It’s been 14 years since Vice President Dan Quayle made headlines for criticizing Hollywood’s portrayal of the TV character Murphy Brown’s single motherhood. Unfortunately, his words of warning about the effect of single parenthood on childrens’ lives didn’t seem to take with the nation. Yesterday, the federal government announced that out-of-wedlock births have hit an all-time high, with four of out every ten babies born to unmarried mothers. Interestingly, while the out-of-wedlock birth rate rose, the teen birth rate dropped to the lowest level. It’s the 20-somethings that are had the most dramatic increase in out-of-wedlock births last year.

Once again, California seems to be setting the trend for the nation. After all, doesn’t seem like every time you pick up a People magazine there’s yet another Hollywood… Read More

Republican Assemblywoman Bonnie Garcia will be returning for a third term in the California State Legislature. Hers was the final legislative race in the state where the outcome was not considered official. Yesterday, enough of the remaining absentee ballots were counted in Riverside County to give Garcia an unbeatable lead — and her opponent, former Assemblyman Steve Clute, conceded the race. Congratulations Bonnie! You can be sure that Clute’s near-victory will mean he will try another crack at the apple in 2008 when Garcia will be precluded from a re-election run due to term limits.

Not one seat in the legislature changed partisan hands in the 2008 election cycle. It is a win for Democrats who control the status quo, and a win of sorts for legislative Republicans who staved off the ‘blue tide’ that crossed the country.

When you win a narrow race, you can look to just about every facet of your campaign and say that each part ‘made the difference’ in winning — but there is no doubt that one of the groups that played a major role in Garcia’s victory was the California College Republicans. Their Chairman,… Read More

Former State Senator Dick Monteith was named the winner for Ray Simon’s seat on the Stanislaus County Board of Supervisors in his race against Modesto City Councilwoman Janice Keating. This race was as tight as it gets with Monteith declared the winner by 16 votes. Monteith (full disclosure, he’s a client) was vastly outspent in a race with most of the establishment lined up against him and knocked on doors every day until he broke his ankle a few weeks before the election. Keating was the leading vote-getter in the May primary and considered the odds-on favorite but was weakened by Monteith’s attacks on her for receiving large amounts of campaign funds from developers.

No word on if Keating will seek a recount.… Read More

Today the FlashReport is VERY pleased to be able to share with our readers that we have a new State Capitol Correspondent joining our team on the FR Blog — none other than retiring Assemblyman Ray Haynes! This is great news as Ray has been a strong conservative leader in the State Legislature since 1992, and has a true grasp and understanding of how to approach the challenging issues facing state government from the perspective of a strong constitutional conservative. Ray’s first post appears on the blog today, and we can all look forward to more insights from him as we go forward. Please join me in welcoming a true national conservative leader, Ray Haynes, to the FlashReport! Whatever else you read today, do not miss the "MUST READ" column, True Lies, by FR Bay Area Correspondent Bill Whalen, that is at the top of the main page today. This piece that Bill penned for the Weekly Standard online truly demonstrates his ability to pierce through all of the noise and get to the heart of the… Read More

Today the FlashReport is VERY pleased to be able to share with our readers that we have a new State Capitol Correspondent joining our team on the FR Blog — none other than retiring Assemblyman Ray Haynes! This is great news as Ray has been a strong conservative leader in the State Legislature since 1992, and has a true grasp and understanding of how to approach the challenging issues facing state government from the perspective of a strong constitutional conservative. Ray’s first post appears on the blog today, and we can all look forward to more insights from him as we go forward. Please join me in welcoming a true national conservative leader, Ray Haynes, to the FlashReport! Whatever else you read today, do not miss the "MUST READ" column, True Lies, by FR Bay Area Correspondent Bill Whalen, that is at the top of the main page today. This piece that Bill penned for the Weekly Standard online truly demonstrates his ability to pierce through all of the noise and get to the heart of the… Read More

With a shout out to GOP Board of Equalization Member Bill Leonard’s blog, we ‘lift’ (with encouragement to check out his blog) the following posted by Leonard today, which is worth reading and thinking about…

A state Democrat blog last week had this headline: “CDP Field Operation Defeats $20 Million GOP Elephant.” Indeed, as the above results show, statewide Republican candidates did not fare well. Yet the CRP and the Governor had touted this year’s Victory ’06 effort as the end-all, be-all of voter identification and activation. I had been excited about it. I saw what microtargeting accomplished for the President in Ohio two years ago and was eager to replicate that success in California. That excitement faded as results were tallied.

Accusations have been flying that the CRP’s Victory ’06 was actually Arnold ’06, Period. I have heard that the CRP’s phone banks… Read More

In the time honored post-election tradition, here are San Diego’s big winners and losers from the election (with absentee and provisional ballots still to count). For every winner, there is usually a loser, but I’ve tried to distinguish between which is which. I know its been two weeks since the election, but I got violently ill right after (the most vile flu you could ever imagine) and am only just recovering.

WINNER – CONGRESSMAN BRIAN BILBRAY (CD50). Three weeks out public and private tracking polls had Brian Bilbray (disclosure Coronado Communications client) winning or losing within the margin of error, and national trends weren’t getting any better. Democrat Francine Busby had actually saved hundreds of thousands of dollars from her failed June campaign, and was therefore actually able to outspend Bilbray. However, Bilbray ran a disciplined campaign – and probably the strongest and most effective ground campaign in his history – and ended up 54% – 43%. Furthermore Bilbray made great strides in repairing his GOP base, which had been divided by the earlier primary campaigns. A primary challenge to Bilbray, always a… Read More

Datamar has released a report showing the actual election results in several categories up against the last polling done by some of the majors. Interesting compilation for those who like to study this stuff, chew it up, regurgitate it, and spew it out…and probably dream about it as well.

I asked Datamar’s Raul Furlong to comment on the results. Here’s what he had to say:

The election is over and the votes have all been counted — well almost all, and it is time to ask how the pollsters did in testing the voters mood.

Modern political polling has become a big part of candidate and initiative campaigns measuring the sense of the voters and tracking throughout campaigns whether certain ads or messages are working and whether the electorate is coming together in support of a measure, or a candidate, or turning away.

Datamar has been successful in measuring most races. Our polling is based on the concept of keying on high-propensity voters, that is, voters that have consistently voted in past elections, and we expect, will continue to vote in future elections. Past behavior is indicative of future… Read More