With over two decades of involvement in grassroots Republican involvement, I have had the opportunity to attend a slew of training classes. Some have been better than others, I admit. For the past few years, I have been consistently impressed with what I have heard about the Marian Berguson Excellence in Public Service Series. Established here in the Golden State in 2004, the program was started with the goal of inspiring, empowering, and advancing Republican women through education, training and experience.

I have to tell you — it works. I have had the chance to know and work with many Bergeson school graduates, both before they started the course, and afterwards. This program takes capable students new to politics, and gives them an excellent running start. It also consistantly takes more seasoned GOP women, and pushes them to new heights, giving them to training and tools to be effective in elective or appointed office, or to serve in government positions, or in political roles.

My good friend, Leisa Brug Kline, currently serves as Chief of Staff to Assemblyman Chuck DeVore. She is a great example of someone who was more seasoned when she… Read More

This weekend the Republican Western State Leadership Conference was held in San Diego. On Friday Governor Schwarzenegger was the featured guest speaker for lunch. He introduced several people in the crowd including RNC Chairman Mike Duncan, Immediate Past CA GOP Chairman Duf Sundheim and then current CA GOP Chairman Ron Nehring. The room was packed with about 250 attendees including major donors and RNC members.

In introducing Nehring, the Governor half joking said: Ron has agreed to bring the Republican Party more toward the center. Schwarzenegger quickly followed with: You better be careful, Fleischman will be all over you for that.

The FlashReport’s own Jon Fleichman is a former appointee of the governor and has built a personal relationship with Schwarzenegger over the years. The Governor clearly knows the impact Jon has on politics and public policy in California, but I was pretty surprised to hear the… Read More

For the second year in a row, the FlashReport is pleased to announce our special feature column outlining the twenty "worst of the worst" — legislation passed by the Democrats and placed onto the Governor’s desk.

Once again, we’ll be watching how Governor Schwarzenegger handles these twenty bills specifically, giving FR readers an ongoing update on his progress through these bills, and we’ll conclude by giving the Governor a "veto grade" of A, B, C, D or F, depending on how he does at "terminating" these terrible bills.

This year, I am pleased to have worked with State Senator Dennis Hollingsworth and Assemblyman Chuck DeVore in the compilation of the Bad Twenty, and we have unveiled the list in a feature column today.

So be sure to check it out right here!… Read More

H/T to "Mighty Thor" at Red County/San Diego to be the first up with the JohnsonClark release (see below). That makes the field in the 52nd Congressional as follows, for now….

-Duncan D. Hunter, USMC and son of the Congressman

-Ken King, Owner of San Diego Pools

-Brian Jones, Santee Councilman

-Bob Watkins (Bio below)

-More to follow?

Longtime San Diego Area Republican Leader Bob Watkins Preparing Run for 52nd Congressional District

Local businessman, conservative Republican, and former Chairman of the San Diego County Lincoln Club Bob Watkins today announced that he is exploring a run for the 52nd Congressional District being vacated by Duncan Hunter. "We’ve received very strong support from the donor community, as well as from the Republican grass roots activists," said Watkins, who is a conservative Republican. "We’re moving ahead toward a formal… Read More

With over two decades of involvement in grassroots Republican involvement, I have had the opportunity to attend a slew of training classes. Some have been better than others, I admit. For the past few years, I have been consistently impressed with what I have heard about the Marian Berguson Excellence in Public Service Series. Established here in the Golden State in 2004, the program was started with the goal of inspiring, empowering, and advancing Republican women through education, training and experience.

I have to tell you — it works. I have had the chance to know and work with many Bergeson school graduates, both before they started the course, and afterwards. This program takes capable students new to politics, and gives them an excellent running start. It also consistantly takes more seasoned GOP women, and pushes them to new heights, giving them to training and tools to be effective in elective or appointed office, or to serve in government positions, or in political roles.

My good friend, Leisa Brug Kline, currently serves as Chief of Staff to Assemblyman Chuck DeVore. She is a great example of someone who was more seasoned when she… Read More

Republicans wanting to retake the House Majority in 2008 face a tall order, and their first of many big tests will be the expansion of health care for children in the upcoming battle over SCHIP legislation. The Wall Street Journal opines here, and if Republican leaders like John Boehner and Kevin McCarthy can’t keep their members from supporting a $35 billion increase in this program, a march to single payer health care, their efforts to retake the House will be over before they even start.

We all know what great dividends the passage of Medicare Part D gave Republicans in 2006!… Read More

Arnold Schwarzenegger will address the United Nations tomorrow morning at 9am EST (6am here in Cal-ee-foo-rn–ya) — assuming it starts on time, you can see it on "UN-TV" here — there is also an archive feature that appears to update pretty quickly if you happen to prefer sleeping at that hour. Rumor has it that after the speech (on ‘global warming’) that Arnold will seek out Bono and Al Gore for a group photo…

Oh yes, could the U.N. spend any more on their headquarters? There is no worse deal, financially, for the United States than our subsidies of the U.N.… Read More

It was exciting to see the piece on Kevin McCarthy in the Weekly Standard yesterday. I worked with him and against him while he was a Bill Thomas staffer, and always held him in high regard. Along with Devin Nunes in the Central San Joaquin Valley, there is some good talent to work with in advancing toward a goal of retaking the House.

But I have a question. What are you going to do with it if you succeed?

Its not enough to "get control" of policy and appropriations. We out here in the GOP wasteland really don’t care what you bring back to the District. We openly wonder why you don’t tell Jerry Lewis and John Doolittle to get out of the way. I like that you are running ads against the 30 Democrat House freshman elected in 2006. They ran to the right of most of their Republican opponents and now stand with Nancy Pelosi – so the ads are a good contrast.

I still want to know what you are going to do with the majority.

What I want to hear is this: "We vehemently disagree with the performance of the Republican Congress from 2000-06. We understand the base is upset, and we agree. We are going back to the… Read More