Now that I am in the private sector, I have learned an important lesson. Last month, I was in Costa Rica on behalf of a company that I have been doing some work for. We found that one of our distributors had been taking our product and diluting it. It still worked, just not as well, and our customers were blaming us. To protect the brand, and the quality of our product, we got rid of the distributor. The company had spent a lot of time and money developing the brand, and had developed a market share based on that brand. This distributor was trying to take that brand, and sell an inferior product, trying to make a short term profit at the expense of long term confidence in the quality of the product. Our distributor still claims he was making the product better. We thought he was sacrificing quality. We just couldn’t let that happen.

You don’t need to rebrand a successful brand, but you do need to ensure the quality of that brand.The most successful brand of Republicanism in the last 50 years has been the Reagan, "conservative" brand of Republicanism. Even Schwarzenegger took advantage of that brand in 2003, runningas… Read More

On this Saturday, just over three weeks from the June primary election, we are pleased to present this guest commentary from Jon Coupal, the President of the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association…

Insurance Company to Offer Eminent Domain Insurance By Jon Coupal

When the subject of unusual insurance policies comes up, people usually think of Lloyds of London, the venerable insurance syndicate that has been insuring almost anything for over 300 years. In addition to writing mundane policies, Lloyds has insured Tina Turner’s legs, Keith Richards’ fingers and even Tom Jones’ chest hair.

Now we have a San Diego firm offering to write policies that some observers might find just as odd but, sadly, could be a prudent investment for California property owners. The Ward Group LLC, in partnership with the AmWins Group, Inc. is offering to write policies to protect property owners against losses suffered if they become victims of eminent domain… Read More

On this Saturday, just over three weeks from the June primary election, we are pleased to present this guest commentary from Jon Coupal, the President of the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association…

Insurance Company to Offer Eminent Domain Insurance By Jon Coupal

When the subject of unusual insurance policies comes up, people usually think of Lloyds of London, the venerable insurance syndicate that has been insuring almost anything for over 300 years. In addition to writing mundane policies, Lloyds has insured Tina Turner’s legs, Keith Richards’ fingers and even Tom Jones’ chest hair.

**There is more – click the link**

View Full Commentary… Read More

Looking for some weekend reading (as if we didn’t provide you enough on the main page) — there’s an interesting column on the Weekly Standard’s website (weeklystandard.com) on how the California Supreme Court’s decision on homosexual marriage could be quite helpful to John McCain. It’s entitled California’s Gift To McCain and is penned by John McCormack. I’m posting via my Blackberry so cannot imbed any links to this post.… Read More

I’m out at the Ontario Convention Center where a large turnout is on hand for one of the many Gun Shows that come through convention centers around America.

The American people own more guns than any army on the planet, and that is a good thing. A cornerstone to our republic is a healthy respect that power should rest, ultimately, with the people. While this colloqual expression typically refers to the role of the voters, there is no doubt to the implied power of a well armed American public (I am sure that criminals wish the public was unarmed).

What is that expression? “A government powerful enough to give you everything you want is powerful enough to take it all away.”

Now I am not some sort of anarchist, and believe in the lawful possession and use of firearms (although government has gone too far in infringing on the rights of Americans to keep and bear arms-

But its just comfortably reassuring that we live in a country where — people have guns.

Anyways, looking at all of the commerce taking place here — guns are big business. Which takes us to the dumb legislation winding its way through… Read More

John Fund in today’s Wall Street Journal Political Diary E-mail…

One More Time, Liberals Overplay Their Hand on Gay Marriage

… Read More

San Bernardino County Supervisor (and former FR Blogger) Brad Mitzelfelt seems to be well on track to being re-elected.

Just one little comparison to show how the race is going.

Brad hasbeen all over ABC tv, appearing on World News Tonight and on Good Morning America touting his efforts to keep sex offenders from stalking children behind the wheel of an ice cream truck. Pretty nice opportunity – being able to appear on network tv, talking about a popularissue just before anelection.

By contrast, Brad’s opponent – a woman who decided to base her campaign on the surefire-winning issue of campaign finance reform – hasn’t been able to keep from repeatedly tripping over herself. From failing to and lying about filing her Campaign Finance documents, to now questions arising of whether she hid assets on her Statement of Economic Interest forms, Rita Vogler has been her own biggest obstacle to competitiveness.

But as we sit here two and a half weeks from Election Day – Brad is looking awfully good.… Read More

Just off the transom from uber-consultant Tim Clark on behalf of the Robert Rao campaign in AD 15 (this is what we call an “oops memo”) —

In a statement released earlier today, the Rao for Assembly campaign announced that the Contra Costa Chapter of the California Republican Assembly had endorsed Robert Rao for Assembly in the 15th district. Although Rao won the “straw vote” taken, CRA bylaws do not permit a local CRA chapter to formally endorse except at the district endorsement meeting held earlier in the year.

“We appreciate the wonderful work of the California Republican Assembly and would love to have their formal endorsement,” said Rao Spokesman Mike Caporusso, “but no candidate was endorsed at the Spring meeting, and that’s the official vote, so we respect that.”… Read More