The following is from BOE member Bill Leonard. So don’t look for many answers from the CRP honchos.

***Did CRP Pay “Volunteers” $120 Per Hour?***

In recent issues I have discussed the need for a detailed audit of the California Republican Party’s spending for the November election. There remain far more questions than answers, despite numerous calls for a full accounting. The party’s efforts to register new voters may provide the best example. For decades, the CRP paid Republican volunteer organizations a bounty of up to $3 for each newly registered Republicans voter. Despite problems here and there, this was very effective– both in numbers of voters registered and as a means of funding local Republican organizations. In accordance with state law, Republican volunteers also registered voters from other parties. Last fall, though, the CRP abandoned this successful volunteer-based program in favor of hiring vendors directly.

These paid vendors allegedly focused on registering voters in just 13 of California’s 58 counties. They were… Read More

The CRP maynot have a bounty program, they may be in $4.6 million of debt, but they have a little cash and staff time to turn on it’s own members.

Assemblyman Chuck DeVore has a proposal to change the way delegates are selected.

Today a letter arrived from Duf Sundheim, Ron Nehring and Tim Morgan opposing the change. Who paid for this mailing??? No doubt the CRP. As well an offical email and press release from CRP staff attacked the proposal.

Sundheim and company have every right to have their opinion. They should not be allowed to use CRP dollars to influence the decision. Of course this party has paid consultants from party coffers to run "proxy" drills to bottle up items they don’t like.

The CRP leaders worry about disunity and then shamelessly abuse CRP dollars to attack a members proposal. Let the members decide and the leaders implement.

Regardless of your view can’t we at least agree that CRP resources should not be spent attacking member proposals?

Devore’s Email follows:

Dear CRP Member,

By now… Read More

Lots of the political blogs today have been talking about Trung Nguyen’s landslide 7-vote lead/win over heartbreakingly-close 2nd place finisher Janet Nguyen.

What I haven’t seen yet is any of the major accolades that should go to Team Trung for pulling this off.

They were under funded. They had a candidate that didn’t start with the name id of others. They didn’t get the inside-baseball support, nor mountains of independent expenditure support from the unions.

What they did have was a great team that developed a fantastic plan. And they stuck to it. They campaigned extensively within the Vietnamese community, and yet didn’t cede votes in certain conservative blocks of the electorate – positioning Trung to grab some anti-illegal immigration votes and some anti-tax votes here and there amongst base Republican votes.

I guess some lesson can be taken from observing Trung’s race. Campaigns needn’t try to be all things to all people.

Lead Consultant Joe Giardiello deserves at least a park or something named… Read More

It has been a long standing tradition of this column, going back to 2001, to publish the "Winners and Losers of the CRP Convention" column the week after the California Republican Party Convention. If you are going to be going to the convention, this is a reminder that as a FR reader, you can make your own suggestions on who should be recognized with high (or low) honors.

There are two ways to make suggestions — the first is to simply send in e-mail to me, or send an anonymous tip (the link is above to the right). The other is to let me, or any of the other FR bloggers that you see at the convention, know of your suggestions.

I will be conferring with my colleagues before publishing the column!

So, keep an eye out! Remember that there is a lot that happens at these events, and more eyes and ears help us to identify more notable ‘people and events’ at the convention… Read More

Yesterday, Sacramento County became the first county in the state to ban the sale of sex items within 1,000 feet of a school, child care center, library, church community center, park, bus stop or recreation center.

Besides protecting the kids in Orangevale, the ordinance had some political impacts as well. It was sponsored by Chairwoman Roberta MacGlashan — a client of fellow Flashreport correspondent Tab Berg and potential candidate in Assembly District 10. The district is safe for Republicans and moves like these help position her for a Republican primary where the most conservative candidate usually wins.… Read More

I am thrilled to report that today the Governor signed my SB 41 – The California Fallen Firefighters Assistance Tax Clarification Act of 2006.

It was a bitter-sweet event.

It was wonderful that all obstacles have been removed, so the families of the five firefighters that lost their lives fighting the Esperanza Fire will now be able to receive the $1.3 million that the community spontaneously donated to the Central County United Way for them. It was great that the governor made a special trip to Riverside County to sign the bill and express his sympathy for the families and gratitude on behalf of the state to the heroes that lost their lives.

It was terribly sadwe had to do this at all.

Last October,an arsonist started the Esperanza fire that destroyed 34 homes, caused nearly $10 million dollars in damage and claimed the lives of… Read More

When Van Tran first ran for assembly in 2004 he invested huge energy and moneyinto registering Vietnamese voters into the Republican party. Some have estimated he registered over 10,000 new Vietnamese voters. Predictably, during his mud wrestling primary, his opponent accused Van of being "Vietnamese". It was an ugly primary, appealing to left over red neck feelings of a by-gone era. Van’sopponent using Vietnamese national colors to "show" that Van Tran wasn’t a regular Republican backfired. Van won the primary in central Orange County going away. But he did need the 10,000 new Vietnamese voters.

Just 3 years later, Republican Vietnamese voters astound all political pundits.

Experienced pols assumed with 7 Republicans running in a 10 person field for 1st District Supervisor, and, worst than that, 3 Vietnamese Republicans were going to "divide" the fledgling Vietnamese vote. In other words,it would be Supervisor Umberg.

The results in this winner take all Special election yesterday, is that he two top candidates areJanet and TrungNguyen . No relation. Janet now has the lead, but as of this morning… Read More

You know you are at a pretty amazing event when the number of United States Military personnel in dress uniform make up a pretty big percentage of the crowd. Well, that was the case last night when my dad and I were the guests of Gala Chairman Brad Freeman for a dinner banquet for the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library Foundation where President George Herbert Walker Bush was presented with the Foundation’s 2007 Ronald Reagan Freedom Award, with nearly a thousand guests on hand in the main ballroom of the Beverly Hilton Hotel. Former President Bush and Nancy Reagan were both escorted into the dinner, and later onto the stage, by a pair of very sharp looking Marine Sergeants. The Master of Ceremonies was none other than Merv Griffin, a Foundation Board Member, and at one time the owner of the hotel (for a moment there were flashbacks to an old Dean Martin Roast program as Griffen tossed a barb at veteran comedian Don Rickles, who was in attendance).

There was a … Read More