There will be more to come about the California Republican Party convention in coming days — as longtime FR readers know, as a blogger who is also an elected officer of the party, it is difficult for me to devote a lot of time the weekend of the convention to writing about it in real time.

That said, while this convention has been a lot of fun, I have to say as a politico that so far the best "entertainment value" of the weekend was enjoyed by the small group of people who occupied the press conference room yesterday afternoon to hear the media availabilities of Steve Poizner and Meg Whitman — both of which were quite stimulating.

Poizner opened his availability with some thoughts on his policy agenda — he was not scheduled to speak until the dinner last night and so he hit some details for the reporters presents. A portion of Poizner’s plan to revitalize California’s economy is a 10% reduction in tax rates to stimulate economic growth. Poizner’s assertion that lowering the rates would actually increase state tax revenues was met with a number of questions from reporters about this assertion — wanting more… Read More

Today I announced my lawsuit against Attorney General Jerry Brown for abusing the power and authority of the AG’s office when Brown wrote an overtly biased “title and summary” for a state ballot initiative that I submitted earlier this year.

The attorney general is required by law to meet a higher standard of fairness and impartiality when he drafts petitions, as well as ballot title and summaries. But instead, Brown cast his duties aside and played into the politics of ACORN and other Left Wing groups who oppose any type of voter reform. In the process, Californians were robbed of any degree of impartiality by Jerry Brown.

Earlier this year, I submitted Vote SAFE, a ballot measure that would improve California’s voting process by requiring voters to present photo identification at the polls; allow county Registrar of Voters additional time to count military votes that are mailed in from outside the U.S.; and protect the identity of absentee voters by concealing the voter’s signature on the envelope.

The Vote SAFE measure takes pains to make sure everyone has an opportunity to vote by allowing voters who don’t possess ID to vote provisionally,… Read More

Yesterday morning my commentary highlighted the back-and-forth between Team Whitman and Team Poizner sparked by the Sacramento Bee’s story on Meg Whitman not voting in elections. As with any back-and-forth, you have to stop at some point and write about it. Shortly after I penned that piece, the Whitman campaign had this comment on Poizner spokesman Jarrod Agen’s last volley (read it here)…

“Our campaign’s release was not only justified, it was an understated response to a wild-eyed, hysterical statement released by a Poizner staffer asking Meg to drop out of the race. Steve Poizner did in fact create a group that financed liberal Democratic campaigns, like Gray Davis 2002 gubernatorial campaign against Bill Simon, and Poizner has also failed to vote in various elections.”

—Tucker Bounds… Read More

State Senator Jeff Denham is clearly the frontrunner for the GOP nomination for Lt. Governor — he's been running for a while now and has built up money in the bank and a mega-sized endorsement list.

Denham talked about winning election to a Senate Seat gerrymandered to elect a Democrat. Denham talked about how, with the help of Republicans statewide, he crushed a cynical recall attempt against him funded by Sacramento Democrats.

Denham talked about the importance of a bold message from Republicans — drawing a clear distinction between our party and that of the Democrats.… Read More

Now speaking to the Republican County Chairmen is Gubernatorial candidate Meg Whitman, who was introduced by ardent supporter State Senator Tony Strickland.

Whitman talked about her background, including her work for Mitt Romney which later in life let to her support of his for President. And of course she told her story of the growth of eBay on her watch.

Whitman spoke a lot about how California's over-regulation has been strangling job creation. She spoke about her call to suspend AB 32. She spoke about overspending and the need to eliminate 40k workers from the government payroll. She also touched on the need for reform of the education system.

Of course, I don't want to leave out that Whitman was accompanied by Senior Campaign strategist Jeff Randle.… Read More

Insurance Commissioner Steve Poizner is now addressing the CCA — his four major policy objectives to encourage job creation: tax cuts, reform labor laws, tort reform, reform labor laws and overhaul the state's regulatory system. Poizner was well received.… Read More

Assemblyman Dan Logue just introduced his colleague, State Senator Sam Aanestad, to the CCA meeting. Aanestad is speaking right now, and making the case for why Republicans should choose him as our nominee for Lt. Governor.

FR reported earlier in the week that Aanestad had announced his candidacy. Aanestad touted the endorsement of Congressman Tom McClintock — and that of former U.S. Senator Fred Thompson.

Aanestad's late entry into this primary gives him a challenge shared by Carly Fiorina that I mentioned in the post below — his opponent, Senator Jeff Denham, has been endorsed by virtually the entire GOP universe of elected officials in California, such as they are.… Read More

Though not here at the California Republican Party Convention, the campaign of Carly Fiorina for U.S. Senate is showing definate activity. They just announced endorsements from five former Chairmen of the CRP: John Herrington, Tirsi Del Junco, Bob Naylor, Frank Visco, and Mike Montogemery.

Marty Wilson, a senior strategist for the Fiorina campaign, announced to the Republican County Chairmen's Association that former CRP Executive Director and former RNC Regional Field Representative John Peschong would be heading up Fiorina's statewide political operations.

As we have mentioned before, Wilson's business partner, Beth Miller, will be handling campaign communications.

Wilson told County Chairmen that their campaign pollster will be the Tarrance Company and their media consultant will be Fred Davis.

Of course Fiorina's entry into the primary over a year after the entry of Assemblyman Chuck DeVore means she will be playing “catch up” on endorsements for quite some time — with DeVore having claimed the lionshare of elected GOP officeholders around the state…… Read More