I’m blogging live from the San Jose Technology Museum. I am sitting next to former California Republican Party Chairman Mike Schroeder and his wife, Susan, in the third row – where we have a great view for the proceedings. Nearby is Jim Richarsdson, Poizner’s new Chief of Staff, Larry Greenfield who is Director of the California Republican Jewish Coalition.

The crowd looks to be several hunded here for Poizner’s big day. At work are Tim Clark who heads up Poizner’s transition team (he and Wayne Johnson were lead consultants for the campaign), and Robert Molner, Mike Richman and Jennifer Kerns, other key aides to Pozner. Helping out at the event is also Catherine Brinkman, President of the California Young Republicans. They are all smiling – broadly – as they should be on this big day for Team Poizner.

Being here in Santa Clara County, on hand is the leadership of the local GOP, including Chairman Keen Butcher and Treasurer Steve Moore. Also on hand is Linda Boyd, Chairman of the Los Angeles County GOP Linda Boyd with her husband, former CRP Treasurer Doug Boyd. Intersestingly, Butcher and Boyd are locked in a… Read More

Liberalism is based on two precepts – taxes and large social welfare programs. This proposal contains the offensive aspects of both because it combines a new tax to finance a new social welfare program that benefits illegal aliens. When Republican legislators are past the disbelief that this proposal has been made by a Republican Governor, they should rally to oppose it. Like most liberal programs, this one will eventually hurt the most the very people it perports to help.

You can be sure there will be a lot of praise of this proposal by the liberal Democrats in the legislature. Expansion of government is their favorite pasttime.

I’m sure you will hear more from others, but that is my first response. You can read about how the Governor wants to expand a government healthcare bureaucracy at www.gov.ca.gov.… Read More

Thanks to the Democrat Speaker for proving my point with his comments on the Governor’s Healthcare proposal:

“This is a plan Assembly Democrats could have written – and in a lot of ways already did. I’m pleased to see so much in common with the plan I introduced last month.”… Read More

Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger’s universal health insurance proposal is a complicated, multi-faceted plan. It is an attempt to address the problem of affordable health insurance and an attempt to spread the pain of any potential solution around to all parties (individual, medical system, government and employers). I know and respect many of the people who worked on the plan and recognize that tackling any change to our health care system is a tough challenge.

That said, while there is MUCH to digest and educate ourselves on this proposal, one of the more troubling aspects of the governor’s plan is his intention to provide health insurance to illegal immigrants. It’s not brain science that it is more costly to pay for emergency room visits than it is to pay for preventative care. But the argument against extending health insurance to a group of people who entered our country illegally is more about the rule of law than it is about whether it costs more to have someone get their pneumonia treated in the ER or in their… Read More

So, let’s see, increasing insurance costs, a lack ofnew hospital development by the private sector, an inability by the public sector to build or improve health facilities without increased taxes via bonds (as the CEO of a public healthcare district, this is firsthand knowledge), overflowing emergency rooms, what more can I add?

Is government responsible for any of this? Let’s just touch on a couple of mandates…

Government mandates on nurse staffing ratios: Instead of a look at how individual hospitals fare in the provision of quality health care, based on an individual facility’s number of nurses needed for a select number of patients, let’s instead mandate a "one size fits all" ratio of patients per nurses based on the lowest common denominator…the worst providers of service. Oh, we already did that.

Result: Higher costs to provide a mandated number of employees in every unit, on every floor, in every hospital, regardless of the benefit or measurable outcome.

Government mandates for seismic retrofit of facilities: Yes, we all want our hospitals to stand up in an… Read More

In the Sunday FR was an article featured also on Sunday from the San Diego UT, concerning water storage. Democrat leadership pronouncing DOAany funding for new water storage in California had me more than a little dismayed. The Governor hasn’t even delivered yethis State of the State speech where he may well outline a proposal for one or two new water storage projects as part of the much needed infrastructure overhaul and augmentation this state desperately needs. Yet already, this prepronounced negativity. This on the heels of all the talk on the Assembly floor of working in a "bi-partisan way" [evidently meaning Republican principles being excluded in all or part in negotiations] and the enthusiastic embrace of "post-partisanship" from the Governor’s Inaugural day. I wouldcall the statement that "Democrats don’t support water storage" a wet blanket on the "new spirit" down in Sacramento, but you need water to dampen the #@&% blanket.

But that statement isn’t completely true. Governor Schwarzenegger in last years state of the state speech listed new water… Read More

Only one question: Where has it ever worked? Britain’s system is bankrupt. Canada’s is beset with rationing and long wait times. Tennessee abandonded its system. Maine has had nothing but problems.

It’s a simple question that should be asked by every journalist in California covering this administration and its’ healthcare plans.… Read More

After two straight collapses, the San Joaquin GOP is now at a crossroads. After what could be described charitably as civil war over the last two cycles, it is time for the members of the Central Committee to put their animosities aside and realize who they are actually supposed to be fighting. Now, after losing Richard Pombo’s seat in Congress and the Podesto campaign for Senate district 5 in 2004, it is the hope of many that unity of purpose within the local GOP will win out and revitalize a committee into a modern party apparatus modeled after such successful programs as San Diego. With a much stronger base of local elected officials and legislators along with a top tier donor base in the county that begins with GOP heavyweight Alex Spanos, it is entirely within the realm of possibility that the county GOP can once again be a determining force in winning elections (the way it was in 2002) rather quickly if the right decisions are made.

The genesis of this civil war began with a race for Stockton city council that pitted the two rival factions against each other. Almost three years later the committee is a shell, broke and with no hope of funding unless… Read More