As my wife and I were driving to The Claremont Institute’s Winston Churchill Dinner honoring columnist Mark Steyn this past Friday, we listened to John & Ken on KFI-AM.

J & K were expressing their frustration that state Sen. John Campbell would not be attending their 48th CD special election forum that was held last night. [Full disclosure time: I was a consultant on John Campbell’s first campaign for Assembly in 2000, and I would vote for him today if I still lived in that district]

I like listening to John & Ken as much as the next conservative. I don’t share their near-obsession with illegal immigration, but they do a public service in keeping the issue on the political front-burner.

At the same time, they are so far in the tank for Jim Gilchrist that I suspect that John Kobylt, especially, will say anything to further Gilchrist’s candidacy.

For example, this past Friday, Kobylt was telling listeners there were two Republicans on the ballot,… Read More

In the week since Governor Schwarzenegger has appointed Susan Kennedy to be his new Chief of Staff, GOP grassroots volunteers and donors up and down the state have been reacting strongly to the news. Whether it is her former positions as Gray Davis’ Deputy Chief of Staff, Executive Director of the California Democrat Party, Senior Staffer to Senator Dianne Feinstein, or her post as Executive Director of the California Abortion Rights Action League — news of the appointment is really ginning up ire.

Apparently the members of the California Republican Party Board of Directors have been really been feeling the heat. So much so that they held an emergency telephonic meeting of the Board of Directors late last week, and coming out of that meeting have asked for an in-person meeting with Schwarzenegger to discuss Kennedy’s appointment, as well as go-forward plans between the Governor and the State GOP. One area that will certainly need to be ironed out is who will represent the… Read More

Overlooked in the riots against the Kennedy coup in the horseshoe were comments by a couple of Los Angeles County legislators regarding the appointment.

As reported in the San Gabriel Valley Tribune by Mike Sprague

Huff said he now wonders if Schwarzenegger will be willing to sign legislation on driver licenses for undocumented immigrants.

State Sen. Bob Margett, R-Glendora, said he’s concerned Schwarzenegger may not have thought out the ramifications of the appointment.

… Read More

I just received an email from William Bennett Finn, the VERY capable political reporter for the North San Diego County Times.

He sent the following:

Wyland announces run for state Senate

After weeks of speculation over whether he would decide to run for Congress or the state Senate or both, Mark Wyland told the North County Times on Monday that he will definitely run for the state Senate seat now held by Bill Morrow, R-Oceanside.

Morrow will leave office due to term limits and has already declared his candidacy for the 50th District congressional seat that until last week was held by Randy "Duke" Cunningham.

Wyland’s announcement to run for the Senate would appear to take him… Read More

My very first job in politics was for Bruce Herschensohn’s 1992 campaign for U. S. Senate. He embodied everything I believed in. He was also a good and kind and gentle man who to this day can articulate the conservative-small government principled position on any issue better than anyone I have ever heard or read.

Others have already written about how much Bruce has meant to them, but I feel compelled to write my own story and make sure we all remember that it is the dirty-work of Susan Kennedy that tanked Bruce’s chances in that pivotal election.

I won’t rehash the details, Jon Fleischman explains them well.

And I won’t even suggest that the dirty-tricks that Susan Kennedy (then executive director of the California Democratic Party) pulled were any worse than some tactics we see today.

But I keep coming back to why? Why the… Read More

Bill Leonard, one of the two Republican Members of the Board of Equalization, is well regarding throughout California. During his time on the Board, as well as many, many years preceding that as a member of both the State Senate and State Assembly, Leonard has earned a reputation for being smart, thoughtful and articulate Republican Leader. Today in his weekly e-mail, the Leonard Letter, the Board of Equalization Member had some very strong words on the Governor’s appointment of former Gray Davis’ Deputy Chief of Staff, Susan Davis, to head up his own staff:

So here I am…nice peaceful Sunday…hanging out with a friend… eating some cold pizza…drinking coffee and reading the Sacramento Bee (I don’t make this stuff up folks) and on comes the Rollins Band’s "What’s the matter, man" on her Sirius sattelite radio.

Rewind a few days…I’m having lunch with my back yard neighbor AG Block and the conversation obviously turns to politics…. Abramoff, DeLay, Congressman John Doolittle, and the Sacramento Bee’s complete silence on this political cold sore blemishing the face of our party. Always one to call em as he sees em…Blockfired off a note to the goofy Bee saying he’d just done a google on "John Doolittle and Abramoff" and of the 20,000 hits resulting…none were from The Bee. Block, a veteranjournalist, was blown away at how the Congressman’s hometown newspaper had missed this story.

As I read the Bee’s… Read More

My least favorite legislator—Senator Jackie Speier, a Democrat from the Bay Area—wants to change the lieutenant governor’s office from a “do-nothing” office into an activist office which has its hands in higher education and consumer issues. In fact, she thinks the lieutenant governor should be the "guardian of higher education in California.”

Everyone who runs for the lieutenant governor job wants to make it more important than it is. Frankly, to make it a more valuable job, we should run the governor and lieutenant governor on the same ticket…but that’s another topic. Mostly, what the state doesn’t need is Jackie Speier in… Read More