According to The Hill newspaper, right now California Congressman Duncan Hunter has more Congressional endorsements in his bid for the Presidency than former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani. Of course, maybe that actually helps The Mayor, since Congress isn’t so popular these days. Congratulations to Hoover Institution Fellow and FR friend Williamson "Bill" Evers who was tapped by W. to be Assistant Secretary of Education for Planning, Evaluation and Policy Development. Perhaps while there he can advise that "federalizing" education through programs like No Child Left Behind is a bad thing. In his Silicon Valley appearance yesterday, GOP Presidential hopeful Rudy Giuliani talked a lot about global warming. I don’t remember it being a big part of his talk to Republican leaders at the State GOP Convention last weekend… If Joel Stein’s column today in the Los Angeles Times where he describes the cloistered work of fellows at the Hoover Institute at Stanford is even close to accurate, we should all be lining up to spend time there. If you buy into the argument that all … Read More

Congressman Brian Bilbray (disclosure: Bilbray is a Coronado Communications client) announced that he is succeeding Congressman Tom Tancredo as chairman of the 91 memberImmigration Reform Caucus in the House of Representatives.

"The federal government’s refusal to act has only exacerbated the problems associated with illegal immigration," Bilbray said. "As Chairman of the Immigration Reform Caucus, I am calling on both the House and Senate to take action now. Republicans, Democrats, and the White House can agree that we need real employer enforcement and border security. Let’s at least take action on the things we agree on."

Building the fence would be a good start.… Read More

On Saturday morning, Senator Tom McClintock spoke as a breakfast event for my campaign for Vice Chairman, South of the State GOP (I won!). You can read his remarks here (I was very humbled by them, needless to say). California State Insurance Commissioner Steve Poizner also spoke as well. Below is a photo of the contingent of Orange County Young Republicans who attended (I’m an OCYR member myself) — nestled into the photo are also Senator McClintock, and Orange County GOP Chairman Scott Baugh (h/t to Anahita for the photo). That HUGE banner in the background is courtesy of FR friend Vince Monaco. … Read More

Over the fun-filled weekend up in Sacramento for the CRP Convention, it seemend that just about every 2nd or 3rd person I bumped into was running for aState Assembly seat next year. With a good-sized crop of incumbents terming out (we’ll at least according to the current schedule, they are), many folks well-known inside Republican circles are tossing their hats into the ring.

Over the next few days, I’ll roll a few of them out…

Most interesting of the crop though, and so where I begin is with my FR Blogpen member/CRA President Mike Spence.

Several very-in-the-knowpeople I talked to said they had heard Mike was actively looking for a piece of property in the Diamond Bar area — to move the 3 miles or so needed to be a resident of the 60th Assembly District — to begin a run to replace Assemblyman Bob Huff when Huff makes his way up the ladder next year.

I asked Mike about such rumors, to try to pull a quote out of him for this, but all he gave me was his usual big smile that typically means,… Read More

This past weekend, 1500 Republican leaders from all around the Golden State gathered for the biennial organization convention of the California Republican Party. Despite the rainy weather outside of the Capitol Hyatt Hotel and the Convention Center, inside Republicans were excited to be able to elect new Party leaders, and they selected some great ones. Lots has been and will be written about the weekend, and frankly I am ready to take some time off after spending months on the campaign trail myself. But I will take a few minutes to pen some brief observations from the weekend. My first one — our Republican Party remains 100% committed to our core Republican values. It was clear our new Chairman, Ron Nehring, and our new Vice Chairman, Tom Del Becarro, are committed to seeing the GOP win in elected by pushing our winning issues with the voters, not capitulating and adopting the positions of the liberal Democrat Party. As a matter of fact, there was a strong, vibrant campaign for Vice Chairman waged all weekend long at the convention, and both of the candidates were equally as conservative, both emphasizing the need for our Party to strike a… Read More

Here’s a story from the New York Sun on Mayor Rudy Giuliani’s visit to CA and bid to become the GOP nominee for president in 2008. FR blogger Mike Spence is quoted in this story.… Read More

This past weekend, 1500 Republican leaders from all around the Golden State gathered for the biennial organization convention of the California Republican Party. Despite the rainy weather outside of the Capitol Hyatt Hotel and the Convention Center, inside Republicans were excited to be able to elect new Party leaders, and they selected some great ones. Lots has been and will be written about the weekend, and frankly I am ready to take some time off after spending months on the campaign trail myself. But I will take a few minutes to pen some brief observations from the weekend. My first one — our Republican Party remains 100% committed to our core Republican values. It was clear our new Chairman, Ron Nehring, and our new Vice Chairman, Tom Del Becarro, are committed to seeing the GOP win in elected by pushing our winning issues with the voters, not capitulating and adopting the positions of the liberal Democrat Party. As a matter of fact, there was a strong, vibrant campaign for Vice Chairman waged all weekend long at the convention, and both of the candidates were equally as conservative, both emphasizing the need for our Party to strike a… Read More

When former Chairman Mike Schroeder, decided that serving for only two years was not enough, he changed the Bylaws allowing the Chair man to extend their term another two years, if approved by the delegates. Duf Sundheim was the first Chairman to serve 4 continuous years. As we know it’s a full time job that offers no salary.

Ron Nehring was just elected as Chairman to his first term without opposition. He did this before when he was elected as Vice Chairman. No opposition. In the CRP, it is rare for a someone to reach the top spot with out having a contest, for Vice Chairman or for Chairman. Ron is someone to watch.

Tom Del Beccaro won his Vice Chairmanship spending relatively little money. Usually such contests have gone for over $100,000 per candidate. Del Beccaro instead made over 250 speaking appearances last year and earned a huge grass roots following.

The moderate vs conservative factions had very few contests. Tom Bordonaro and Tom Del Beccaro are both good guys and movement… Read More