Today’s main page is loaded with a ton of material today, and took an exceptionally long amount of time (I’ve been at it since 6am) to put together. Because of it, I won’t be able to expound long in today’s commentary.

THE GOP CONVENTION Tomorrow I will be writing on the State Republican Party Convention, and what I expect to see happen there. If you want a preview, you can see how I artfully got Carla Marinucci to quote me saying "green eggs & ham" in a sentence in her pre-convention piece in the San Francisco Chronicle, which is featured on the main page.

Speaking of the GOP Convention – there are two exciting ways to enhance your participation if you are going, and are a reader of the FlashReport! Both are highlighted on the main page — we are having a great panel discussion featuring many of the contributors you read on the FR Weblog (sign up now, it is almost full), and also I am pleased to thank Congressman Darrell Issa who is throwing a party to celebrate the tremendous success we’ve had in our five months of being… Read More

UC Board of Regents chair Gerald Parsky and UC President Robert Dynes gave anemic testimony yesterday about why the UC has been wasting the taxpayers money with bloated compensation packages, bonuses and other employee perks for the system’s high-level employees.

Parsky basically told legislators that UC has ignored reforms passed in the early 1990s.

According to the SF Chronicle, Parsky said, "The policies that were put in place post-1992 were very clear, very extensive and called for public disclosure. The letter and spirit of the principles have not been followed in every instance."

Dynes said UC accountability systems are "broken" and that he deserves an "incomplete" rather than a letter grade for his performance as… Read More

Okay, for the 4,000 th time……. I don’t care what speech the Governor gives, what comes out of Rules, Resolutions or Initiatives or what kind of grassroots training is on the agenda this weekend in San Jose. No amount of discussion on Republican judges, general obligation bonds, budget deficits or Rob Reiner matters anything in November. The Governor is well aware of how we feel on these issues.

Until a plan is put in place to political DEFEAT Nurses, Cops, Firefighters, Prison Guards and Teachers we are not going to win any Statewide Office in November. Do I have to type in ALL CAPS for everyone to understand this?

Voters WILL NOT BE CHOOSING between Arnold and a Democrat alternative this November. They will be choosing between Arnold and a candidate backed by the well regarded and trusted groups I have listed above. End of story. Highly paid consultants, are you listening? You want to energize the GOP base? Get a strategy in place to get this done.… Read More

I’m not sure how I did it, but in the 2004 primary election, I was chosen by GOP voters in the 70th Assembly District to represent them on the Orange County Central Committee. Even better, our Chairman, Scott Baugh, appointed me to OC GOP’s Executive Committee.

Well, today at lunchtime, I took a trip to the Orange County Registrar of Voters to fill out paperwork and pull my papers to run for re-election – for the first time I get to run as an incumbent!

While I was waiting for the appropriate paperwork to be prepared, I took a gander through the printout on the desk of candidates who have filed for the various offices in the county.

When I turned to the 34th State Senate District, I was not surprised to see on the GOP side that Assemblywoman Lynn Daucher had pulled her papers and paid her filing fee on the 17th. Another candidate, Lupe Moreno, had done the same. But AWOL in the area of pulling papers was GOP Assemblyman Van Tran.

Whether this is because he had not… Read More

Today the San Gabriel Valley Tribune had an editorial addressing the gerrymandering of the 59th Assembly District and the impact on the race to replace Dennis Mountjoy. See it hereGone unnoticedby the so-calledMSM (Main Stream Media) is the potential candidacy of law enforcement union boss Kevan Otto. Otto took out his papers to run in this district yesterday. His candidacy was first discussed on FR four days ago. See the post here.His candidacy and the possibility of big union money in this race changes the dynamics for both Adams and Lancaster.… Read More

The furor surrounding Rob Reiner’s continued presence on the State’s Children and Families Commission continues to grow ever since it became common knowledge that Reiner maintains his seat on this commission by virtue of the fact that Governor Schwarzenegger has not appointed a replacement – which he can do at any point.

FR buddy Bill Bradley over at his New West Notes blog (always accessable via the FR Blog Roll above) mentions that he called the Governor’s Press Secretary about Reiner:

Since Reiner’s post is now a political issue, I asked the Governor’s Office about his status as chairman of the state commission, as his term there expired more than a year ago.

Gubernatorial press secretary Margita Thompson’s [pictured] careful statement: “His term expired in 2004. He has subsequently… Read More

The news cycle is no longer measured in days or in hours, but in minutes. It is a natural phenomenon that the Main Stream Media political types would be developing blogs of their own, in order to stay ahead of the curve. Those of us that maintain weblogs outside of the press welcome the entry of our normally paper-bound reporters to the blogging world. We only want to get as much content to our readers as possible and the more places from which we can get it, the better!

There are a number of places where MSM folks are really doing well on the blog scene — last year, I spent a lot of time checking out the San Francisco Chronicle’s 2005 Special Election Blog. Well, they have recently rekindled their political blog, and have put their capable team of political reporters into the mix: Jim Brewer, Zachary Coile, Edward Epstein, Paul Feist, Lynda Gledhill, Carolyn Lochhead, Greg Lucas, Carla Marinucci, Mark Martin, Andy Pollack, Marc Sandalow and John… Read More

Republican OC Supervisor Jim Silva is the front-runner in the race for the GOP Nomination in the 67th AD. His consultants are Gilliard, Blanning, Wysocki & Assoc. Cypress City Councilman Mike McGill is also in the race, he does not have a mainstream consultant as far as I can tell but, he is getting a little help from OC-YAF (Young Americans for Freedom).

They have been emailing around "The Real Silva Bullet" a take-off on the Silva campaign’s own Silva Bullet blast fax/email.

The substance of the YAF hits has some merit, they call out Silva for some poor choices he has made over the years. But there is something more than just a few bad policy votes behind this YAF effort.

Brian Park (Mr. OC-YAF himself) is a bitter enemy of Gilliard et al having taken over the management of the Non-Partisan Candidate Evaluation Guide slate from the Gilliard firm within the last couple cycles. McGill has bought onto Park’s book of slates and it seems… Read More