At 3:05 a.m. Wednesday morning, I drove into the parking lot of my local Community Center. La Mesais perhaps one of the safest places in San Diego County – if “safe” is measured in the number of communities between your home and a firestorm. The city may not be in harm’s way, yet officials still offered up their largest meeting space for collection of donated goods and as a coordination point to prepare meals for delivery to area evacuation centers.

Councilman Ernie Ewin had indicated he needed very early morning assistance to prepare egg sandwich breakfasts for the displaced hundreds staying six miles away in the gym at Steele Canyon High School . I imagined him trying to scrape together a crew of five to ten volunteers willing to set their alarms for 1:30 a.m., resulting in a short-handed, crazed rush of work prior to the planned 6:00 a.m. food pick up.

I should have known better of my community.

**There is more – click the link**

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There is no doubt that these tragic wildfires that still are burning away throughout Southern California have been extremely traumatic for many, many people. The magnitude of the areas burned, homes lost, and residents evacuated is a bit mind boggling. As it has been reported frequently on television, more residents have been displaced by this disaster than make up the total population of many, many entire states. As I write this, ashes continue to fall in my Irvine neighborhood — the sun tinged with the orange of smoke… So in light of all of this going on, you have to wonder about the judgment of candidates for political office who are campaigning and fundraising in this impacted area, either oblivious or insensitive to the magnitude of the situation. For now, I am going to be a bit more vague, choosing not to pummel particular candidates, and stick to my overall point. When the fires first broke out, a friend of mine running for the Assembly immediately postponed a fundraising event he had scheduled. But another candidate split the difference, canceling one event while continuing with another at a posh hotel while just a few… Read More

United States Representative Ed Royce sent this over for your consideration…

I just learned that Presidential aspirant Fred Thompson has decided to postpone a schedule fundraising/volunteer appreciation swing through SoCal, in light of the devestation that is taking place with the wildfires.

I think this was the right decision to make.

Senator John McCain is still conducting a high-dollar fundraising event tomorrow in Beverly Hills. I think he should have cancelled his event. The fact that he has not is probably an indicator of the difficulties that Senator McCain is having raising dollars.

Perhaps McCain can ask attendees at his event to give a separate donation to the Red Cross to help with evacuees, or for the recovery efforts for those who have lost their homes.

Anyway – kudos to Senator Thompson.… Read More

I am very pleased to share with FR readers that Mindy Fletcher has joined the FlashReport team as a new statewide correspondent for our site. For those of you who do not know Mindy, she has a long history as a professional and an activist with the Republican Party. She played a key role in both the election and re-election of President Bush, serving as an official spokesman for the campaigns. Mindy also spent time working for Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, with a stint as a Deputy Chief of Staff in the State Capitol, and as Deputy Campaign Manager for his re-election campaign.

I’ve know Mindy for years, and I am very excited to have her onboard. She’s conservative, smart, and has a good sense of humor, as well. She will provide a lot of great insight for us as she gets into the groove of blogging.

Please join me in welcoming Mindy. Her very first blog post is below…… Read More

No one in Great Britain would question whether a woman could be President. Point to Margaret Thatcher – the "Iron Lady" and ask if a woman can be the leader of a country. However, in America we are immersed in this debate.

This debate resurfaced on Tuesday when I attended the Governor and First Lady’s Conference on Women in Long Beach (which was terrific, by the way). There was alot of talk about Hillary Clinton’s candidacy and the potential to elect the first woman president. At a panel discussion that included the first female Governor of New Jersey Christine Whitman, the first female vice presidential candidate Geraldine Ferraro and the first female White House press secretary Dee Dee Myers, I was struck by the dilemma facing me and most Republican women in this upcoming presidential election.

How can we be respectful of the fact that we finally have a woman running for president and at the same time oppose… Read More

Any of our readers who grew up in the Los Angeles basin were used to the superior television news reporting from KTLA Channel 5. How many years did we all watch the team of Hal Fishman at the desk, and Stan Chambers in the field, bring us all of the details we wanted and craved whenever some sort of ‘breaking news’ would occur in the area? Of course both of these star players were supported by an outstanding group of co-anchors and fellow reporters.

I was blessed to be able to work a bit with Stan in my job as a media spokesman for the Orange County Sheriff’s Department for nearly six years. Well, apparently with the retirement of Chambers, and the passing of Fishman, Tribune Broadcasting, who also owns the Los Angeles Times, decided to make a big change — for the worse. For the past few days, who amongst us hasn’t been drawn to the television to watch, with rapt attention, the battle against the wildfires that are plaguing the Southland? Well, I can tell you,… Read More

Kerwin Swint is a Professor of Political Science at Kennesaw State University . He wrote a book in 2006 called Mudslingers: The Top 25 Negative Political Campaigns of All Time.

California has two campaigns that make the list but the last one was in 1950.

This is an excellent book for political junkies. Some of these tactics that were used by these candidates even decades ago are pretty outrageous.

In California I actually see more hard hitting races in Democrat primaries. They seem to have no problem going for the jugular early on.

On the Republican side we have a couple races coming up in 2008 that could certainly make the list and at least one in 2010 that has great possibility.

In Mudslingers the races that rose to the top of the list usually involved race and accusations of extra martial affairs.… Read More