Yesterday’s San Diego Union Tribune’s article “Labor Unions and Republicans Square Off” and today’s “Republican Donations Pour in for Two Camps” basically re-enforced what co-bloggers Probolsky, Mitzelfelt, and today Jantz have been writing about – the rise of Republican local county organizations. In years past, the article would have been framed with some segment of the business community or the Chamber vs. the labor unions. But in recent years its been clear that the GOP has become the central organizing body of the center-right’s coalition to take back City Hall from labor union bosses. To wit, the San Diego GOP, with help from local business owners, has raised close to a million dollars in the last month and has engaged in the Mayoral and Council races with hundreds of thousands of dollars.

In the final days of the campaign for San Diego City Mayor big labor has gone on the offensive. They are running a tv ad that morphs Republican candidate Sander’s face into that of former Mayor Dick Murphy, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, President George Bush, and former President George Bush. This may be over the top… Read More

Although local polling by Datamar shows a tightening in the San Diego mayoral election, most bets are still on former SD police chief and Republican Jerry Sanders to win it on Tuesday, not the least of which is because of the GOP machine Ron Nehring has built in the county. (See just one of the recent news stories.) Fellow FR blogger Duane Dichiara, in the heat of the SD action,will be doing further analysis of the mayoral contest in the days ahead.

Whether the ultimate winner is Sanders or Democrat Donna Frye, the new mayorwill have to deal with volatile San Diego City Attorney Michael Aguirre.

Mike Aguirre

Democrat Aguirre, love him or hate him, has single-handedly changed the usual thinking of whether an elected… Read More

Congressman Dana Rohrabacher from the Long Beach/ Orange County area find himself under scrutiny over his ties to an accused swindler/ producer who gave him a $23,000 option on the rights to his script called “Baja.” Rohrbacher then helped the accused swindler/producer meet various government officials. Read the story here.

I want to be clear about a couple things.

Rohrabacher generally has been a good conservative congressman. Great on immigration. Awesome in fighting Communism during the cold war. Less so on things like homosexual marriage and stem cell research.

I don’t believe Rohrabacher broke any laws. This isn’t a replay of the problems facing Congressman Cunningham in San Diego.

I hope “Baja” gets made. Not so sure a show about Homeland Security Department though. You can imagine the shows. “How Banning Nail Clippers Prevented High Jacking”,”The Ins and… Read More

There are some very interesting stories amidst the collection of pre-election headlines that have mutiplied as the big day draws near.

DEMOCRAT DEAN FLOREZ CRITICIZES JESSICA’S LAW One of our first blog posts, from Brad Mitzelfelt, was on Jessica’s Law. Yesterday, Florez was critical of the measure that seeks to ratchet up the state posture on repeat sexual predators. Why? Well, apparently there are some new restrictions in this measure about how close these predators can come to certain places (like schools). Flores believes that due to the urban nature of big cities (like Los Angeles) where things are close together in proximity, that this will cause "predator flight" (my words) to areas of less density, where things are planned with more open space. An interesting… Read More

Executives with Nissan Corporation here in the United States may soon be turning in their posh luxury suite seats for Lakers games at Staples Center, and instead be on the hunt for season tickets to Tennesee Volunteer games.

It is reported in the news today that officials with Nissan have (pretty much) said they are going to be moving their offices out California and across the lower-48 to Tennessee.

According to the article:

Perhaps at some point, the State Legislature will think about trying to help the California Chamber… Read More

CLUB FOR GROWTH SLATE The California Club for Growth is a non-partisan organization that is focused on educating the public about the importance of a limited role for government, and letting voters know which candidates will promote a liberty-based agenda in office, with a particular emphasis on free-market-oriented economic principles.

For the first time, the California Club for Growth has produced a statewide mailing to voters in advance of an election. There is a page of it that advocates for various positions on the election (these various measures undoubtedly financed the mail). But I am pleased that the vast majority of the piece is educational, talking about the very principles that the group espouses.

I was extremely pleased when I was approached by representatives of CCfG to ask if I would author an article in the piece talking about the need to streamline California government and ‘blow up the boxes’ (as Governor Schwarzenegger put it). They also let me put in some verbiage about the FlashReport.… Read More

This is a big FLASHREPORT THANK YOU to the California Club for Growth. The organization pumped out a half a million pieces of mail around California, which is hitting voters in the mail this week. This mail piece has four 8.5 x 11 panels, and one of those panels (inside, right page) is a column from yours truly, as Publisher of the FlashReport, on the importance of streamlining state government. There are several plugs for the FlashReport on the page!

The big reason for the THANK YOU is that the Club for Growth folks reached out to us, and made the offer. And while there were some trade-offs for being featured on the piece, they were totally reasonable. There is no doubt that the leadership of California Club for Growth, Tony Strickland and Shawn Steel, want to promote this website, and we appreciate it!

So, want to see this mail piece? It is at the bottom of my… Read More

There are only two types of candidates for legislative and local offices that print their names on things other than direct mail and donor envelopes. 1) losers who get some sense of satisfaction from handing out a campaign-logo imprinted key chain to a neighbor who isn’t even registered to vote and 2) candidates that are so far ahead in the race and have so much money to spend that their consultants are reaching for ways to spend it, even though the race is all but decided.

The later is the case with the "Note Pad Mailer of 2005", the brain child of Sacramento based and OC legislative/Congressional/supervisorial consultant of choice Dave Gilliard. The note pad was sent in a regular #10 envelope with a letter I didn’t read because I was so excited to see the note pad. It was only the third one I had gotten on Monday (the other two were from Realtors who had dropped them on my front porch).

The note pad expressly reminds Republicans to vote for John Campbell in the Dec. 6 Special Election to replace Rep. Cox. A generally good idea since it will be the THIRD Special Election in as many months. But the note pad… Read More