While Democrats are engaged in an 1500 delegate ‘food fight’ in Sacramento, as the forces and minions of Phil Angelides and Steve Westly wrestle over which (if either) Democrat will end up with an official State Democratic endorsement for Governor, California’s Republican ticket for statewide office couldn’t have been more unified.

Last evening, I attended the Orange County Lincoln Club’s annual membership dinner banquet at the gorgeous Balboa Bay Club in Newport Beach. The guest of honor… EVERY REPUBLICAN CANDIDATE ON THE PRIMARY BALLOT! That’s right, while the top-billing for this ‘Lincoln-Club Members Only’ (and invited guests) event of over 400 people were Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger and his running mate, State Senator Tom McClintock, every other candidate vying for the Republican nomination for a statewide office was at the dinner, working the room, and meeting the influential members of Orange County’s most prestigious Republican organization.

When I… Read More

A few observations concerning the Democratic State Party Convention — sent into the FlashReport by State GOP Communications Director Patrick Dorinson:

The good thing about the California Democratic Party Convention year after year is that if you miss one it doesn’t really matter. They keep bringing up the same, failed, tired old ideas that they have been preaching for the last 30 years.

A few observations:

Steve Westly’s ads tout him as a “different kind of Governor”, but when you listen to him he sounds like any other Democrat running for office. Lots of old repackaged ideas but no way to pay for it. He may try to fool California voters that he is different with his ads, but at heart he is a just another liberal Democrat. Just listen to his own words from his speech to the convention:

"Like all of you, I’ve been a Democratic activist most of my life. In fact, I got my start when you elected me party treasurer in this very building 25 years ago. And I’ve been working with you ever since to strengthen this party. It’s good to be home."

Here’s another passage I particularly liked:

"I’m proud… Read More

One of the finest men I have ever met in politics is Bill Jones, former Secretary of State and Assembly Minority Leader in the early 1990’s. Aside from being part of one of more prominent westside farming families in the Central San Joaquin Valley for decades, Bill served and was easily the best Secretary of State in the history of California, and left a legacy in the legislature including the 3 Strikes law, among other accomplishments.

On his way out of active politics in 2004 he ran for Senate against Barbara Boxer, a half hearted effort doomed from the start. But he went out a true gentlemen, and his family, including wife Maureen and daughters Andrea and Wendy were simply one of the model political families anyone can remember anywhere. An incredible group. Always friendly, and always the same.

Bill’s current business pursuit is Pacific Ethanol, a relatively new company looking to put ethanol on the map, finally, as an alternative to oil and gasoline. His timing has been spectacular here. As chairman and founder of the company, he has led the effort plan/construct five ethanol producing… Read More

Today’s FlashReport has a story from the Los Angeles Times about the rescinding the mutli-language rule for recall petitions. Two of the three remaining pro Wal-Mart councilmembers have been under seige by union forces. They successfully sued to stop the recall election by using a ninth circuit ruling on the topic of recall petitions. Roles are reversed here with liberals wanting to excludemulti-language petitions and the Republican Jay Imperial arguing the other side. Politics is all local.See article here.

You can see background on the Rosemead recall and the original decision by clicking here and using the links there.… Read More

Yesterday I wrote about 36th Assembly District GOP challengerJames Ledford’s support for Deomcrats tripling the car tax. See it here.Now a Democratic activist is in trouble for supporting him for Mayor. But, that isn’t all. The article says he supported the Democratic activist for school board. "Corrales and Ledford are known to support each other…" reports the Antelope Valley Press. See the article here. Supporting the car tax AND supporting Democratic Partyactivists for office. Instead of challenging Runner in the GOP Primary, he should have been her Democratic opponent.… Read More

This morning over 100 of Orange County’s Republican local elected officials came together in Anaheim for the first in a what promises to be a series of quarterly events for the OC GOP’s local elected officials committee.

Anaheim Mayor Curt Pringle spoke to the crowd at the Disney Resort property about innovation in government including some key examples of what he has done in his town.

Pringle along with his coalition majority on the five-member city council has done some great things since they got there a little over three years ago.

The mix of a dynamic real estate market and a city government that virtually got out of the way of developers, has brought what will in the coming years be close to 10,000 new residential high-rise units to the area surrounding Anaheim Stadium that is now largely one and two story industrial.

Other great ideas that Pringle has actually implemented include:

-A tax holiday for businesses. If during a special three month period last year you moved or opened a new business in Anaheim your taxes were waived for a year. And if you were late on paying your taxes, you were able to get caught up without… Read More

MAY 1 PROTESTS Sometimes, when I am up early compiling news stories, I really shake my head. Today is one of those days. On May 1st, there will be a huge day of rallies to, in essence, support illegal immigration into the United States. You can say anything else you want about it, but the bottom line is that advocates of this day of protest are actually protesting the rule of law. They are protesting the idea that there is actually such a thing as right and wrong. It is fair to engage in a dialogue with the people and with policy makers about the law, which states that there is a formal and necessary process that any potential immigrant to the United States must follow before immigrating to America. The reality is that there are now millions of residents in the United States who quite literally ignored that law, and came here anyways. Congress is in the midst of a debate about how to make sure that these immigration laws can be more effectively enforced at the points of entry to America, and they are debating what to do, in a very practical sense, about what is estimated to be well over ten million… Read More

MAY 1 PROTESTS Sometimes, when I am up early compiling news stories, I really shake my head. Today is one of those days. On May 1st, there will be a huge day of rallies to, in essence, support illegal immigration into the United States. You can say anything else you want about it, but the bottom line is that advocates of this day of protest are actually protesting the rule of law. They are protesting the idea that there is actually such a thing as right and wrong. It is fair to engage in a dialogue with the people and with policy makers about the law, which states that there is a formal and necessary process that any potential immigrant to the United States must follow before immigrating to America. The reality is that there are now millions of residents in the United States who quite literally ignored that law, and came here anyways. Congress is in the midst of a debate about how to make sure that these immigration laws can be more effectively enforced at the points of entry to America, and they are debating what to do, in a very practical sense, about what is estimated to be well over ten million… Read More