Garden Grove councilwoman Janet Nguyen won the Special Election for Orange County’s First Supervisorial District.

With all precincts reporting…Janet won by 52 votes.

Consultant: Gilliard, Blanning, Wysocki Pollster: Probolsky Research

[Publisher’s Note: Since I am from Orange County, I will add a couple of thoughts. First and foremost is that it is astounding what a large percentage of the votes in this race went to Vietnamese candidates — ironically, both with the last name, Nguyen (pronounced "win" – hence the title of Adam’s post). Janet Nguyen took 24.2% of the vote, and Trung Nguyen scored slightly less with 24.1% — so over 48% of the votes went to these two candidates. Probably more significantly is that while Janet has a lot to be excited about, ending election day with a 52 vote lead over Trung, Registrar Neal Kelley estimates that there are about 2500 absentee ballot turned in on election day to be counted, as well as around 750 provisional… Read More

Our Folsom Prison Tour went smoothly, they let all us legislators go free…no bus ticket or $200 though. [We did fire up the Johnny Cash CD on the way out] What we in the Assembly Republican Caucus were hoping to accomplish was the first hand viewing of the overcrowding that will soon cause a Federal judge, in June or so to take over the system due to overcrowding. When you watch how the current prison system Special Master is running through our state Treasury, you should be scared for your wallet.

Our other goal of this visit was to spotlight this situation and underscore just how dire is the need to build prison space. Early release for these characters we saw in there isn’t going to cut it…maybe it does in Democrat districts, where their legislators seem comfortable with that idea, as they run out the clock towards the June deadline the Fed Courts have set, with little action taken. More later….. [See the FR … Read More

Tonight I attended the monthly meeting of the San Joaquin County Republican Central Committee. The atmosphere in the room is a marked change from the last few years and is directly attributable to the new Chairman Dale Fritchen.

Fritchen, a local school board member, has been able to be a bridge builder and has been going about the hard work of rebuilding the committee’s infrastructure and finances.… Read More

Later today, FR friend Nathan Fletcher will announce his bid to replace termed-out Assemblyman George Plescia in the 75th AD. This is a safe Republican seat that takes in the northern portions of the City of San Diego, Poway, and a portion of Escondido.

Fletcher is a long-time Republican activist and business owner who does more than simply ‘talk the talk’ about patriotism and values…he’s a United States Marine who recently returned from combat tours in Iraq and Northeast Africa. This will work strongly to his advantage in a very military-friendly district, whichlies between the Marine Corps Air Station Miramar and Marine Corps Base Camp Pendleton. AD 75 communities are packed with active duty and retired military members.

I’ve known Nathan for some time, and I canfairly dub him a “Conservative Reagan Republican." Since his return to civilian life, he has not been shy about his disappointment (or disgust) with the lack of ethics and wholly irresponsible fiscal behavior of… Read More

War Resolutions: This week will contain much debate in the Senate, and perhaps some in the House, about the various Iraq war resolutions being offered. There are at least five such resolutions being offered in one house or the other that contain a spectrum of opinions on how the war should be prosecuted from this point forward. Why am I writing to tell you about them before they even come up for a vote? Because none of them will lead to any policy changes, these resolutions do not have the force of law. They are basically an expression of the opinion of Congress. Expressing such an opinion may have some value in countries where their legislative bodies only have the power to make suggestions. But Congress is not powerless relative to the Iraq war. There are at least two votes that will actually dictate policy direction in Iraq, rather than just make a political statement. One of these votes has already occurred. Ten days ago, the United States Senate voted unanimously to confirm General George Petraeus to be the commander of our forces in the Middle East. General Petraeus is basically the architect of the new strategy for and … Read More

San Joaquin County’s continued trend of moving steadily into the Republican column is highlighted by viewing the makeup of the current Board’s Republican majority and a quick look at the future.

Supervisor Leroy Ornellas defeated a corrupt democrat incumbent in his first race and has solidified his position on the board. Supervisor Ken Vogel is the former Executive Director of the San Joaquin GOP and longtime school board member who kept the seat of Jack Sieglock in the Republican column after his win in November. The linchpin of the new majority has been newly elected Supervisor Larry Ruhstaller. Ruhstaller claimed the open seat of the dreadful (and term-limited) democrat Dario Marenco and made it all the sweeter by defeating Sen. Mike Machado’s District Director Anne Baird.

The future looks even better with a strong Republican seat represented by Democrat Supervisor Victor Mow coming open due to term limits and a strong bench to take his place to add to the majority on the board. There is now even talk of being able to make a play to claim the solidly democrat seat of extreme liberal Supervisor Steve Gutierrez who is also term… Read More

Later today, FR friend Nathan Fletcher will announce his bid to replace termed-out Assemblyman George Plescia in the 75th AD. This is a safe Republican seat that takes in the northern portions of the City of San Diego, Poway, and a portion of Escondido.

Fletcher is a long-time Republican activist and business owner who does more than simply ‘talk the talk’ about patriotism and values…he’s a United States Marine who recently returned from combat tours in Iraq and Northeast Africa. This will work strongly to his advantage in a very military-friendly district, whichlies between the Marine Corps Air Station Miramar and Marine Corps Base Camp Pendleton. AD 75 communities are packed with active duty and retired military members.

I’ve known Nathan for some time, and I canfairly dub him a “Conservative Reagan Republican." Since his return to civilian life, he has not been shy about his disappointment (or disgust) with the lack of ethics and wholly irresponsible fiscal behavior of… Read More

FR friend Adam Mendelsohn had to work a lot over the weekend, as Phil Angelides and/or his operatives have released more of their secret cache of audio recordings of Governor Schwarzenegger with his speechwriters, that were famously extracted from the Governor’s computer system by crafty though questionable techniques. Of course Cathy Calfo, who managed Angelides’ losing bid, denies they released the tapes (again). Riiiight. The Governor’s office released the following statement from Mendelsohn: