Doolittle Does Something

Few Republicans were weeping yesterday when California Rep. John Doolittle announced that he won’t seek a tenth House term.

Mr. Doolittle is widely seen as departing ahead of the posse. Last year, the FBI raided his Virginia home and issued subpoenas to the congressman and five staff members in a probe of his wife’s fundraising business. The case involves Mr. Doolittle’s ties to disgraced lobbyist Jack Abramoff. While Mr. Doolittle has denied any wrongdoing, the reports kept alive the aura of GOP corruption that helped Democrats retake the House and Senate in 2006.

Retiring may be Mr. Doolittle’s last, best favor… Read More

First, let me commend the Governor for most of his budget. He is still claiming that a fee is not a tax, which is wrong, particularly when it is for essential government services like fire fighting, but he is finally getting around to actually cutting government. I also believe that cutting the size of state government is so important that no Republican should spend any time trying to defend any government program, even prisons. The general budget strategy of the Democrats in the past has been toincrease welfare and health care spending, and to cut police, fire and prisons. Republicans have taken the tack of pushing toincrease police, fire, and prisons, and cut welfare and health care spending. The usual compromise between Democrats and Republicans has been to increase spending on everything.

Second, let me commend Senate Republicans, whose insistence on some cuts last year turned a budget crisis that would have started out at $21 billion and grown to $30 billion, into a budget crisis that has started out at $14 billion, and will expand to $21 billion. Their willingness to sacrifice their political capital for the good of the state should be widely… Read More

At last night’s County Republican Party meeting in Los Angeles, both Steve Baric (candidate for CRP Secretary) and Shawn Steel (candidate for CRP’s National Committeeman) came away with the endorsements.

For Baric, it was just the latest endorsement in what has continued to be a campaign that shows no signs of slowing down. While rumors initially existed of certain folks attempting to recruit a candidate to challenge Steve, with his continued momentum that also recently includes endorsements from Keen Butcher, honcho of the County Chairmen’s Association, and Mindy Fletcher, former Deputy Campaign Manager for the Gov’s Re-elect, Steve clearly is planning on pushing hard all the way through the Convention next month.

The more interesting of the endorsements last night was forNational Committeeman – one of the CRP’s representatives (along with theNationalCommitteewoman and the CRP Chairman)to the Republican National Committee. Incumbent Tim Morgan took the time to fly down from Monterey to speak to the Central Committee meeting and to try to shake enough hands and twist enough arms to either get the endorsement outright for… Read More

Sixty five plus Young Republicans (and a handful of us over 40 oldsters) packed the room at Ciao Bella in Riverside last night for the Riverside County Young Republican endorsement face-offs.

While the Young Republicans have been around the state for decades, the Riverside Chapter was formed three years ago by party uber-activist, Phil Breitenbusher and a group of dedicated, well, Young Republicans.

Candidates who participated were: in the 37th SD, Assemblyman John Benoit and former Assemblyman Russ Bogh; in the 64th Assembly, Kelly McCarty and Brian Nestande; in the 80th ADGary Jeandron (ably represented by surrogate Sandy Salovar).

The Assembly candidates made 3 – 5 minute statements with no Q & A. The Senate candidates had more of a debate format with 2 minute opening and closing statements and written questions from the audience.

The event was significant in that the voters were able to interact with the candidates, hear and see them in person, and make decisions outside of carefully scripted hit mail and attack TV ads. It was good old fashioned on-the-stump politics.

The topics covered: illegal immigration, the… Read More

In concert with John Doolittle’s announcement that he retiring from the U.S. House of Representatives, conservative activist, businessman, and former California state legislator Rico Oller threw his hat into the ring for the GOP nomination for the 4th District. Of course, this is an all-GOP seat now that Doolittle is out of the election picture. Sorry Charlie (Brown), the presumptive Democrat candidate, but you are now running what we call in the business, a "dead district drill" – this seat is no longer competitive. There will be a host of other candidates leaping into the race, in addition to Eric Egland, Mike Holmes and now Oller. Possibly conservative Assemblyman Ted Gaines will get into it (he’s had one foot into the race for months now) and there is talk that State Senator Sam Aanestad or retired legislator Tim Leslie might even run. Then there is former U.S. Representative Doug Ose, who as a former leader of the Republican Main Street Partnership, would be the moderate in the race. … Read More

In concert with John Doolittle’s announcement that he retiring from the U.S. House of Representatives, conservative activist, businessman, and former California state legislator Rico Oller threw his hat into the ring for the GOP nomination for the 4th District. Of course, this is an all-GOP seat now that Doolittle is out of the election picture. Sorry Charlie (Brown), the presumptive Democrat candidate, but you are now running what we call in the business, a "dead district drill" – this seat is no longer competitive. There will be a host of other candidates leaping into the race, in addition to Eric Egland, Mike Holmes and now Oller. Possibly conservative Assemblyman Ted Gaines will get into it (he’s had one foot into the race for months now) and there is talk that State Senator Sam Aanestad or retired legislator Tim Leslie might even run. Then there is former U.S. Representative Doug Ose, who as a former leader of the Republican Main Street Partnership, would be the moderate in the race. … Read More

Ceres Unified School Board Member and farmer Bill Berryhill is continuing his march through the 26th district (disclosure: Berryhill is a client) by racking up endorsements of all the GOP Supervisors in San Joaquin County along with former Assemblyman and congressional candidate Dean Andal. Supervisors Leroy Ornellas, Ken Vogel and Larry Ruhstaller add to a formidable endorsement list that includes the GOP power structure in Stanislaus County as well as local GOP Senators Dave Cogdill and Jeff Denham. The 26th district is currently held by Assemblyman Greg Aghazarian, who is running for the 5th Senate District.

There were early rumblings of democrats hoping to find a viable candidate to contest this nearly even registration seat until Berryhill emerged strongly. Due to his formidable name identification advantage, 200K warchest and agricultural background it is extremely unlikely that a viable candidate will emerge. Even with all those disadvantages, there is one more disadvantage that a democrat nominee would face: Bill Berryhill’s strongest support will come from Stanislaus County and for any democrat to win they must win Stanislaus County… Read More

The California State Budget — some thoughts…..

In general, I think the Governor has made a respectable effort to implement a 10% cut to state agencies – a level of cut that should have been taken years ago to eliminate the structural deficit.

There are fewer gimmicks than previous budgets – which is good,but because he has included$430 million in revenues from the2007 Tribal compacts, it is critical that these compacts go into effect this year and that the voters approve Props 94 – 97. And speaking of Indian gaming, I am flat stunned that the Governor would fail to include any funding for local gaming mitigation grants from the Special Distribution Fund. This is a… Read More