I enjoyed reading Senator John McCain’s book during the 2000 election cycle, about his service in the military and time in a Vietnam prisoner of war camp. He seemed to be a real hero. I also recall fondly bumping into him occasionally at the "social Safeway" in Old Town Alexandria, Virginiawhen my wife and I worked in the Reagan Administration. I specifically recall one instance where he was closely observing a Romaine Lettuce and I approached him to say he was getting a raw deal on the "Keating Five" scandal in the media. The next time I met him was at a private meeting with the Board of Directors of the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association in Los Angeles, that Mrs. Jarvis attended. We talked about his presidential ambitions but I voiced a small concern about his idea on campaign finance reform. He didn’t have much of an answer when I asked about implications to the First Amendment.

Today Cindy McCain is reported to have appeared in a television advertisement in support of gay marriage. This report comes on the same day that the U.S. Supreme Court, in yet another decision, has further clobbered… Read More

Last year Michael Steele upset the Republican establishment as the first outsider in a generation to win election as Chairman of the Republican National Committee. Massive forces were aligned against Steele, but the harsh lessons of wholesale Republican repudiations of 2006 and 2008 helped propel Michael’s message.

The message from Steele? That for Republicans to win again, they must embrace and act conservative. We have valuable lessons to learn from the Tea Party movement. Depending on the Republican bulls in Congress could be fatal. Over the years, many RNC vendors grew rich over no-bid contracts. In fact, there still remains an RNC member who was paid over $1,000,000 from the RNC — who was a fierce opponent to Steele’s election. Chairman

Steele promised reforms. No more no-bid contracts. Old favored vendors would have to compete. The Establishment would have to move over and and re-invent themselves.… Read More

I still have not reviewed carefully all 185 pages, but the US Supreme Court issued the decision in Citizens United today by a 5-4 conservative majority vote and a lenthy dissent by John Paul Stevens. That means one thing: freedom and the First Anendment won! It appears corporations will no longer be banned from involvement in federal elections. More later……… Read More

Here is my executive summary on the Citizens United case and a sad prediction.

Citizens United, a nonprofit corporation (formed originally by my friend Floyd Brown) released during the last Presidential campaign a documentary movie about Hillary Clinton that was critical of her. It sought declaratory and injunctive relief in Federal Court on whether it would be subject to criminal penalties from the Federal Election Commission for distributing the movie. CU lost at the District Court level but appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court.

The Supreme Court under Chief Justice Roberts had previously decided some cases that marginalized the broad sweep of the McCain-Feingold campaign finance law, which placed additional restrictions of First Amendment freedoms in a Federal election context, most notably, the Wisconsin Right to Life decision, which scaled back McCain-Feingold to allow for unlimited "issue advocacy" by a corporation during an election campaign.… Read More

8:30 am Update: Here is the Fox News take. See Jim Lacy’s blog post here on FR as well.

From the AP (click for the link)…

WASHINGTON (AP) – The Supreme Court ruled Thursday that corporations may spend as freely as they like to support or oppose candidates for president and Congress, easing decades-old limits on business efforts to influence federal campaigns.

By a 5-4 vote, the court overturned a 20-year-old ruling that said companies can be prohibited from using money from their general treasuries to produce and run their own campaign ads. The decision, which almost certainly will also allow labor unions to participate more freely in campaigns, threatens similar limits imposed by 24 states.

It leaves in place a prohibition on direct contributions to candidates from corporations and unions.

Critics of the stricter limits have argued that they amount to an… Read More

For those with a chunk of time to watch what was an amazing speech, here is the video of Orange County Republican Party Chairman Scott Baugh giving his speech about the future of the GOP and of the nation, filmed last Monday night by yours truly… Big kudos to Rhonda Rohrabacher for getting it up online!

Chairman Scott Baugh from OCGOP on Vimeo.

From today’s WSJ Political Diary E-mail… … Read More

In just a few weeks, candidates who will appear on the ballot in the upcoming June, 2010 primary election in California will submit their paperwork to the various county elections officials across the state, officially declaring their candidacies, and they will submit their names and proposed ballot designations for the ballot. In some cases they may also be allowed to pay for a short "candidate statement" to appear in the advance ballot materials sent to all voters.

In California, a candidate is allowed to have their name, including a "nick-name," and up to three words describing the "principal" "profession, vocation, or occupation" printed on the ballot. Incumbents get additional words if they want, describing the official title they hold. There is sometimes litigation over whether the chosen "profession, vocation, or occupation" of the candidate is a "principal" endeavor, since the underlying requirement of the name and ballot designation is that it must not be misleading to the voter. Sometimes there is even litigation over whether the candidate’s name is misleading or not. The… Read More