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

I am currently sipping coffee and seated in the Green Room next to the stage listening to Governor Tim Pawlenty’s great speech at the Conservative Political Action Conference at the Marriott Wardman in Washington, DC. “God is in charge,” says the Governor. Amen! Pawlenty did us the honor of speaking in Newport Beach at the Western CPAC last October. Also here in the Green Room is Wall Street Journal writer John Fund, who is waiting to speak, and who also joined us at WCPAC, and Tom Winter, editor of Human Events, a prime CPAC sponsor, whom I have been demonstrating the new iPhone CPAC application to. (I think Tom prefers paper agendas). John Fund just gave me a ringing endorsement of Western CPAC, which will be held Oct. 15-16 in Newport Beach. To paraphrase, John said events like Western CPAC are “vital” to ensure that a regional and local perspective on conservatism is fostered. CPAC provides the national perspective, WCPAC provides the regional perspective. John says “don’t forget I’m a Californian!” and says he definitely will be attending and speaking at the next WCPAC.… Read More

Just said hello to Steve Poizner at CPAC, who was huddling with Americans for Tax Reform and fellow ACU board member Grover Norquist in the coffee shop. I was able to tell him personally I just received his campaign’s check for my biggest slate card, “Lew Uhler’s National Tax Limitation Committee Early Voter Guide”. I’d say he is in the race all the way. California GOP chief Ron Nehring walked up to see Steve just as I was leaving. Conservative bad boy Floyd Brown and I decided to go to the bar for cokes and stopped on the way to talk to David Bossie, the head of Citizens United (which was founded by Floyd) to congratulate him on his big recent Supreme Court victory. CPAC staff say there will be 10,000 registered participants at this event. Wow!… Read More

I learned that the American Conservative Union will be holding a fundraiser at the Nixon Library in Orange County in late April, and the featured speaker will be ACU Board member and former UN Ambassador, the Honorable John Bolton. $250 a head. Hopefully a good "cross-marketing" platform for Western CPAC in October in Newport Beach. And John Bolton is a superb speaker and a great American. Stay tuned…..Stepped out of CPAC briefly to celebrity chief Charlie Palmer’s on Capitol Hill for a quick lunch and saw former Republican Congressional Majority Leader Dick Armey holding court at the next table, and at a nearby table, "that blond woman who is always on Hannity," (Floyd Brown’s observation) whoever that is……….We had stripped bass and walleye pike, a Midwest favorite. Will attend the CPAC speech tonight, not eat, then off to The Palm for a late dinner with Steve Some, who was once, and with recent electoral changes will soon be again, the premier state government lobbyist in New Jersey……..CPAC is full of young people – smiling, fresh, earnest young faces, male and female alike, just waiting… Read More

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I’m a bit pressed for time today, so today it is the Poizner campaign that benefits from my just throwing up a press release to save me time (since the release references both this website and its publisher, how could I not?)… I will say that we’ve now heard from over 450 CRP delegates and the ratio references below has not changed…

Republican candidate for governor Steve Poizner announced today he will offer up his speaking spot at the California Republican Party convention in order to make time for a gubernatorial debate. Poizner’s decision is in response to an overwhelming number of California Republican Party delegates who have stated they would like to see a debate at the party convention in March. … Read More

I always chuckle at my Democrat friends who attempt to influence Republican primaries. The last time they tried to do it was to try and defeat Richard Riordan in the 2002 Republican primary. The Democrats ran commercials that essentially accused Richard Riordan of being pro-life and pro-gun, in other words, the Democrats accused Riordan of being a Republican. Interestingly enough, when the commercials ran, Riordan’s poll numbers started to go up among Republicans. Riordan then essentially went public and denied the commercials, that is, he told Republicans that he really wasn’t the Republican that Democrats were accusing him of being. Riordan lost the Republican primary because he denied to the Republican voters that he was a Republican. With the latest rounds of commercials that the Dems are running against Whitman, the biggest mistake Whitman can make is to respond to them. She should celebrate them.

I am a Poizner supporter. I joined Poizner because I saw Poizner at work. He actually talks to conservatives, and spent time with them. At the 2006 CRA convention, Poizner stayed the whole weekend and talked to the delegates there. They… Read More

Jon Fleischman Vice Chairman, South – California Republican Party … Read More