Given John McCain’s clear disdain for the growth in government spending under the GOP Senate and Congress, (see the video at the bottom of this post), I don’t understand what appears to be a systematic avoidance of all of the places where conservatives, collectively, are meeting. If McCain cannot figure out how to embrace the base of the Party, his quest for the nomination will be a short one. And if you avoid the respected leaders of the Party’s base, over and over, establishing that key dialogue and winning support will be very, very difficult:

From today’s Wall Street Journal Political Diary E-mail (with the video clip I reference below it):

Playing Hooky

Senator John McCain has raised the ire of his erstwhile media fans by appearing to pander too much to conservatives.… Read More

Vicky Murray with the Pacific Research Institute penned the following analysis as a new studies are being released… I can’t say it better than she…

Barbara Alby has been the elected Republican National Committeewoman from California since 1996, and she penned this important perspective piece. It shares her take on this notion that non-Republicans should be included in the upcoming Republican Presidential primary in California…

CAVEAT EMPTOR WHEN DECIDING TO CHANGE THE RULES TO ALLOW DTS VOTERS TO SELECT CRP DELEGATES TO THE NATIONAL CONVENTION!

Here we go again: another scheme to save us. Should we risk changing our CRP Rules to allow the Decline to State (DTS) voter to help rule us? This is one of those times when I can’t help but jump in on the debate.

Some are suggesting that there may still be time to change the CRP Rules to allow DTS voters to “help us” select our California delegates to the next Republican National Convention. To comply safely with the RNC Rules, we would need to make that… Read More

Barbara Alby has been the elected Republican National Committeewoman from California since 1996, and she penned this important perspective piece. It shares her take on this notion that non-Republicans should be included in the upcoming Republican Presidential primary in California… CAVEAT EMPTOR WHEN DECIDING TO CHANGE THE RULES TO ALLOW DTS VOTERS TO SELECT CRP DELEGATES TO THE NATIONAL CONVENTION! Here we go again: another scheme to save us. Should we risk changing our CRP Rules to allow the Decline to State (DTS) voter to help rule us? This is one of those times when I can’t help but jump in on the debate. … Read More

For some people in Orange County politics and government, a call from Shirley Grindle would give them the chills. She is a so-called watch-dog.

Rumored to have 3×5 index cards tracking every donor and candidate running for county office and mayor/city council in several major cities, Grindle makes it a practice of calling candidates and their treasurers on minor violations and omissions on campaign filings.

To the rest of us, she mostly is just a nuisance having authored the ordinance that restricts contributions to county office seekers to $1600 per family (which should be thrown out by a court) and limiting transfers of funds into OC candidates’ political accounts from other committees, among other things.

But if she were to get her way on her latest proposal–to create a NEW county ethics commission, it would cost upward of $200,000 and such a bureaucracy would certainly grow in purview and cost.

Her original proposal would have had the new commission looking into just about everything. After being rebuffed she is now proposing just to oversee campaign finance. She says she wants to… Read More

New Blog: I know my loyal readers here on the Flash Report will be interested to know that I have a new blog on townhall.com known as the Green Eyeshade Blog. In my new role as chair of the Budget and Spending Taskforce for the RSC I will be posting a lot of information about fiscal matters before Congress on that blog. I’ll still be posting here on the FlashReport about many other issues and things related to California politics.

American Taxpayer’s Bill of Rights: In 34 of the last 38 years, the federal government has spent more money than it received in taxes. That’s through congresses controlled by both parties and presidents of both parties and every combination thereof. When the budget of 2008 is written, it will be 35 out of 39 years. Spending has run amok on every front – entitlements, earmarks, everything. In spite of the tax cuts of 2001 and 2003, revenue to the federal government constitutes about the same percentage of the economy as it has since 1960. I’ve told you before that the majority… Read More

The San Diego Ethics Commission has come to conclude they can over-rule the First Amendment…calling the ACLU!

(I read this first on www.redcountysandiego.com)

Rules push candidates into the woodwork San Diego Union Tribune Monday, March 12, 2007 By Logan Jenkins

News bulletin:

ZERO CANDIDATES RUNNING IN SAN DIEGO ELECTIONS!

The seats for council Districts 1, 3, 5 and 7 will open up wide in 2008, thanks to term limits, but not one early riser is out on the hustings hustling love or money, the mother’s milk of political ambition.

How does one account for this remarkable restraint?

In a word, ECCO.

OK, it’s not a word. It’s an acronym, not to be confused with eco-cool Danish footwear.

In the legalistic view of the Election Campaign Control Ordinance – approved by the San Diego City Council in late 2005; fine-tuned and enforced by the city’s Ethics Commission – a candidate is not a real candidate until the moment he/she receives or spends campaign funds.

Because ECCO strictly prohibits candidates… Read More

That is the headline from the alert I received from the Capitol Resource Institute. I have to admit, I’m surprised that there was a bump in this bill. I figured the Dems would pass it on and of course our Dudley Do-Gooder of a Governor would feel he knew better than parents what was good for everyone and of course make Merck lots of money. You can see the blow by blow here.

Kudos to GOPer’s Strickland, Huff and Gaines… Read More