Last night was one of those nights where you just feel like tossing your cell phone into the swimming pool, or in this case, my friend Mike Schroeder’s swimming pool. Last night there was an intimate fundraising event for Orange County Sheriff Mike Carona at the home of Mike and Susan Schroeder, but I ended up missing most of the festivities as I hunted for that one spot in the backyard of the Carona Del Mar home where my cell phone could get good signal.

I was on the phone quite a bit as there was talk that Bob Salladay of the Los Angeles Times had "gotten a hold" of an audio tape, or a transcription of an audio tape of the Governor, his Chief of Staff Susan Kennedy, and a couple of others where there is some colorful talk about Assembly Republican Leader George Plescia, his predecessor Assemblyman Kevin McCarthy and Assemblywoman Bonnie Garcia.

It took a while but I finally was able to have someone read to me a copy of the transcribed conversation — and when they did, I said to the… Read More

Last night was one of those nights where you just feel like tossing your cell phone into the swimming pool, or in this case, my friend Mike Schroeder’s swimming pool. Last night there was an intimate fundraising event for Orange County Sheriff Mike Carona at the home of Mike and Susan Schroeder, but I ended up missing most of the festivities as I hunted for that one spot in the backyard of the Carona Del Mar home where my cell phone could get good signal.

I was on the phone quite a bit as there was talk that Bob Salladay of the Los Angeles Times had "gotten a hold" of an audio tape, or a transcription of an audio tape of the Governor, his Chief of Staff Susan Kennedy, and a couple of others where there is some colorful talk about Assembly Republican Leader George Plescia, his predecessor Assemblyman Kevin McCarthy and Assemblywoman Bonnie Garcia.

It took a while but I finally was able to have someone read to me a copy of the transcribed conversation — and when they did, I said to the… Read More

I am sitting here with Mike Der Manouel, Jr, our Central Valley Correspondent. We just had come over the FlashReport transom an announcement from Californians for Schwarzenegger, announcing that Governor Schwarzenegger and ersatz Governor Angelides will be holding a debate on Saturday, October 7. (Mike points out the cleverness of a Saturday debate as no one will be watching…)

Of course, looking at things through the political prism, conventional wisdom is that the front runner wants to have as few debates as possible and the underdog would like to have as many debates as possible. Each debate presenting yet another potential opportunity for the front-runner to stumble.

So, as Mike and I have been discussing this, we both agree on a two points. The first is that the race for Governor is going to tighten up much more than it is now — as partisan voters settle into their comfort zone as election day approaches. We also agree that debates between Schwarzenegger and Angelides will be one sided, with Angelides… Read More

Some of you may have seen Drudge‘s recent headline, "Fury as academics claim 9/11 was ‘inside job.’" I read it intrigued, as I always am, by these people who have a need to believe in more complicated versions of events. There’s this psychological demand in each one of them that "facts" exist to fit their worldview. They have to believe that President Bush, Prime Minister Blair, the CIA, and the United States military-industrial complex conspired to commit bloodshed in New York, Washington, and Pennsylvania or the rest of their worldview won’t line up. They’ll actually experience cognitive dissonance for defending bin Laden, al Qaeda, Arafat, Hamas, Hezbollah, Ahmadinejad, Gaddafi, Chavez, Castro and others if they can’t point the finger at Bush et al for every one of the world’s ills. It’s beyond cynicism. It’s a pathology.

I’ve read the enthralling 9/11… Read More

Last night I did something I haven’t done much of since I moved to the Bay Area: attended a fundraising event for a GOP candidate. Jill Buck is running for the 18th Assembly District against Mary Hayishi, a Nunez appointee to the Board of Registered Nurses and public health activist (click here for more background on the Jill and the district).

I’ll post more on Mary Hayishi in the next day or so, but today I just wanted to bring FR readers up on the Jill Buck campaign. The 18th Assembly district has traditionally been considered a “safe seat” for the… Read More

Running campaigns for legislative and local office based on a national or statewide or even regional level does not work unless you do it really really well. And no one has since 1994’s Contract With America.

American’s have the tendency to oversimplify politicial debates. Its not our fault, our nations history is filled with black and white (in the good v. evil, not the racial sense) conflicts. Either you were for or against independence or you sided with the North or the South in the civil war or you in the case of California you supported the Davis recall or not, etc.

But none of that translates into which candidate for state sentate you will choose. California voters are by no means homogenious, in fact, we are so remarkably different that not only will a framed message or theme fail to inspire a majority of voters to act locally, it is virtually impossible to deliver that message in the first place.

The relevance to today: it is probably a good thing for GOP candidates for local and legislative offices that there is no national or state Republican Agenda because we don’t have our act together.… Read More

The 5th anniversary of 9-11 is this Monday, and there are can’t miss television programs providing a look at this terrible catastrophe. This link to a short video is one that should be viewed by everyone possible, especially liberals, who represent a grave threat to our freedom and security.

I might note that the President is back to being the President again, stridently defending his policy on terrorism, and guess what, his polling numbers are up and so are the GOP’s prospects for retaining Congressional majorities. I love watching him on offense. The GOP is on offense so little of the time no wonder we don’t have points on the board.

Stand for something, articulate your position, and results will come. What don’t our elected officials understand about this?… Read More

I see how this is going to work – it is going to be the love/hate month where it comes to Arnold Schwarzenegger and pen — whether he uses it to sign a bad bill, or uses it to veto one. I am still trying hard to discern the ideology and principles that he is applying when reviewing bills so that I can try to have an accurate anticipation of what he will do.

Assembly Bill 172 by Democrat Assemblywoman Wilma Chan of Oakland was a veto waiting to happen. This legislation clearly puts the State of California further into the business of operating preschools (you’ll recall that the voters soundly rejected an attempt by ultra-liberal Rob Reiner to pass a tax increase to do just this). As a matter of fact, this bill was an end-run around the voters who rejected that plan. The clear lesson of that rejection was that voters do not want their tax dollars going into government pre-school. But, of course, someone is trying to take as the lesson that the objection was not to the government schooling, but just to raising taxes on smokers to do it.

Anyways, about a half-dozen moderate Republicans voted for this bill — and there was an odd and… Read More