OK, so the Governor’s office just sent out this photo of him speaking in front of the White House. Let’s have a little "caption contest" — what is Arnold saying?

You can participate by posting up your caption as a comment below or by dropping me a note!

The winning caption and runners up (if worthy) will be shared with all of our readers! If the winner is near where I live or where I travel, I’ll pick up coffee and a doughnut!… Read More

The Orange County Register has an excruciatingly well-researched front page story today about how members of the California Legislature use (or abuse depending upon your outlook) so called away from home "per diem" tax-free payments that are intended to defray expenses of being away from their main homes, (presumably in their legislative districts) while tending to state business in Sacramento. One of the starkest examples provided was that of millionaire Orange County Congressman John Campbell. Campbell has a mansion in Irvine. But according to the report by reporters Brian Joseph and Molly Zisk, while in the state legislature Campbell charged the taxpayers $167,070 in addition to his salary, for away from home "per diem" expenses. In this five-year period, he purchased a home in the Sacramento suburbs for $300,000. He paid cash for the home. When he was elected to Congress, he sold the home for $665,000. The Register article claims Campbell tripled his personal investment by leveraging tax-free taxpayer supported per diem… Read More

As the Fresno Bee reported, last Friday’s sold out Lincon Club breakfast forum, featuring former Fresno Mayor Jim Patterson, Current Fresno Council President Larry Westerlund, current State Senator Jeff Denham, and former member of Congress Richard Pombo was a great start to the public part of the campaign.

In promoting the forum, the Club promised hard hitting questioning, and our audience told us that we certainly met that test. Here issample of what we asked these four men:

California’s State Budget is a disaster of historical proportions, and yet you, in 2005-06 and in 2006-07, voted for State Budgets that raised the General Fund spending in California to unsustainable levels, from $81 billion to over $101 billion. The State Legislative Analyst correctly warned against the assumptions made in these budgets, and the LAO’s warnings turned out to be factually correct. We are still reeling from the fiscal disaster these budgets created. Later, in 2009, you voted to place… Read More

In late December I wrote that the City of San Diego has "a series of campaign laws long ripe for a challenge on First Amendment grounds," and further asked, "Yet, what candidates have ever wanted to take on those laws at the risk of being perceived in the media — and at the hands of opponents — as wanting to loosen restrictions?"

This was in response to the news that a coalition was — finally — doing just that.

In case you missed it, a Federal court last week ruled against the City of San Diego’s overly restrictive campaign laws. Jim Lacy summarized it on Wednesday in his column here on the FlashReport:

A Federal court in San Diego yesterday issued a permanent injunction against the City of San Diego’s $500 contribution limit per person to independent expenditure committees involved in City elections. The ruling quotes the recent Citizens United case we have written about, and is… Read More

According to today’s Washington Post, conservative Republican Ken Cuccinelli, the Virginia Attorney General, was scared off of sharing the dias at CPAC today with prominent California-based conservative legal activist Gary Kreep, the cofounder of the United States Justice Foundation. The article cites a panel the two were to share, “Saving Freedom and Due Process from an Oppressive Justice Department” today at 12:15 p.m. Cuccinelli is a potential candidate for U.S. Senate or Governor in upcoming elections in Virginia. Gary is a director of Western CPAC well known for his accomplishments in the law for conservatives who also is a leading attorney, with two cases currently on appeal, challenging the eligibility of Barack Obama to be President on the claim he may not be a natural born citizen. The Post reports that Cuccinelli never agreed to serve on the panel, despite his name having appeared on the published agenda at www.conservative.org for months. His spokesman says he decided in the end to speak on another panel on economic issues. It looks odd to me that an Attorney General would be confused about whether to speak on legal issues, his field of… Read More

I’ve been in politics a long time. So, count me jaded when a candidate puts out a press release that says "My poll says I’m ahead!"

Before I give any belief to a statement like that, I want to know what the questions were, how were all the candidates identified in the poll (it has to be what the ballot designation is likely to be – or it’s worthless), who is the pollster (has to be a respected one), and was this a “push” poll – where the opponents are cast in a negative light and the candidate in a positive one (these types of polls area wastebecause they don’t reflect reality).

So, I was impressed when I got the email below from Senator George Runner – candidate for BOE. Not only does it show George in the lead, but he gives us the questions that were asked, has very fair ballot designations of him and his opponents and the poll was done by Steve Kinney of Public Opinion Strategies – who I can personally vouch for as a top-flight pollster.

Poll Shows George Runner is Clear Frontrunner in BOE Race Sacramento

The results of a poll conducted… Read More

Top CA political printer Vince Monaco just set outan articlethat talks about a USPS plan to cut Saturday delivery to street addresses.Congress would have to approve the plan and if they don’t the Postal Service CFO says the USPSwill go broke.

This change wouldhave a huge impact on political campaigns which would have fewer mail days to communicate with voters before elections. Typically Saturday is the last day you want to plan mail to hit voters’ mailboxes, partly because Monday is a buffer day in case it doesn’t arrive over the weekend. Now with no mail delivery on Saturday or Sunday, Monday’s mailboxes will be that much more full and there is a better chance that political mail will be lost in the pile.

The article says mail willstill be processed on Saturday – you could still make drop offs and mail would still be transportedbetweenprocessing plants.

Monacosays the proposal, if passed wouldbe a game changer.… Read More

It’s great to be back at the Conservative Political Action Conference in Washington, D.C., this year at the Marriott Wardman Hotel on upper Connecticut. I have a long history with CPAC, having co-chaired it for several years during the early Reagan Administration, and recall one year in particular, when CPAC was scheduled the weekend before the Monday I took the District of Columbia bar exam. It was a great CPAC, I got to sit next to President Reagan on the podium, and after a couple nights of conservative socializing I still managed to pass the bar.

One of the meetings at CPAC I look forward to is the annual meeting of the Board of Directors of the American Conservative Union. At that meeting, the Board choses the winner of the annual Reagan Award, a $10,000 cash prize given to an exemplary conservative grassroots activist over the past year. Nominees this year included Tea Party leaders; Hannah Giles, who famously outed ACORN; Dave Bossie of Citizens United (who won the award almost twenty years ago); and several others. This year, the ACU board decided to give the award generically, not to just one person, but to the Tea Party movement in general, in the… Read More