I just received this email from Assemblyman Chuck DeVore, Vice-Chairman of the Assembly Veterans Affairs Committee and a Lieutenant Colonel in the Cal Guard:

Stuck in Iraq or foot stuck in mouth? Speaking yesterday at a rally for Democratic gubernatorial candidate Phil Angelides at Pasadena City College, Sen. John Kerry said, "You know, education, if you make the most of it, you study hard, you do your homework and you make an effort to be smart, you can do well. If you don’t, you get stuck in Iraq." "Stuck in Iraq." Senator Kerry owes the men and women of the military an immediate apology and Phil Angelides should immediately distance himself from Kerry wrong-headed remarks, but, given Angelides’s call to pull the Guard out of Iraq AND off… Read More

If you are in politics you need to have a HIGH RESOLUTION digital picture of yourself available on the Internet for easy access.

This is just one of those things I’ve have come to realize after dealing with independant expenditures every election cycle.

EXAMPLE: You are a city council member running for re-election. You are waging a decent campaign but could always use some extra help. Some key business leaders do a poll and find that while you are leading in the polls, you could use some support. Since I did the poll, they ask me to spend $50,000 on your behalf (a few mail pieces, buy some slates, perhaps some paid precinct walkers).

If your photo is not readily available I have a problem.

For that same reason, you should always have a current web page with your most recent CV and even some news clips and quotes on key issues… Read More

So John Kerry’s defense of his reprehensible comment today is that he was really talking about the President’s education. Riiiiight. Let’s see, the President has a degree from…….oh yeah…..Yale! SoKerry means that a degree from Yale constitutes an inadequate education? Or did he really mean what he said?… Read More

I don’t know if there are any more seats available for what will certainly be a ‘must see’ event in Sacramento tomorrow — but FR Publisher Jon Fleischman will be one of three participants on a panel about the Big Bang Bonds package entitled, "California’s Future: What’s At Stake This November" — the other two panelists – Assembly Speak Fabian Nunez and Maria Alegria, the President if the League of California Cities. Nunez, of course, supported all of the bonds and voted for them — Alegria’s League of Cities has endorsed the entire infrastructure package as well. Moderating the ‘discussion’ will be Mark Baldassare of the Public Policy Institute of California, which is co-sponsoring this event along with the New America Foundation (longtime FR friend Dave Lesher is their California guy). The event is at the downtown Sacramento Sheraton from Noon – 1:30pm, and here is a link to the info. MEET THE… Read More

I am profoundly disappointed at the announcement made today by Arnold Schwarzenegger that he is opposed to Proposition 90, the Save Our Homes Initiative. All of those I know who have been supporting and working hard on the Governor’s reelection are strongly supporting 90. I’m sure they will all be equally dismayed. Some things just make you go, “Huh?”

That’s all I will say for now… As someone said (my mom?), if you don’t have something nice to say…… Read More

In an exclusive to the Flash Report, poll results to be released today show:

StevePoizner 45.7% Cruz Bustamante 29.6% Undecided 15.2% Cafiero 4.4% Ogden 4.0%

The poll was conducted by the venerable Jan van Lohuizen from October 26 – 30. The sample was 600 likely voters.

Helping todrive the figuresarehigh negatives for Cruz – 56.8% unfavorable to 28.2%favorable. In other words, almost 2 out of 3voters don’t like Cruz.

With 8 more days remaining the trendis strengtheningfor Steve Poizner.

Can’t wait to welcome him to Sacramento!.… Read More

Fox’s Hannity and Colmes featured Prop 90 heroine Mimi Walters on their focus on property rights and victims of private property takings abuse by government the other night. See an excerpt of Prop 90 State Chair, Assemblywoman Mimi Walters at the www.90yes.comhome page.… Read More

Over the weekend, FR San Diego Correspondent Duane Dichiara posted a fascinating and necessarily lengthy recounting of his origins in the Republican Party and I mentioned in the morning FlashReport email our readers receive that I would probably post on UC President Dynes’s efforts to repeal Proposition 209, the voter-approved statewide measure that eliminated race as an admissions criteria in the UC system (among other places). Unfortunately, graduate school duties frustrated my plans, but I didn’t lose interest.

I refer to Dichiara’s post at the opening of this commentary because Proposition 209 and college campus ethnic relations issues are the reason I am in politics today. I grew up knowing I was a Republican and why. I will be the first to grant my parents are responsible for that. But I wasn’t involved in politics until I went to college and was struck by the high level ofethnic consciousness present there.

What was the… Read More