This edition of The Atlantic Monthly has an interesting article on Speaker Gingrich, who they point out correctly was always more of a futurist than a conservative. I’m not going to reprint it here, and I’m afraid many Republicans will be loath to actually walk down to the newstand and purchase this kind of magazine. See, the Atlantic, the New Yorker, and Harpers are sort of “pornography” in the Republican activist community – material you wouldn’t want anyone seeing you purchse. I get my copies in a brown paper bag, sent to a PO box under the psuedoname Smitty Von Trap. The article also points the reader over to the Speaker’s website www.newt.org, which is worth taking a gander at.

I’ve always sort of viewed Gingrich and Delay – who were not exactly kiss on the mouth friends – as two necessary componants of our party… sort of a Janus type deal with two opposite heads. I viewed Gingrich as the idealist, the ‘big idea’ man who kept the Revolution from stagnancy… who kept our ideas fresh and forward thinking even if sometimes he sounded like your uncle the inventor after a couple of pops… Read More

The last-minute frenzy surrounding the infrastructure bond negotiations looks depressingly familar to anyone who’s ever watched the state legislature flounder its way to the deadline for passing a state budget every year. Months of posturing, preening, and procrasination, followed by a panicked rush in the last hours to fulfill their actual responsibility and negotiating out an agreement. Endless pledges to stand on principle no matter what, before finally compromising or letting others do it on their behalf.

Yawn.

Like a college student pulling all-nighters before his finals, these people are congenitally incapable of getting their work done before their backs are up against the wall. Instead of spending the semester hanging out at beer bashes and fraternity parties, though, legislators instead spend their spring term holding hearings in which they ignore witnesses, talk past each other, and generally behave as if they would have an allergic reaction to any type of productive negotiation and compromise.

Such is life in a state capitol dominated by special interests. Before actually engaging in reasonable discussion, there is… Read More

FIRE ROB REINER The rallying cry is growing – Fire Rob Reiner! As we have written about several times on this site, Rob Reiner is an embarrassment to us all. Not only that, but his political philosophy is at the extreme left end of the Democrat Party. This is clearly not someone that we would want in any position of public trust, and now we know why. As head of the Prop. 10 Spending Commission for California, millions of taxpayer dollars were used to buy commercials supporting state-run preschool as an idea, while he was paying signature gatherers to help him qualify his initiative to tax wealthy Californians to create a state-run, centralized pre-school bureaucracy. A lot has been written on all of this. Well, State Senate Republicans have now penned a letter to the Governor, asking that Reiner be replaced (Reiner’s term has expired, and with the stroike of a pen, he is off of this influencial commission). You can do something about it, too. There is an on-line petition set up at www.firereiner.com where you,… Read More

INFRASTRUCTURE PACKAGE Governor Schwarzenegger continues to lead negotiations with legislative leaders towards the goal of putting a massive infrastrucuture bond proposal on the June ballot — it isn’t clear if today is actually the last day to get something worked out — the ‘last day’ keeps sliding, it was last Friday. Based on my math, I think a deal could be worked out as late as Friday, but that would create a real time-crunch. I was with Senator Tom McClintock for a few minutes yesterday, and he was recalling that with Props. 57 & 58, they had like less than 72 hours to put together and turn in the ballot arguments they submitted. The primary sticking point in negotiations is stemming from the fact that legislative Democrats insist on loading up this bond package with billions of dollars in non-infrastructure spending, and are solidly opposed to spending reforms. From my perspective, the most movement has come from legislative Republicans who, frankly, have good reason to be skeptical and opposed to a massive borrowing… Read More

Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger announced the appointments of James A. Boscoe to a judgeship in the Tuolumne County Superior Court and Jose L. Alva and Ronald A. Northup to judgeships in the San Joaquin County Superior Court.

JAMES BOSCOE Boscoe, 64, of Sonora, has served as superior court commissioner for the Tuolumne County Superior Court since 1997. He previously was an attorney in private practice specializing in family and personal injury law from 1995 to 1997. Boscoe also served as deputy district attorney for Tuolumne, Calaveras and Amador counties from 1990 to 1995. He earned a Juris Doctorate degree from Santa Clara School of Law and Bachelor of Arts degree from the University of California, Berkeley. He fills the vacancy created by the retirement of Judge William Polley.

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The race for Los Angeles County Assessor will feature the incumbent assessor Rick Auerbach. Rick has to be the favorite for winning but a Deputy County Assessor is challenging him for a third time. A Democrat. A Democrat with the legal nameJohn Lower Taxes Loew. Obviously, I’m sympathetic to a guy willing to go that far to express his views. But why is he Democrat?

Maybe every candidate should do this. Tom Cut The Car Tax McClintock, Arnold Build It With Bonds Schwarzenegger, Elton Don’t Know Squat About Filing For Congress Gallegly, Randy On The Take Cunningham. Mike I Spell Poorly Spence. The list can go on and on. It would give us some insight into the kinds of people we are voting for.… Read More

Well, I am at the airport in Sacramento, ready to head out. I ended up leaving the Capitol a little later than I had planned so that I could make a quick stop-by to visit FR friend Adam Mendelsohn, the Governor’s Communications Director. I’d last been in the spacial CD digs in the ‘Horseshoe’ (the Governor’s Executive Offices are called that because they are, in fact, shaped like a horseshoe!). Anyways, it was a busy couple of days in the Capitol – with lots of meetings, where I was diligently working to make and maintain all of those contacts that help me to stay ‘plugged in’ to the latest news. We’ll be writing more about it, but it was certainly a strange time to be in the Capitol. The dominant issue going on were the negotiations on the Governor’s Strategic Infrastructure Bond Plan. We’ve been talking a lot about that plan on this site. So what is the latest? Well, I was actually saying hello to Senate Republican Leader Dick Ackerman around 2pm when he headed into a round of negotiations, which apparently ended… Read More

GOP Source: Gallegly to Switch Course, Seek Re-election By David M. Drucker Roll Call Staff Rep. Elton Gallegly (R-Calif.) has reconsidered a last-minute decision to retire and will announce Tuesday that he intends to seek re-election this year after all, a move that comes at the urging of House leaders and members of California’s GOP delegation, a knowledgeable source said late Monday. … Read More