I waited until today to write this in the hopes that one of the candidates for vice chairman of the California Republican Party would have gotten their act together enough to engage in a real campaign including a genuine effort toward getting the job.

But alas at this point none of them have.

The election is Feb. 11 at the CRP Convention in Sacramento. Campaigning for party office is very different than running for say city council or water board, even if the town or district is very small (the CRP is made up of 1600 members). However, a campaign for CRP office can be just as expensive or even more so. Smart candidates raise funds, do direct mail, have volunteers and run operations at the convention where voting takes place. Those who are well funded, hire staff. For instance, even though he is running unopposed, current CRP vice chairman Ron Nehring who is up for the job of chairman, has a paid campaign manager–the best there is, Jimmy Camp.

Candidates for CRP office have the challenge of corralling votes among a highly aware and engaged population of voters. The business of getting these votes is very much based on personal… Read More

I just got thisemail from Tom,and thought I’d share it with FR readers:

Dear CRP Member, I am pleased to announce that I have received the endorsement of the board of the largest Republican volunteer organization in California and the organization that year in and year out brings the most delegates to our convention:

The California Federation of Republican Women (“CFRW”).

Each candidate sought the endorsement of the CFRW Board and I received 6 times the number of votes that my closest competitor received. I remain the only candidate with the endorsement of a statewide grassroots organization – and not just one but three. Previously, I received the endorsement of the California Congress of Republicans & the California Republican Lawyers Association.

They join 7 past CRP Chairman, over 40 current and past County Chairs and over 1000 activists in supporting my candidacy. According to current CFRW President Marianne Haydon, "Tom Del Beccaro’s acknowledgement of the… Read More

For those wondering what happened to the staple of Sunday San Diego…hey, I didn’t post yesterday, ok? Fleischman said he was going to half my pay as a result. I went to public schools, and (not but) I can figure 50 percent of zilch. So, what do you want for free?

Speaking of real media sources, however, which have real deadlines that can’t be missed, let’s take a look at the San Diego Union-Trib’s increase in blogging.

As noted previously, Chris Reed’s America’s Finest Blog has been a welcome addition to the U-T, utilizing a sometimes acerbic opinion style that the more stoic newsprint editorial pages can’t – or won’t – even begin to touch. Bottom line: Chris’ no-holds-barred writing is an entertaining must read.

Without getting into the unknown legal nuances between the U-T’s broadsheet and the on-line SignOnSanDiego.com, the editors do want to… Read More

The special election to fill the 1st Supervisor District seat here in OC — a consequence of Lou Correa’s election to the state Senate — has been an interesting one.

This weekend, however, it really took a turn for the weird.

One of the candidates is Garden Grove school board trustee Trung Nguyen, who’s being backed by the formidable political operation of Assemblyman Van Tran and more than a $100,000 of his own money.

This weekend a Trung Nguyen for Supervisor campaign ad appeared in the Vietnamese-langauge newspaper Vien Dong, inwhich Trung has obviously been Photoshopped into a photo with Gov. Schwarzenegger at a Lynn Daucher for Senate rally last year.

There’s been no comment yet from the Trung Nguyen campaign.

Here’s the Photoshopped picture:

Compare it with other photos of the rally — including what Trung was really wearing — here on Red County/OC Blog.… Read More

Today has been set as Milton Friedman Day — and as such, there are celebrations of the life of the famous Nobel prize winning economist taking place all around the world. Friedman was one of the foremost advocates for freedom and for free markets. Friedman is credited with shaping much of modern political thought about libertarianism and the idea of how the engine of human enjinuity, unshackled from the arbitratrary and capricious regulation of government, is the strongest force for positive achievement ever created.

Today we honor Dr. Friedman at the FlashReport by giving one of his essays, specifically one with his ideas about how to address our national challenges on the healthcare issue, with the Golden Pen award.

Here’s a great paragraph that I excerpted from the piece:

Most changes made in the final decade of the twentieth century were in the wrong direction.… Read More

Term Limits, on balance, have been good for California. Term limits have been around long enough now that there are actually a lot of people involved in politics who really don’t remember what it was like before they were voted into place by the California electorate back in 1990. What we had before term limits was the era of the career politician. You know how your local Congressman has been in office for what seems like a lifetime? Well, that is how it used to be for members of the Senate and the Assembly. In many cases, members of the legislature never had any other career before leaping into state house. Once they got there, legislators would serve in office for decades (or even longer). This created a system where the personal relationships became the dominant factor in the Capitol — which ended up primarily serving the ends of crafty politicians like uber-Speaker Willie Brown. Now there is a healthy turn-over of legislators that insures that those who are elected do not lose touch with those that put them in office. Unfortunately, because of the grossly unbalanced legislative districts crafted by a politician-drafting redistricting… Read More

Term Limits, on balance, have been good for California. Term limits have been around long enough now that there are actually a lot of people involved in politics who really don’t remember what it was like before they were voted into place by the California electorate back in 1990. What we had before term limits was the era of the career politician. You know how your local Congressman has been in office for what seems like a lifetime? Well, that is how it used to be for members of the Senate and the Assembly. In many cases, members of the legislature never had any other career before leaping into state house. Once they got there, legislators would serve in office for decades (or even longer). This created a system where the personal relationships became the dominant factor in the Capitol — which ended up primarily serving the ends of crafty politicians like uber-Speaker Willie Brown. Now there is a healthy turn-over of legislators that insures that those who are elected do not lose touch with those that put them in office. Unfortunately, because of the grossly unbalanced legislative districts crafted by a politician-drafting redistricting… Read More

If you take an Internet stroll to the Democratic Party of Orange County’s web site you find the typical party RA-RA and fund raising appeals and smartly a big pitch for Dem endorsed supervisorial candidate Tom Umberg.

Down at the bottom of the page is one of those rolling straw polls for the Democratic Nominee for President. It’s been operational since Nov. 28, 2006 and over 1200 people have responded to the on-line poll.

I thought it would be fun to put in a vote for Kucinich in the straw poll. I assumed it would be one of only a handful for the guy. Surely Hillary or Obama would lead the pack. I thought maybe Bill Richardson would be high on the list, after all Orange County is a conservative place, maybe our Democrats would prefer a more moderate Dem.

I was embarrassed for my local rival party when I saw that my shill vote for Kucinich was joined with hundreds of others.

No political professional considers Kucinich to be a real candidate for anything other than perhaps re-election and certainly a good shampoo and hair cut. Yet it seems that the Dems in OC are excited about his… Read More