Good morning from Sacramento. As you may know, I am at the Sacramento Hyatt running for Vice-Chairman South of the California Republican Party (CRP). The voting will take place on Saturday morning and I am confident that with the help of my volunteers and the overwhelming support from GOP leadership, I will have positive results. Before Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger speaks on Friday night, I am recommending all convention goers travel a few blocks to catch the hearing which will be held at 1:30 p.m., in Department 11 of Sacramento Superior Court, before the Honorable Gail D. Ohanesian. The Gordon D. Schaber Downtown Courthouse is located on 720 Ninth Street in Sacramento.

This hearing involves a lawsuit challenging the qualifications of Attorney General Jerry Brown. The Plaintiff will be represented by former CRP Chairman Michael Schroeder, who will argue that Jerry Brown is the only Attorney General candidate in California history to not have been an attorney on active status for five consecutive years and therefore unqualified for the position as mandated by law. Jerry Brown was on inactive status from 1997 to 2003, a few months before… Read More

Mitzelfelt Should Announce for San Bernardino Supe Re-Elect…Soon As has been reported in these pages, San Bernardino County’s newest Supervisor, Brad Mitzelfelt, was appointed a month ago by his colleagues to serve the remaining months of the term of popular departing incumbent Bill Postmus. FR Friend Postmus was elected to serve as Assessor and he enjoyed seeing his former chief-of-staff take over his seat. Of course Mitzelfelt, a former FlashReport Correspondent, has a distinguished career in public service, which includes a stint as a gubernatorial appointee to his county’s Fair Board and as Chairman of the Victor Valley Transit Authority. In fact, Mitzlefelt’s keen understanding of local government has helped him get off to a tremendous start in his new role as a supervisor. He has already outlined a broad policy agenda that charts a course of improving public safety,… Read More

Mitzelfelt Should Announce for San Bernardino Supe Re-Elect…Soon As has been reported in these pages, San Bernardino County’s newest Supervisor, Brad Mitzelfelt, was appointed a month ago by his colleagues to serve the remaining months of the term of popular departing incumbent Bill Postmus. FR Friend Postmus was elected to serve as Assessor and he enjoyed seeing his former chief-of-staff take over his seat. Of course Mitzelfelt, a former FlashReport Correspondent, has a distinguished career in public service, which includes a stint as a gubernatorial appointee to his county’s Fair Board and as Chairman of the Victor Valley Transit Authority. In fact, Mitzlefelt’s keen understanding of local government has helped him get off to a tremendous start in his new role as a supervisor. He has already outlined a broad policy agenda that charts a course of improving public safety,… Read More

One of my axioms is that you can never fly to or from Sacramento without running into fellow political hack types. My flight to the Capitol City this morning was no exception. I’m flying up for the CRP Convention, and so I left from John Wayne Airport in Orange County.

Notable flying companions included Marty Wilson, the Governor’s main finance man; Helen Seliverstov of Meridian Pacific (the uber-consulting firm of Tom Ross, John Peschong, Matt Rexroad); political fundraiser Jo Ann Davis; and lobbyist Sean Fitzgerald.

Because the convention doesn’t start until tomorrow, this is a rather lite list of GOP flying companions. My return flight on Sunday will be packed with Republican activists!… Read More

Be sure to check out The Colbert Report’s segment on the Sanchez-Baca "Whore"-gate controversy, titled "CALIFORNIA VALUES WATCH". Congresswoman Loretta Sanchez is Paris (Hilton). Her sister, Congresswoman Linda Sanchez, is Nikki (Hilton). Congressman Joe Baca is Nicole Richie. And Speaker Nunez is Lindsay Lohan!

Get theKleenex out ’cause this clip is hilarious!

Following that, is another tear jerking clip on Newsom’s affair with his campaign manager’s wife, titled "SAN FRANCISCO TREAT", or should we say… Read More

The following is from BOE member Bill Leonard. So don’t look for many answers from the CRP honchos.

***Did CRP Pay “Volunteers” $120 Per Hour?***

In recent issues I have discussed the need for a detailed audit of the California Republican Party’s spending for the November election. There remain far more questions than answers, despite numerous calls for a full accounting. The party’s efforts to register new voters may provide the best example. For decades, the CRP paid Republican volunteer organizations a bounty of up to $3 for each newly registered Republicans voter. Despite problems here and there, this was very effective– both in numbers of voters registered and as a means of funding local Republican organizations. In accordance with state law, Republican volunteers also registered voters from other parties. Last fall, though, the CRP abandoned this successful volunteer-based program in favor of hiring vendors directly.

These paid vendors allegedly focused on registering voters in just 13 of California’s 58 counties. They were… Read More

The CRP maynot have a bounty program, they may be in $4.6 million of debt, but they have a little cash and staff time to turn on it’s own members.

Assemblyman Chuck DeVore has a proposal to change the way delegates are selected.

Today a letter arrived from Duf Sundheim, Ron Nehring and Tim Morgan opposing the change. Who paid for this mailing??? No doubt the CRP. As well an offical email and press release from CRP staff attacked the proposal.

Sundheim and company have every right to have their opinion. They should not be allowed to use CRP dollars to influence the decision. Of course this party has paid consultants from party coffers to run "proxy" drills to bottle up items they don’t like.

The CRP leaders worry about disunity and then shamelessly abuse CRP dollars to attack a members proposal. Let the members decide and the leaders implement.

Regardless of your view can’t we at least agree that CRP resources should not be spent attacking member proposals?

Devore’s Email follows:

Dear CRP Member,

By now… Read More

Lots of the political blogs today have been talking about Trung Nguyen’s landslide 7-vote lead/win over heartbreakingly-close 2nd place finisher Janet Nguyen.

What I haven’t seen yet is any of the major accolades that should go to Team Trung for pulling this off.

They were under funded. They had a candidate that didn’t start with the name id of others. They didn’t get the inside-baseball support, nor mountains of independent expenditure support from the unions.

What they did have was a great team that developed a fantastic plan. And they stuck to it. They campaigned extensively within the Vietnamese community, and yet didn’t cede votes in certain conservative blocks of the electorate – positioning Trung to grab some anti-illegal immigration votes and some anti-tax votes here and there amongst base Republican votes.

I guess some lesson can be taken from observing Trung’s race. Campaigns needn’t try to be all things to all people.

Lead Consultant Joe Giardiello deserves at least a park or something named… Read More