As a newly elected and freshly appointed delegate from San Luis Obispo County, I and my other Tea Party colleagues were looking forward to our first California Republican Party Convention in March. But when we got there we didn’t find engaged activists seeking to take back our State. Instead we found young, middle-aged and older Republicans at the Convention ready to socialize and have a good time.

Since then, every meeting fellow Tea Party Caucus founders Lydia and Norm Thompson and I attended was more of a report on how bad things were than a plan for the future of the California Republican Party. “Where are our principles?” we asked the moderators at every meeting.

Other meeting attendees told us they felt the same way but had no voice. Tea Party members and conservatives felt they had lost their party. Our passion for change resonated.

By the end of the March convention we had a clear picture; it was clearly possible a Tea Party Caucus could be held at the next convention.

I immediately contacted Dawn Wildman, a family friend and Tea Party member, to help us create the Tea Party Caucus. Dawn had given up on the RINO’s years… Read More

Last weekend the California Republican Party held its Fall Convention at the Anaheim Hilton Hotel in the heart of Orange County. The event, attended by the better part of a thousand GOP activists and leaders, was a successful one. It has become customary after these conventions for me to publish a “winners and losers” column, singling out those who had a meaningful convention, one way or the other. A big should out to the many people who supplied me with their suggestions. These events are expansive and so it’s helpful to have… Read More

The fate of Republican candidates in marginal districts depends on a number of factors: turnout rates, top of the ticket performance and party favorability among them. The later especially matters in state and federal races where party label appears next to a candidate’s name on the ballot.

Republican candidates and strategists should be concerned with Gallup data released this week showing that the Republican Party’s favorability rating has dropped to 28% — a historic low, and 10 points lower than it was a month ago.

This is not helpful.

In his book Courage and Consequence Karl Rove correctly notes that the higher the office, the more likely the voters will see the candidates for who they truly are. The reverse is also true: the lower the office, the more voters don’t know the candidates by name, and by extension need to rely on other signals – such as their party affiliation.

For this reason party favorability has a disproportionate impact on downticket candidates for state and federal office.

… Read More

Sadly, this is no surprise.  But it's it's still news worth considering (every year, apparently).

In its annually updated study released today, the Tax Foundation STILL ranks California

the third worst "business tax climate" state in the U.S.

Thank Goodness for New Jersey and anchor-clanker New York.

http://taxfoundation.org/article/2014-state-business-tax-climate-index

Government Shutdown Day 9: “Increasing America’s debt weakens us domestically and internationally. Leadership means that ‘the buck stops here’. Instead, Washington is shifting the burden of bad choices today onto the backs of our children and grandchildren. America has a debt problem and a failure of leadership. Americans deserve better. I therefore intend to oppose the effort to increase America’s debt limit.”

That sounds like something I would say, doesn’t it? But, I didn’t say it. Barack Obama said it on the Senate floor on March 16, 2006 just before he voted against a “clean” debt limit increase, which barely passed the Senate by a 52-48 vote. The quote above is from the last paragraph of a roughly two page speech that you can find in its entirety linked HERE.

Now, I understand that people can change their minds. In fact, I have often said that there is no shame in a… Read More

[Editor’s Note:Bill Evers, a member of the State Executive Committee and State Central Committee of the California Republican Party, introduced a party resolution on Common Core at this past weekend’s CA GOP Convention.]

Across America, parents, teachers, and politically-active community members are asking questions about a program in public schools called Common Core. Skepticism about the Common Core national curriculum-content standards first surfaced when they were published and adopted (with federal pressure) in the space of a few weeks in the summer of 2010. The original skeptics were those who were dissatisfied with the academic rigor of the standards. (Standards are a list of topics K-12 students are expected to learn in each grade.)

Skepticism quickly spread to… Read More

As reported in the Sacramento Bee on Sept. 26 “Teachers union, SEIU open wallets to California Republican Party,” in recent weeks the California Teachers Association donated the California GOP $15,000, the SEIU Local 1000 donated $10,000, and the California Correctional Peace Officers Association donated another $25,000. Representatives of all three of these powerful public sector unions were present at the GOP convention in Anaheim last weekend.

As a proportion of total GOP fundraising in California in 2013, $50,000 is small potatoes. Under the leadership of their new chairman Jim Brulte, theCalifornia GOP has raised over $3.0 million so far in 2013, enough to pay off their debts and put them onto viable financial footing. As a proportion of total public sector union political spending in California, $50,000 is even smaller potatoes. Just the CTA, with 325,000 members who on average pay over $1,000 per year in dues – about 30% of which is used for political activities – spends around $100 million per year to… Read More

Government Shutdown Day 8: The outrage continues over the Obama administration’s extreme actions to punish the American people through orders given to the park service. Vietnam vets were physically removed this week from viewing the Vietnam War Memorial, which I’m sure most of you know consists of a wall entirely outside in a park. The Liberty Bell in Philadelphia is inside a closed building, but is visible through a window. The Obama administration had the window covered up so you couldn’t even see the bell from the outside. And, the Feds barricaded the road in front of Mount Rushmore so that no one can even drive by and see this monument. Problem is, however, the road is not a federal road. It’s a state highway. So, the good people of the state of South Dakota asked the Park Service to remove the barricades from the state highway. The Feds refused to do so, citing that while it may be a state highway, it is on Federal land. But, then a heavy snow came just a few days ago. The snow plows belonging to the people of South Dakota plowed their roadway and plowed all those Obama administration barricades, signs and cones right into the ditch, where they… Read More