Ron Nehring having been elected to the Chairmanship of the California Republican Party, the Chairman’s seat for the San Diego Republican Party has opened. In past weeks in various meetings and over the weekend at the GOP Convention, the whispers and commitments began in full force between potential candidates, committeemembers, and elected officials.

As of yesterday there were two strong candidates: Tony Krvaric (pictured to the left) and Mike McSweeney. Both are Party stalwarts with a commitment to the organization that has been built over the last several years. Both have the confidence of donors, officials, and activists.

At last night’s committee meeting (like the weekend wasn’t enough) however, Mr. McSweeney… Read More

I just received my California Republican Assembly Newspaper, and this is the issue that contains the CRA’s annual ranking of State Legislators. CRA President Mike Spence says the info on this will be online soon, but this is a good chance to give a ‘shout out’ to the legislators who scored a perfect 100% on the rating: Chuck DeVore, Bob Huff, Doug LaMalfa, Dennis Mountjoy, and Mimi Walters! Congratulations!

We’ll delve more into these ratings in the coming weeks. Some of the scores will surprise you!

It should come as a surprise, and a foreshadowing of the 2007 rated CRA bills, that all four of the major bond measures last year (1B, 1C, 1D, 1E) and the bloated state budget were all scored.… Read More

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

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