A couple of days ago, I kinda loosely criticized the SD Union-Tribune for the lack of coverage following Ron Nehring’s Sunday election as chairman of the state GOP (see the post).

As it turns out, I missed the fact that two days BEFORE the "ascension," the SDUT ran a detailed story by John Marelius on the anticipated Nehring victory (read it here), including this great lede:

Ron Nehring’s lifelong political odyssey has taken him to some of the most turbulent outposts on the planet – Iraq, Bosnia, the West Bank, Haiti, the Grossmont Union High School District and now the California Republican Party. My reason for missing it — although I have no excuse — can only be explained by my travel to the Sacramento GOP convention the day of the story (who reads the paper on the plane, when there’s such good foodto be had?).

So, my apologies… Read More

The CRA Scorecard is here. And it has some interesting items. You can see the press release here.

Unfortunately, there were only 5 Assemblymembers that received %100 (La Malfa, Huff, Mountjoy, Walters And DeVore). No one in the State Senate received a perfect score. 60 lawmakers, all democrats earned a ZERO.

Lowest GOP Score: Shirley Horton 35%. Other interesting tidbits is looking at lawmakers that may run against each other for higher office. FR’s Doug La Malfa (100%) and Rick Keene (71%). Or things that make go huh? like Keith Richman (65%) earning a higher score than Bill Emmerson (47%).

Tom Harmon almost beat Abel Maldanado in the Senate even though he missed 8 votes in the Senate, because he wasn’t elected there yet! CRA has a policy (before my time) of scoring absences against the lawmaker. The philosophy has been that they "get paid to vote". Sometimes scores get hurt that way. For example Todd Spitzer missed the votes on the bonds, becasue his wife was giving birth, so they were… Read More

I know this is not the trendy opinion, but I think the move to change the primary date to February is a foolish idea.

The first time the idea came up was in 1994, when the Assemblyman Jim Costa suggested that California move its primary to late March to "make California" more relevant. Costa said he was tired of California being the bank for the rest of the country. Candidates should do more than just visit California for money, he said. The vote was usually over by June, he said, so California is not relevant to the ultimate selection of the parties’ nominees. A March primary was supposed to be an experiment to increase the influence of the state. I actually voted for that bill to test the Costa experiment.

It was a failure. The primary was over one week before the late March date. More important than that, it also made the state’s legislative and Congressional primaries a mess.

Asecond attempt to move the presidential primary to early March in 2000 failed as well. The experiments failed for one simple reason. Every time California moved its primary, every other state moved its primary ahead of California so that… Read More

I don’t know about you, but to me, it seems like sometime in the last couple of weeks, it seems like someone flipped a switch and the 2008 Presidential primary has begun! Here in California, Democratic Presidential contender Barack Obama and GOP Presidential hopeful Rudy Giuliani are both making multi-day swings. Of course the other front-runners – Hillary Clinton, John Edwards, John McCain and Mitt Romney – have all been out campaigning in the Golden State, and all have plans to return here again soon. Of course, with the high likelihood of Californian’s Presidential primary moving up to next February (the bill has already passed the State Senate on the fast-track and is now awaiting action in the Assembly), these visits will increase even more as all of theses candidates will need to visit not only to raise money from our donor-rich state, but suddenly our delegates become more meaningful in the quest for each Party’s respective nomination. Looking at the GOP… Read More

I don’t know about you, but to me, it seems like sometime in the last couple of weeks, it seems like someone flipped a switch and the 2008 Presidential primary has begun! Here in California, Democratic Presidential contender Barack Obama and GOP Presidential hopeful Rudy Giuliani are both making multi-day swings. Of course the other front-runners – Hillary Clinton, John Edwards, John McCain and Mitt Romney – have all been out campaigning in the Golden State, and all have plans to return here again soon. Of course, with the high likelihood of Californian’s Presidential primary moving up to next February (the bill has already passed the State Senate on the fast-track and is now awaiting action in the Assembly), these visits will increase even more as all of theses candidates will need to visit not only to raise money from our donor-rich state, but suddenly our delegates become more meaningful in the quest for each Party’s respective nomination. Looking at the GOP… Read More

I believe Tom Del Becarro must be a greatguy, and a strong conservative leader, because Jon Fleischman, Steve Frank, and so many others have told me so, and the majority of delegates at the recent California Republican Party convention seem to have validated that feeling, when Tom was elected State GOP Vice-Chairman. I admire leadership, and people willing to take a stand, and a risk for a good cause. I’ve known Mike Schroeder to be just such a person for many years. I can tell you thatMike Schroeder’scontributions to the cause have truly made a difference for the cause of freedom and liberty, and I have heard the same about Tom Del Becarro. So it is with that in mind that I have to still come to question the wisdom ofDel Becarro and a group of northern California GOP activists, and their lawyer Mike Schroeder,intheir (now losing)lawsuitto remove JerryBrown as Attorney General because he changed his bar dues status to "inactive" for a couple years while he was Mayor of Oakland. Brown, a former Governor and Secretary of State, has been a lawyer in California for over 40 years. He is clearly qualified to be Attorney… Read More

SB 113, the bill to move up California’s Presidential Primary from June to February, flies through the Senate today, 31-5.All "no" votes were by Republicans. The billwasthen hurried to the Assembly Rules Committee today, where they met off our floor during session. It then passed out of the Rules Committee[over Republican objections on process, the bill hasn’t been in print 30 days] I half-expected a bunch of rule waivers to bring it to our floor today but that didn’t happen, it would take 60 floor votes to waive the "30 days in print" rule. We’ll see what they try Friday. Amazing how quick a bill can move sometimes, when the Legislature is "motivated"….… Read More

Giuliani is doing well with LA folks. First the Supervisors, now Congressman David Dreier.

The release follows

Congressman David Dreier Announces Support for Mayor Giuliani

New York, Feb 13 –

In a sign of continuing momentum, the Rudy Giuliani Presidential Exploratory Committee today announced Congressman David Dreier, Chairman of the California Republican Congressional Delegation and House Rules Committee Ranking Republican, has announced his support for Mayor Rudy Giuliani to be the next President of the United States. Dreier’s endorsement follows the rousing reception Mayor Giuliani received at the California State Republican Convention and his successful swing through the state. Dreier will help lead Mayor Giuliani’s exploratory committee efforts in California.

Congressman Dreier said, "America needs the proven leadership of Rudy Giuliani to tackle… Read More