In one of the best political developments of the last 10 years, Republican fiscal "moderates" in Pennsylvania had their asses handed to them in the primary elections yesterday. You can read about it here, but the moral of the story is – conservatives will come out and defeat big spending Republicansin primaries. And as I have penned before, this is exactly what must happen to drive change in the GOP. With the immigration disaster looming, and federal spending at an all time high, conservatives sent moderates a big message last night – everyone needs to get their act together orits over. All you guys that voted for those big bonds ought to take notice too. As long as we keep spending literally all of the surplus and failing to deal with structural State deficits, you are all vulnerable too.… Read More

Francine Busby’s 2006 campaign for Congress is a totally different creature than her bid in 2004. Then, she was a longshot liberal running against a popular incumbent. Now, she’s the Democrat poster child for ethics reform and moderation.

But while Busby (pictured to the right) needs to tell voters she’s a moderate in order to win a congressional district that President Bush carried by 11 points in 2004, moderation is hardly a Busby trait. Her public persona is a long record of radical leftism that the mainstream media is loathe to report. Busby has established ties not only to the fringe left of the Democrat party, but to groups and organizations whose positions on moral equivalence between terrorism and war would make even the dedicated liberals in her own party wrap themselves in the flag.

On her 2004 campaign website biography, Busby lists two groups with which she "actively participated," that are mysteriously missing… Read More

I read the Los Angeles Times article about Michelle Steel working at as Claude Parrish’s chief deputy at the Board of Equalization for only three months — and then quitting as soon it was certain she could list "Equalization Boardmember’s Deputy."

Yawn.

With all due respect to the respected publisher of this respected publication, I’m more outrraged that Marcus Frishman is making $111,768 a year as Parrish’s deputy.

Like many conservatives, I find myself in an odd situation vis-a-vis the BOA 3rd District race. The choice is between two excellent conservatives: Michelle Steel and Assemblyman Ray Haynes. Ray has long been an inspiring and tireless conservative voice in the California wilderness. I have been friends with Shawn and Michelle Steel for many years, and know Michelle to be as relentless in her conservatism as Shawn.

Naturally, Ray is… Read More

The good news: Mike Wallace finally retiring from Sunday night’s propaganda laced ’60 Minutes’. The bad news: Helen Thomas is taking his place, and Ed Bradley got official permission from the network (as part of his contract negotiations) to wear a different ostentatious outfit every 20 seconds he is on camera, as opposed to his current 30 second deal.… Read More

Francine Busby’s 2006 campaign for Congress is a totally different creature than her bid in 2004. Then, she was a longshot liberal running against a popular incumbent. Now, she’s the Democrat poster child for ethics reform and moderation.

But while Busby (pictured to the right) needs to tell voters she’s a moderate in order to win a congressional district that President Bush carried by 11 points in 2004, moderation is hardly a Busby trait. Her public persona is a long record of radical leftism that the mainstream media is loathe to report. Busby has established ties not only to the fringe left of the Democrat party, but to groups and organizations whose positions on moral equivalence between terrorism and war would make even the dedicated liberals in her own party wrap themselves in the flag.

On her 2004 campaign website biography, Busby lists two groups with which she "actively participated," that are mysteriously missing… Read More

In the 74th Assembly District Primary race between Garrick (Coronado Communications), Waldron (GilliardBlanningWysocki), and Packard (self) a ‘strategy’ memorandum from Waldron’s campaign consultants, obviously unintentionally made public, has been circulating over the past week. The contents clearly demonstrate exactly why every political consultant cringes at the thought of their honest strategic and tactical thoughts being made public.

The memorandum details the results of what must have been rather disheartening Waldron polling. “We have our work cut out for us” the memo states in the first paragraph. Generally, this is not the kind of encouragement a candidate who is considering sinking 100k of their own money into a race likes to hear.

It then goes on to describe in agonizing detail that Waldron’s Escondido base, where she has been a councilwoman for a fair number of years, is not a base after all. In fact Waldron’s positives in Escondido, the only place she currently has significant name identification, are 16.2%. Not bad until you read further and see Waldron’s negatives are 21.6%. In her hometown. The… Read More

I’ve known Shawn and Michelle Steel since 1988. Both have been kind any generous to me over the years. In fact, Shawn played a key role as a mentor and a role-model for me back in my college days when I was an activist and a leader in Young Americans for Freedom, Shawn having served as State Co-Chairman of Cal-YAF with Dana Rohrabacher back in the day. This year, Michelle is running for the State Board of Equalization. She would make a fine board-member. Ironically (and inconveniently for many people, including myself) another strong conservative, Ray Haynes, is also running in the same race for BOE. I’ve known Ray since 1990 and also consider him a close friend. Ray has been in the legislature for many years, and has been a consistent voice of sanity in the liberal chaos that dominates the State Capitol.

I penned an early analysis of this Haynes/Steel donnybrook back in August of last year, and in that… Read More

For those of you who got a chuckle at Chuck DeVore’s ribbing of bill by Democratic Assemblyman Laird of Santa Cruz to mandate what kind of toilets private property owners install in their own homes, here’s a more serious afternote — five REPUBLICAN legislators voted FOR the bill.

I would invite "on the record" comment from Assemblymembers Sam Blakeslee, Lynn Daucher, Bill Emmerson, Tom Harman, and Shirley Horton.

Perhaps we can direct these folks to Republican Party’s platform that is pretty clear about where the GOP stands on private property rights. A state government mandate about the kind of toilet someone can put in their home may sound like a minor issue, but if government has a right to tell you the kind of toilet you use to force you to conserve water, then why not a law limiting the size of a home, to save on power bills? Or a law limiting the use of sharp knives in a home to limit potential injuries?

Water conservation is important. But there… Read More