Because there has been a little stir created over the "Straw Poll" taken at the State GOP Convention over the weekend, I thought I would take a moment to write about it for the benefit of FR readers.

First and foremost, there was no official California Republican Party straw poll taken of delegates or attendees to the convention. As an elected party officer, I feel comfortable assuring everyone of that. I even called my colleague, CRP Treasurer Keith Carlson, and asked him. "Nope," he said, demonstrating a strategic use of brevity (not often exhibited by attorneys).

Yet a media release went out this morning from the DeVore for U.S. Senate Campaign proclaiming his overwhelming victory in the CRP Convention Straw Poll.

So what gives?

The answer is pretty simple. The DeVore for U.S. Senate campaign conducted their own straw poll. Their campaign printed the ballots. Their campaign volunteers handed out the ballots to at least those coming out of the convention’s Saturday evening dinner… Read More

This was the famous reminder posted in all of then Governor Bill Clinton’s campaign offices as he ran for President against then incumbent George H.W. Bush. It was there to keep the campaign from being distracted by other issues and to focus on the fact that the economy was bad and people were hurting. It worked.

But the economy is much worse now. And as President Obama fiddles away in the White House with a government take-over of health care, the economy is far from being out of the woods.

Yes, the economy will almost certainly be declared to be technically out of recession in this quarter. Things have stopped getting worse. Monthly job losses have declined. But we should not be sanguine. There are 4 major risks on the horizon which could lead us into a "double dip" or "W-shaped" recession next year. Many economists, including some of President Obama’s advisors, have told me they think that the risk of slipping back into recession next year is at least 50%.

What would cause that to happen? See the following:

1.) First of all, this "recovery" is weak and jobless. There… Read More

A very interesting civics lesson took place last Thursday at the California Supreme Court Building in San Francisco. The Commission on Judicial Appointments (made up of Supreme Court Chief Justice Ron George, Attorney General Jerry Brown and 5th District Court of Appeals Presiding Justice James Ardiaz) held a hearing on Gov. Schwarzenegger’s appointment of Senator Chuck Poochigian to the 5th District Court of Appeals.

Poochigian asked Anthony Capozzi, a Fresno lawyer and former president of the State Bar, former state assembly member Kerry Mazzoni and three appellate judges (Justices Vance Raye, Brad Hill and Stephen Kane) to speak on his behalf. Only one group spoke against his nomination, an activist group that criticized his voting records on LGBT issues but admitted to AG Brown that they had absolutely no evidence of any bias towards that population by Sen. Poochigian.As Justice Hill told the panel:

“As you have seen from the letters of support submitted for Senator Poochigian, he is a man whose hallmark is having an open mind and listening to all sides before making a reasoned and thoughtful decision.… Read More

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