the country. Candidates should do more than just visit California for money, he said. The vote was usually over by June, he said, so California is not relevant to the ultimate selection of the parties’ nominees. A March primary was supposed to be an experiment to increase the influence of the state. I actually voted for that bill to test the Costa experiment.

It was a failure. The primary was over one week before the late March date. More important than that, it also made the state’s legislative and Congressional primaries a mess.

Asecond attempt to move the presidential primary to early March in 2000 failed as well. The experiments failed for one simple reason. Every time California moved its primary, every other state moved its primary ahead of California so that… Read More

BOE member Bill Leonard has been asking a lot of questions about the CRP Victory ’06 operation. His latest is here.Someone doesn’t like what Bill has beenasking and now he has been threatened with a lawsuit. I for one hope they sue, then Bill can get answers to his questions while the others are under oath. I posted the story from Bill’s site below.

***Is Someone Trying to Shut Me Up?*** By: Bill Leonard on: Wednesday, February 14th, 2007 ——————————————————————————–

It is always nice to know that folks are reading my newsletter but last week was different. I received a threatening phone call from an Arizona attorney who said that I have libeled the California Republican Party and that he is going to sue me. He must be referring to my call for a performance… Read More

I would appreciate it if someone who reads this blog could explain to me why Arianna Huffington’s opinion is so important that she is a regular commentator on CNN, such as the Larry King show. When I worked in the Reagan Administration, at what I consider to be the height of her capabilities, she held lavious high society parties in Washington, D.C., but some of the attendeeshad legal problems in their backgrounds, She marrieda millionairethat took out a great, long-standingincumbent conservative, Bob Lagamarsino, for the glory of just two years of service in theHouse. Thenher husbandtried to buy a U.S. Senate seat, hiring just about every conservative activist in the state on the campaign, while harboring a deep personal secret that he did not disclose until he lost the election. The Congressional seal then went to a liberal Democrat. Ralph Reed once told me that Congressman Huffington once asked to give him a hug, and what he reluctantly got was an undesiredfull frontal body pull. Wouldn’t Arianna know what was going on? Arianna should have been "over" politically when she ran for Governor and was crushed in the vote,… Read More

I sent this to CRP Members and to FR E-mail Subscribers this morning, but since there are so many FR readers who do not get the free daily e-mail update, I thought I would throw this up here, too…

Last Saturday, I was humbled to be elected to the important position of Vice Chairman, South, of the California Republican Party. In this capacity, I will serve on the Board of Directors of the CRP, and act as a liaison between the State GOP and the County Republican Parties in Orange, Riverside, San Diego and Imperial Counties. Of course, each of us on the CRP Board has a duty to well-represent all 1500 Central Committee Members from all around California.

To those of you who supported my candidacy, I would like to take this opportunity to thank you so much for your support. Clearly my victory by nearly a two-to-one vote margin was because of the tremendous and widespread support that I had since announcing my candidacy last Summer. I could not… Read More

I don’t know about you, but to me, it seems like sometime in the last couple of weeks, it seems like someone flipped a switch and the 2008 Presidential primary has begun! Here in California, Democratic Presidential contender Barack Obama and GOP Presidential hopeful Rudy Giuliani are both making multi-day swings. Of course the other front-runners – Hillary Clinton, John Edwards, John McCain and Mitt Romney – have all been out campaigning in the Golden State, and all have plans to return here again soon. Of course, with the high likelihood of Californian’s Presidential primary moving up to next February (the bill has already passed the State Senate on the fast-track and is now awaiting action in the Assembly), these visits will increase even more as all of theses candidates will need to visit not only to raise money from our donor-rich state, but suddenly our delegates become more meaningful in the quest for each Party’s respective nomination. Looking at the GOP… Read More

I’m a little behind at my tally of Gubernatorial appointees, in terms of how many Democrats, how many Republicans, etcetera. I’ll blame my tardiness on my campaign for Party office. That said, I’ve dutifully saved the releases, and will play catch-up soon.

In the meantime, today the Governor announced some appointments worthy of noting right away:

GOVERNOR APPOINTS HEAD OF POLITICAL EFFORT TO PASS BONDS TO COMMISSION THAT WILL DOLE OUT BOND FUNDS The Gov has appointed James Earp to the State Transportation Commission: When I saw this appointment, my eyes popped out of my head. I cannot even imagine the logic behind ‘rewarding’ the political efforts of the Chairman of the Campaign to pass last year’s bond measures with an appointment to the extremely powerful State Commission that will be doling out much of the funds. Yet, in a shades-of-Gray-Davis move, that is what the Governor has done. Understand that James Earp, a Democrat who has served as chairman of the Yes on 1A-1E Campaign (and… Read More

I don’t know about you, but to me, it seems like sometime in the last couple of weeks, it seems like someone flipped a switch and the 2008 Presidential primary has begun! Here in California, Democratic Presidential contender Barack Obama and GOP Presidential hopeful Rudy Giuliani are both making multi-day swings. Of course the other front-runners – Hillary Clinton, John Edwards, John McCain and Mitt Romney – have all been out campaigning in the Golden State, and all have plans to return here again soon. Of course, with the high likelihood of Californian’s Presidential primary moving up to next February (the bill has already passed the State Senate on the fast-track and is now awaiting action in the Assembly), these visits will increase even more as all of theses candidates will need to visit not only to raise money from our donor-rich state, but suddenly our delegates become more meaningful in the quest for each Party’s respective nomination. Looking at the GOP… Read More