In today’s San Francisco Chronicle, political writer Carla Marinucci has penned a feature story about the rise of conservative web sites in California politics, and spends a large portion of the article on the FlashReport. While I published the FR as a e-newsletter for years, the last four months that we have been online have really seen a surge in our readership and role in the process. I want to encourage all FR readers to check out Marinucci’s piece, which begins below.
This article coming out is a great time to thank some important folks without whom this all would not be happenned: First and foremost I want to thank our site contributors on the Weblog — this is a dedicated group of connected California politicos who DONATE their time to keep you all ‘in the loop’ in every corner of the state, in our state and federal capitols. I would also like to thank the dozens of prominent folks who pen the great columns that you read featured on this site. I’d like to give a ‘shout out’ to my development team at Cloudspace, for working diligently with me to custom-design the FlashReport. Of course, the advertisers on the FR help to make sure we can keep the site in a constant state of improvement. I’d especially like to thank the "Friends of the FlashReport" who helped to bring this site up originally. Finally I want to recognize YOU, the many thousands of readers who come to the FR each day to get a birds-eye view on politics in the Golden State!
Here is the article from the Chronicle, which also highlights the efforts of my friends Steve and Tom. Congrats guys! (The photo appears in the paper, and is me typing away last Wednesday morning, with a photographer in my house!)
– Carla Marinucci, Chronicle Political Writer
In the hour before Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger began his State of the State address — and as Sacramento legislators and reporters speculated breathlessly on its contents — the real scoop, in the form of a personal 45-minute briefing by three top administration staffers, went to a longtime Republican loyalist who holds no public office and doesn’t live or work in Sacramento.
And Jon Fleischman, 38, of Irvine still seems a bit amazed that he received the kind of VIP care-and-feeding not afforded to powerful Democratic legislators such as state Senate Pro Tem Don Perata and Assembly Speaker Fabian Núñez.
The special treatment may have been understandable: Fleischman is publisher of the FlashReport — a proudly Republican, unabashedly conservative daily Internet publication devoured by thousands of the most connected political insiders, activists and junkies in the nation’s most populous state.
"You don’t have to work in the halls of Congress or the Capitol to know what’s going on; you just have to get on the Internet," said Fleischman, who personally received a call from Schwarzenegger to explain his decision to hire Susan Kennedy — a controversial Democrat — as his chief of staff, before the governor publicly announced it at a news conference.
The careful courting by top administration officials of a former deputy executive director of the state GOP — a man who still hasn’t given up his day job as spokesman for Orange County Sheriff Mike Carona — is just an example of how the Internet has helped create an unexpected new breed of power brokers in Sacramento.
In a matter of months, Fleischman’s FlashReport has become the granddaddy of a troika of conservative Internet publishers with deep GOP roots who are fast upending the old Sacramento political dynamic — in which buttonholing legislators, showing up at fundraisers and dining at clubby restaurants like Frank Fats were the most efficient ways to reach big influence-peddlers.
Such Internet sites are becoming "the high-tech equivalent of happy hour across the street from the Capitol,” said GOP strategist Dan Schnur, whose blog is a feature of the FlashReport.
"The only difference is that people are exchanging their opinions across much greater distance,” Schnur said, "and their thoughts tend to last much longer than closing time.’"
Fleischman cautions that the work "shouldn’t be confused with the mainstream media.”
"I’m not objective,” he says. "I don’t pretend not to try and take sides. I think, by and large, Republicans are right and Democrats are wrong.”
Still, legislators and political insiders from the statehouse to the White House say publishers like Fleischman are becoming essential to finding out what’s up, who’s hiring who — and who is messing with who in the world of politics.
"He’s obviously become one of several phenoms around the country, but in California — he’s the guy,” said Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Vista, of Fleischman’s growing influence in the political sphere. "He’s the Matt Drudge of California.”
And Rep. John Campbell of Orange County said legislators are turning to online publications like the FlashReport to communicate to their constituents — and fellow Republicans — on time-critical issues.
"Sometimes, I can take 45 minutes and shake hands with 25 people,” said Campbell, who has written opinions and put out his statements on the FlashReport. "Or I can take 30 minutes, write a blog, and speak to 20,000 in the same period of time. ”
Ruben Barrales, White House deputy assistant to President Bush and a former San Mateo County supervisor, said Republicans with California roots have become increasingly wired to Fleischman’s alternative brand of news because he has credibility.
"People know he’s serious about his approach, and there’s a confidence about his fact-checking,” Barrales says. "He understands the players, the politics and the history of California politics.”
Even Democrats admit to tuning in daily for their fix.
"Most people know I’m a big believer in opposition research,” wrote veteran Democratic strategist Garry South in his humorous review of the site. "When I want to find out what the Luddites and troglodytes on the other side of the aisle are thinking, the FlashReport always provides good — and free — insight.”
Read the rest of the story online here or download it as a .pdf here.
Have a great Sunday!
Jon
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