As I begin to write about the California Republican Party Convention that I attended this weekend at the Fairmont Hotel in San Jose, I should start out by saying that as the week goes by, I (along with many other FR weblog contributors who attended the convention) will be following this piece with other thoughts, observations, stories and vignettes on things that happened in the hallways, backrooms, and hospitality suites at the convention. Of course, the highlight of our review of the CRP convention will come late in the week when the FlashReport releases our latest version of the Winners & Losers of the CRP convention. For the last ten convention (going back five years), the W&L edition of the FR has looked back over the weekend, from just about every imaginable angle, and tried to figure out how people fared, from topics as varied as political elections to personal attire. We really encourage input as we figure this all out, as the FR and our team couldn’t be everywhere, so please submit your ideas here.
My first observation from the convention is that Republicans are excited and energized coming out of this convention to score some major victories this November. Enthusiasm for Governor Schwarzenegger’s re-election chances was high (despite some concerns on some policies, which I will talk about further down in this column), and there was a lot of energy on the down-ticket races — especially for our Lieutenant Governor candidate, State Senator Tom McClintock.
With over a thousand registered participants at the convention, it was noticable how focused attendees were on maximizing their convention experience in terms of taking home information, and receiving training. On Friday, the party conducted a top-notch campaign school that was filled to over-capacity, and on Saturday there were a ton of workshops, mostly filling to the brim. Lorelei Kinder, the State GOP’s convention content manager (or something like that) told me that over 60% of registrants participated in the workshops (which is great).
The series of meal speakers ranging from the Governor, Senator Tom McClintock and Secretary of State Bruce McPherson were well received.
Of course, I have to take an opportunity to thank convention attendees on behalf of the FlashReport. Not only did me and my fellow FR contributors get deluged with positive feedback about the site, but our Saturday afternoon workshop was well attended, and Congressman Darrell Issa’s Saturday evening hospitality suite celebrating the FR’s first successful 5 month as a website was a smashing success!
The healthiest debate taking place all over the convention was about the Democrat candidates running for Governor – you see, Republican ARE divided – but we are divided over which of these two jokers is the candidate we would like to face in November. By the way, as we gear up for the battle against these two, check out today’s featured article by Dan Schnur, FR’s State Capitol Correspondent, on Democrat candidate for Governor Phil Angelides…
Having attended convention for many, many years. I am an expert on identifying when a convention is really negative and divided. There are a lot of signs – some of which would include – arguments in the hallways, nasty buttons and flyers (some of which are creative and entertaining, I will admit), and lots of secret meetings of various factions that distract us from having fun. Those kinds of things simply weren’t going on. I guess the most negative stuff I saw going on where the plethora of "dis-able Abel" stickers on a lot of State Senator Abel Maldonado’s campaign signs. He took a lot of heat over the weekend for his sponsoring of legislation to mandate that business raise their wages for employees. Another sign of a peaceful convention was pointed out to me by CRP Resolutions Committee Chairman (and former Los Angeles County District Attorney) Bob Philibosian while we were at the airport, when he commented about how there were no negative flyers stuffed under his hotel room door at this convention.
To be honest, a lot of credit goes to CRP Chairman Duf Sundheim for his setting the tone for a full debate on the convention floor. There are some differences of opinions in some quarters about the nuances of how some of the controversial resolutions were (or weren’t) reported out of committee, but nevertheless what I observed as a delegate was a vigorous, but civilized debate on the floor of the convention.
I was also pretty pleased as a Republican who felt it was important to make some important statements at the convention. While the convention Team Arnold folks (by this I mean the folks with the fancy ‘Team Arnold Staff’ plastic badges – Jeff Randle, et.al. – there are a lot us on the bigger "Team Arnold" who want to work to re-elect the Governor) put together quite an operation for this convention, organized around the red-herring threat of pulling a pre-primary endorsement (which never really rose to the level of being credible), some significant statements were made by delegates on the floor:
1) A resolution was passed about the importance of appointing Republican judges. This in response to the fact that a plurality of Schwarzenegger’s appointments thus-far have gone to non-GOPers.
2) Assemblyman Chuck DeVore successfully proposed pulling language out of a resolution that would have commented the Governor’s budget for being balanced – the Assemblyman made the correct observation that it is not.
3) In a very significant vote, a resolution that came to the floor with a "DO PASS" recommendation from the resolutions committee to support a major component of the Governor’s infrastructure plan, including bonded indebtedness, was voted down on the floor (well, technically it was sent back into a committee, but the effect was to kill it). Thus delegates on the floor demonstrated their concern over massive borrowing.
There are some that want to say that ‘conservatives lost a fight’ at the convention because a package of more strongly worded resolutions was bottled up in committee. I submit to you that conservatives were divided at the convention. Not on whether they are frustrated with some of the leftward shift in the Governor’s policies since December, but on what to do about it. I am quite certain that a vast majority of the delegates this weekend would like the Governor to drop his bond plan, but that doesn’t mean they want to fight about it in front of the press. And as for highlighting the differences of approach from conservatives – I will only use myself as an example. Any reader of this publication know how I feel about some of this years policy shifts. Yet, I was not involved with the resolutions this weekend – I didn’t even attend the key meeting at which the resolutions were discussed. I didn’t lobby committee-members, nor did I make a plea to delegates coming to convention, almost all of whom read this publication, to come to the convention and pass them.
So, Republicans who are concerned about some of these areas I believe have successfully sent a message to the Governor. But did so in the spirit of camaraderie. The way that you would help your brother with his homework. We are 100% behind the Governor’s re-election and you can tell that because every speaker seemed to stress that point, regardless of speaking for or against each item. These were POLICY discussions.
The challenge for this Governor is going to be to figure out some positive conservative policies to emphasize in 2006 to help bring conservatives along as part of the team. In my opinion, just running down the center, and counting on the specter of an Angelides or Westly Governorship to ‘scare’ the conservative voters in California to come out and vote just won’t cut it. There needs to be a concerted strategy aimed to turn out conservative voters, and that strategy can’t just be political, it must include policy. I stand ready to help generate ideas and be part of a solution, as do many other conservatives I know.
Well, back to convention — I think that the words of the California Republican Party’s new Communications Director, Patrick Dorinson (pictured), ring true as over a 1000 GOP activists left San Jose yesterday for their homes in California’s 58 counties — he said that Republicans engaged in a civilized pillow fight this weekend, whereas in April, California Democrats will come together for what will amount to a civil war.
I’ve left some Republican Party conventions in the past where you could cut the animosity with a knife, and I can tell you that this convention was quite the opposite. Everyone was quite friendly and excited to take the battle to California Democrats. That said, I don’t want to give readers the impression that there are not serious reservations and objections to some of the major policy initiatives put forth by Arnold Schwarzenegger this year.
But the Governor’s office had a lot of representatives at this convention, in addition to his own visit and speech. Most of the delegates to whom I spoke feel confident that the Governor got the message this weekend – that delegates want to see more of the fiscal conservative they saw on the campaign trail in 2003.
I agree, we are all positive about where the Governor will go from here on his campaign, and we all know that we look forward to being a part of the big push to re-elect Arnold Schwarzenegger and give him a great Lt. Governor in Tom McClintock (not to mention a host of other great GOP officeholders).
As I said, look for more from the weekend in the coming days, and please give me your nominations for any convention winners or losers!
Jon
PS: Thanks to the many conventioneers who came and made the FlashReport panel discussion on the 2006 elections a tremendous success, and a special FR thank you to Vince Monaco, and to Joe Justin for helping defray expenses for the room. Oh yes, and thanks to the California Republican Party for their success in making this a ‘friendly’ event for those of us in the blogosphere. Readily accessible wireless connections and other accommodations were helpful and appreciated!
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