Here’s a story from the New York Sun on Mayor Rudy Giuliani’s visit to CA and bid to become the GOP nominee for president in 2008. FR blogger Mike Spence is quoted in this story.… Read More

Congressman Brian Bilbray (disclosure: Bilbray is a Coronado Communications client) announced that he is succeeding Congressman Tom Tancredo as chairman of the 91 memberImmigration Reform Caucus in the House of Representatives.

"The federal government’s refusal to act has only exacerbated the problems associated with illegal immigration," Bilbray said. "As Chairman of the Immigration Reform Caucus, I am calling on both the House and Senate to take action now. Republicans, Democrats, and the White House can agree that we need real employer enforcement and border security. Let’s at least take action on the things we agree on."

Building the fence would be a good start.… Read More

This past weekend, 1500 Republican leaders from all around the Golden State gathered for the biennial organization convention of the California Republican Party. Despite the rainy weather outside of the Capitol Hyatt Hotel and the Convention Center, inside Republicans were excited to be able to elect new Party leaders, and they selected some great ones. Lots has been and will be written about the weekend, and frankly I am ready to take some time off after spending months on the campaign trail myself. But I will take a few minutes to pen some brief observations from the weekend. My first one — our Republican Party remains 100% committed to our core Republican values. It was clear our new Chairman, Ron Nehring, and our new Vice Chairman, Tom Del Becarro, are committed to seeing the GOP win in elected by pushing our winning issues with the voters, not capitulating and adopting the positions of the liberal Democrat Party. As a matter of fact, there was a strong, vibrant campaign for Vice Chairman waged all weekend long at the convention, and both of the candidates were equally as conservative, both emphasizing the need for our Party to strike a… Read More

This past weekend, 1500 Republican leaders from all around the Golden State gathered for the biennial organization convention of the California Republican Party. Despite the rainy weather outside of the Capitol Hyatt Hotel and the Convention Center, inside Republicans were excited to be able to elect new Party leaders, and they selected some great ones. Lots has been and will be written about the weekend, and frankly I am ready to take some time off after spending months on the campaign trail myself. But I will take a few minutes to pen some brief observations from the weekend. My first one — our Republican Party remains 100% committed to our core Republican values. It was clear our new Chairman, Ron Nehring, and our new Vice Chairman, Tom Del Becarro, are committed to seeing the GOP win in elected by pushing our winning issues with the voters, not capitulating and adopting the positions of the liberal Democrat Party. As a matter of fact, there was a strong, vibrant campaign for Vice Chairman waged all weekend long at the convention, and both of the candidates were equally as conservative, both emphasizing the need for our Party to strike a… Read More

Here’s the SDUT coverage this morning of the CRP convention:

S.D.’s GOP leader elected state chief

SACRAMENTO – Ron Nehring, a conservative from San Diego County, was elected chairman of the California Republican Party yesterday at the close of its state convention in Sacramento.

Nehring, who works with the national conservative activist Grover Norquist, succeeds chairman George Sundheim, a Silicon Valley attorney. Tom Del Beccaro, a conservative attorney from Contra Costa County, was elected vice chairman. That’s not an excerpt, that’s all of it. A guy searched out for quotes regularly in the local media as SD GOP chairman gets elevated to state chair, and it warrants a couple of sentences.

Exactly why we need to read the blogs.

Oh….and congratulations to Ron, and Tom!… Read More

On Saturday morning, Senator Tom McClintock spoke as a breakfast event for my campaign for Vice Chairman, South of the State GOP (I won!). You can read his remarks here (I was very humbled by them, needless to say). California State Insurance Commissioner Steve Poizner also spoke as well. Below is a photo of the contingent of Orange County Young Republicans who attended (I’m an OCYR member myself) — nestled into the photo are also Senator McClintock, and Orange County GOP Chairman Scott Baugh (h/t to Anahita for the photo). That HUGE banner in the background is courtesy of FR friend Vince Monaco. … Read More

The Board of Trustees of the Capistrano Unified School District has agendized for tonight consideration of a potential settlement in Lackey v. Kochendorfer, a Brown Act open meeting law enforcement case brought by private citizen Ron Lackey. Claims in the Lackey case stem from actions of the Board alleged to violate the open meeting law during the troubled administration of former Superintendent James Fleming.… Read More

Over the fun-filled weekend up in Sacramento for the CRP Convention, it seemend that just about every 2nd or 3rd person I bumped into was running for aState Assembly seat next year. With a good-sized crop of incumbents terming out (we’ll at least according to the current schedule, they are), many folks well-known inside Republican circles are tossing their hats into the ring.

Over the next few days, I’ll roll a few of them out…

Most interesting of the crop though, and so where I begin is with my FR Blogpen member/CRA President Mike Spence.

Several very-in-the-knowpeople I talked to said they had heard Mike was actively looking for a piece of property in the Diamond Bar area — to move the 3 miles or so needed to be a resident of the 60th Assembly District — to begin a run to replace Assemblyman Bob Huff when Huff makes his way up the ladder next year.

I asked Mike about such rumors, to try to pull a quote out of him for this, but all he gave me was his usual big smile that typically means,… Read More