One of the first people I ever met in my early days of the political game, back in the late 1980’s was a flamboyant land developer from Newport Beach by the name of Buck Johns. Blessed with a high-octane personality and an Arkansas accent that sounds a bit like Ross Perot, Buck is a hard charger — in business, as a dad, and in politics. He’s been a leader in GOP politics in Orange County for a generation, still serving on the board of the Lincoln Club. Most Orange County politicians can point to Buck’s support as critical to their efforts. And there are a bunch of people running around "The OC" who didn’t quite make it into Buck’s good graces, or into public office.

As a pretty conservative fellow, Buck is prepared to cut the Governor a lot of slack, as evidenced by an interview he gave to Los Angeles Times columnist Dana Parson.

Parsons’ column begins:… Read More

At the recent meeting of the Republican National Committee a debate between two resolutions on immigration created a controversy. California Republican National Committeewoman Barbara Alby (pictured right) co-sponsored the tough on illegal alien resolution sponsored by Arizona Committeeman Randy Pullen. You can see FR Publisher Jon Fleischman’s commentary on it here.

The Bushies had another resolution that endorsed his guest worker program along with some illegal alien enforcement provisions. Dick Cheney and other big guns came to the defense of the President. Pullen withdrew his resolution and by a voice vote the Bush version passed. See the Human Events article here. … Read More

LEFTIST PROFESSORS TAKE HEED There have been a series of articles during the last week (there are a couple featured on the main page today) that focus on a controversial organization founded by former UCLA College Republican leader Andrew Jones’ efforts to target liberal professors at his alma-mater. Prominent advisory board members, such as esteemed former GOP Congressman Jim Rogan (a Bruin alumnus), have dropped off of Jones’ advisory board. What would be so outrageous as to cause this kind of controversy? If you are a student these days, it really isn’t hard to find out a lot of ‘intel’ to help guide your choices or class preparation. Websites about where students upload their opinions of teachers, their grading techniques, how much homework they assign, whether they are strict about attendance, and more. Jones simply is trying to put another factor out there for perspective students to look… Read More

Steve Greenhut, a senior editorial writer for the Orange County Register devoted his entire Sunday column to a topic other than policy or politics, his normal fare. Rather, he used his precious column space to talk the phenomenon of how websites and ‘bloggers’ (editorial note: I really dislike that term) are really changing the news business. He especially focuses on the idea that the internet-age means that if you have opinions, you can more easily express them.

Greenhut’s piece begins:

LEFTIST PROFESSORS TAKE HEED There have been a series of articles during the last week (there are a couple featured on the main page today) that focus on a controversial organization founded by former UCLA College Republican leader Andrew Jones’ efforts to target liberal professors at his alma-mater. Prominent advisory board members, such as esteemed former GOP Congressman Jim Rogan (a Bruin alumnus), have dropped off of Jones’ advisory board. What would be so outrageous as to cause this kind of controversy? If you are a student these days, it really isn’t hard to find out a lot of ‘intel’ to help guide your choices or class preparation. Websites about where students upload their opinions of teachers, their grading techniques, how much homework they assign, whether they are strict about attendance, and more. **There is more –… Read More

This morning is my first opportunity to "welcome back" the Cal-Races website, which came back online this week after undergoing a reformatting and retooling. What is Cal-Races? FR’s friends over at Meridian Pacific Consulting (including our very own Sacramento Area Correspondent Tom Ross) maintain a great website for following a lot of what is going on with campaigns in California, and other tidbits, from a decidedly Republican perspective. Tom’s colleagues at MP, Matt Rexroad and John Peschong, as well as a great crew of others at their firm (h/t to Justin Matheson) will be providing all of us with great information. I am sure that we will be linking over there quite a bit to make sure that if you don’t make it over to Cal-Races each day (I will) that you don’t miss their greatest posts. Tom, Matt and John have been good friends for a long time, and they all played a substantial role in the development… Read More

This morning is my first opportunity to "welcome back" the Cal-Races website, which came back online this week after undergoing a reformatting and retooling. What is Cal-Races? FR’s friends over at Meridian Pacific Consulting (including our very own Sacramento Area Correspondent Tom Ross) maintain a great website for following a lot of what is going on with campaigns in California, and other tidbits, from a decidedly Republican perspective. Tom’s colleagues at MP, Matt Rexroad and John Peschong, as well as a great crew of others at their firm (h/t to Justin Matheson) will be providing all of us with great information.

**There is more – click the link**

View Full Commentary… Read More

There have been a lot of conversations about how do deal with the fact that so many of faithful GOP volunteers and donors are in the doldrums. Trying to address this issue requires trying to understand why these traditionally motivated folks are finding other things to do with their time instead of political activism.

Let me start with a startling fact – until the recent bond proposal, the single largest subject on which I had received feedback was the indictment of House Majority Leader Tom Delay. But the notes weren’t words of outrage. The overwhelming sentiment was, "With DeLay out, is this an opportunity to replace him with a conservative?"

The point here, given the conservatism of Tom DeLay, is that the machinations that take place behind closed doors, but which do not result in votes and hardline public stances by Republicans, leave grassroots activists feeling like their hard work is for naught. Especially when in Washington, Republicans supposedly "control" the… Read More