Tomorrow, the Assembly Republican class of ’07-’08 will be gathering for what I understand is a traditional post-election lunch. Some years, this meal ends up being a ‘last supper’ for an Assembly Leader who loses seats — other years it is has been a triumphant feast. There has been some ‘chatter’ and ‘behind the scenes’ swirling about whether or not the current Assembly Republican Leader, George Plescia, is going to be dealing with a potential challenge to his post tomorrow. Maybe he will or maybe he will not. But I am firing this post onto the FR Blog because I have gotten so many e-mails from people asking me about it, and also because of the taunting, baiting posts over at the CMR (Democrat) website, where they have a vested interest in throwing stink-bombs into the GOP tent. I made a specific decision of my own NOT to blog about any of these goings-on before the election, and have decided that I really have no desire to talk about it now. I have spoken with over a dozen Assemblymembers or Assemblymembers-elect over the past few days on a myriad of issues, including those pertaining to caucus… Read More

For too long we have held our Members in Congress in too high of esteem. And for what? Their collective lack of leadership, self governance and accomplishments are the core reason for GOP losses yesterday. Well funded primary challengers are welcome for 2008. Richard Pombo, a fine man, fine leader, and ethically straight member went up in flames for a number of reasons, but let’s not ignore this – his strong suits of ag, water, natural resources and endangered species reform are a great fit for a Central Valley District, but they are Tier 2 issues that don’t motivateconservative turnout. Federal deficits, lack of immigration reform, new entitlement spending are all issues that must be worked on concurrently with District specific issues in order for a member in a marginal District to survive.Let’s put our pedestals away and rightfully ask – what are you doing about the big issues in our country?, before we re-elect anyone to Congress.… Read More

How does one expain the loss of McClintock And McPherson? It can’t be ideology as these two thoughtful law makers have differing views on many issues. Both have run statewide and McPherson was an appointed respected incumbent.

One thought. In blue state California you need at least two things. A lousyDemocratic opponent (Angelides or Bustamante) and lots of cash (Arnold and Poizner). That is one threshold that for this cycle at least was very clear.… Read More

There are a myriad of factors that go into why Republicans are at risk of losing both the United States Senate and the House of Representatives. I will leave it to the likes of Charlie Cook, Michael Barone, and Bob Novak to go into all of that.

I will just chime in my ten cents, because it goes to just one facet – lack of enthusiasm from conservatives because, at some point, the Republican charge of the Hill to reduce the size and scope of the federal government was replaced with something evil – growth in government at the hands of Republicans. The President and the leadership of both the Senate and House get to take the blame.

At some point, it no longer became the size of government that was "the problem" – rather, it was who was in charge. For a long time now, many conservatives (myself included) have been dismayed at watching "Rome burn" with Republican hands on the torches.

I don’t have enough finger-energy as I pen this on my Blackberry to write about the repeated disappointments, though to use just a few recent examples – we can look at the inability of a Republican Congress to pass the… Read More

For those of you interested in following election results tonight, we’ll point you to three places on the web:

For those who want it easy, California Republican Party Vice-Chairman Ron Nehring has the ultimate one-stop shop for seeing Golden State returns.

The Secretary of State’s Election Results Webpage

CNN’s Election Central Results Page The DrudgeReport for the latest news and gossip.

Good luck tonight!… Read More

(Dade County, CA) — The news reports of last week that the SD County Registrar of Voters had not ordered enough mail ballots eliciteda kind of "color me surprised" response from many political watchers.

It’s nice that photocopied versions were sent to those requesting ballots. What you may have missed, however, is that the information on the estimated-to-be-returned 5,000 photocopied mail ballots will have to transferred by hand to official ballots, so they can be run through the opti-scan vote counters.

Say what?! That’s right, the results of every up- and down-ticket race, every local office, and every statewide and local ballot measure for about 5,000 ballots will have to be recorded by hand.

And we thought hanging chads were bad.

As far as day-of-voting, the SDUT is already reporting technical glitches with many electronic voting machines. The line was long, but things seemed fine when I hit my polling placeat 7:15 a.m.… Read More

We’re almost through the the FlashReport Campaign MVP’s for this general election cycle. But they are only getting better! We’ve already seen Arnold’s MVP awarded to Katie Levinson, Tom’s MVP to Stan Devereux, and Tony’s MVP to Paul Hegyi. Now we are going to recognize someone who has been a key player in the campaign of Chuck Poochigian for Attorney General! And MVP is….

The feistiest campaign waged by a down-ballot Republican has to be that of Senator Chuck Poochigian’s bid to be Attorney General. Facing two-term former Governor, 3-time former presidential candidate, former Secretary of State, former Democratic Party Chair and current Oakland Mayor Jerry Brown, Poochigian has gained national media notice for the aggressiveness, creativity and hard-hitting nature of his underdog campaign.

The widely respected and likeable… Read More

Orange County’s board of supervisors is a powerful bunch. Controlling a $4 billion dollar budget is a big job and too often in recent years votes have gone the wrong way because there were not enough solid conservative valued board members.

Today that will change. The voters of the 5th Supervisorial District are going to elect former Assemblywoman Pat Bates a solid GOP conservative. Bates will get sworn in at the same time as OC Treasurer/Prophet John Moorlach. Both them have integrity that is unquestioned and conservative principles that they never compromise.

Supervisor Chris Norby who was not up for re-election this year is a bit more libertarian but nonetheless conservative and Board Chairman Bill Campbell round out the GOP majority.

There are high hopes that this majority will create a more open environment at the Hall of Administration. That they will make it clear to staff and the unions and anyone who asks, that their agenda is based on sound limited government principles.

Gilliard Blanning Wysocki ran Bates’ campaign against Laguna Niguel Mayor Cassie DeYoung who spent more than $4 million dollars of her own money to… Read More