A QUICK REMINDER THAT TOMORROW WILL BE THE LAST DAY THAT THE NEWS (HOME) PAGE OF THIS SITE OR THIS COMMENTARY PAGE WILL BE UPDATED UNTIL TUESDAY, JANUARY 3RD. I WILL BE TAKING A VACATION BETWEEN THE CHRISTMAS AND NEW YEARS HOLIDAYS! THE WEBLOG ON CALIFORNIA POLITICS WILL REMAIN ACTIVE DURING THIS TIME, SO BE SURE TO CHECK IN DAILY TO KEEP UP WITH OUR FR BLOG TEAM!

STATE GOP VICE CHAIRMAN CALLS FOR MCCLINTOCK ENDORSEMENT AT FEBRUARY CONVENTION This week, California Republican Party Vice Chairman and San Diego County GOP Chairman Ron Nehring sent a memo to his 57 colleagues, the Chairmen of the various County Central Committees around the state. The subject of the memo – encouraging them to all join in an effort to change the bylaws of the State GOP and grant a rare pre-primary endorsement to State Senator Tom McClintock in his bid for the Republican nomination for… Read More

In my commentary today, I talk about an effort being spearheaded by State GOP Vice-Chairman Ron Nehring to change Party rules to facilitate a pre-primary endorsement for McClintock, establishing a Schwrzenegger/ McClintock “ticket” for ’06.

In there, I said I didn’t remember whether the State GOP had already endorsed appointed Secretary of State Bruce McPherson when they endorsed the Governor for re-election.

FR contributor Mike Spence reminded me this morning that at the time, McPherson had not yet been confirmed by the State Senate. So the GOP passed a resolution urging that he be confirmed.

That isn’t to say that McPherson, Poochigian, Leslie and others might not try to get on the “pre-primary endorsement band wagon” – we’ll see how this develops!… Read More

SENATE GOP LEADER ACKERMAN ON 34TH SD: "THE LIKELY CANDIDATE IS LYNN DAUCHER" Yesterday it was announced that Assemblyman Van Tran (from north/central Orange County) would be forming an exploratory effort at a potential run for State Senate in the 34th District, currently held by Democrat Joe Dunn. This seat is in play because voter registration there has closed considerably (less than 2 points) thanks to the leadership of Orange County GOP Chairman Scott Baugh, and heavy financing from The New Majority, an elite GOP funding group. You can read about Tran’s efforts (along with who is helping him) here where I spoke with him, as well as more analysis from FR Orange County Correspondent Matt… Read More

In his first interview to the press, former State Senator Dick Mounjoy outlined the conditions and reasons for running for United States Senate. See the story by political reporter Mike Sprague in the Whittier Daily News here.. You can read my quick analysis here and FR contributer Phil Paule’s ishere.… Read More

A seemingly slow day on the FR blog. The other correspondents must be Christmas shopping.

In the effort to post something of a holiday nature, how about the following missive from Richard Rider’s San Diego Tax Fighters … somewhat of a Christmas present to Faulconer and Acle, to go along with their Union-Tribune endorsement … as long as they don’t mind being the lesser of evils. It’s fun reading, however you look at it:

San Diego Tax FightersE-mail: RRider@san.rr.com 22 December, 2005

SDTF Announces San Diego City Council Endorsements

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Contact: Richard Rider, author

San Diego – San Diego Tax Fighters has made its endorsements in the two January special elections for San Diego City Council. As is often the… Read More

I’ve said before that I don’t see the world from the same perspective as columnist William Bradley, who writes for the Los Angeles Weekly. But I have also said that he is an extremely talented writer, who continues to produce some well-written and thought-provoking columns. I just read his latest one, and feel it is worth sharing. In it, he pens a version of how he believes Governor Schwarzenegger began his rightward/Republican shift (which, of couse, Bradley characterizes as "wrong"). Did it all happen the way Bradley pens it? Well, perhaps only the Governor, and advisors Mike Murphy, Pat Clarey, Rob Stutzman, and Richard Costigan know the answer. Nevertheless, fun reading:

You surf over 40 webpages each morning, and you are bound to miss something. I’ve always been annoyed that the Sacramento Bee carries one of their political columnists, Dan Walters, on their online politics page, but they ‘hide’ the other prominent political columnist, Dan Weintraub, over on their opinion page.

Well, today Weintraub has an excellent column that I totally missed. It will appear on the main page tomorrow, but it is definately worth a read. In it, he looks at whether the issue of reformining the abuses of the emminent domain system here in California (this is where government can take property from a private citizen over their own objection) will becom the next Proposition 13, in terms of being a rallying issue for property owners all around the state. The column takes a particular look at the efforts of State Senator Tom McClintock at putting forward a ballot measure that may appear on the ballot next year (coincidentally when McClintock himself will appear, as a… Read More

John Myers is the State Capitol Correspondent for KQED public broadcasting in northern California. Myers operates his own blog, Capitol Notes. Myers produces the Capitol Report for his radio station, and often has interesting items on his site (you can always check it via my Blog Roll above).

Today, Myers has a post concerning Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger’s calendar, which the Governor started making available to public scrutiny last year. Myers takes not that despite the making public of the calendar, there are a surprisingly high number of meetings that are marked ‘private’ with no details about them. Myers goes on to note: