During a news conference yesterday, Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, in discussing the GOP’s unhappiness with the left-wing Democrat activist the governor has chosen as his chief of staff, asked his party faithful to not judge him by his hires, but by his actions.

Here is the problem. Schwarzenegger cannot and will not be aware of every decision Ms. Kennedy will make in his name. She will take action, on his behalf, that will not reflect the principles for which people elected him. This is a woman who has been a true-believer and a party activist for the other side. Susan Kennedy may have made big business happy during her term on the PUC and she may be smart as a whip, but in the end, she is a die-hard, committed liberal.… Read More

In this blog and other news sources, there is an ongoing dialog about which GOP legislators are conservative or moderate or liberal. I think it might be instructive to take an actual look at the recently released 2005 California Republican Assembly Scorecard. I write this because I took the time today to actually read the votes that the legislators are judged on for the card. The votes pretty fairly expresses a range of "conservative" fiscal and social issues, including minimum wage hikes, 2nd Amendment questions, gay marriage, taxes, illegal immigration, and the budget.

And after reading this, and looking at the votes and scores of our legislative delegation, it can be pretty fairly concluded the the Republican Senate and Assembly delegation are as a whole pretty conservative. Basically a 94% vote means the legislator disagreed with the CRA position once – and usually that was on the somewhat unusual issue of spaying/neutering of dogs. I… Read More

I am going to share some thoughts with you about this meeting at the took place, and I am adding this sentence at the beginning of my commentary, having just written it. I understand from all that the meeting with the Governor was a productive one, and went well. That overall, board members were very pleased with the opportunity to give meaningful input to the state’s top Republican… Now, onto my other thoughts…

CRP BOARD MEETS WITH GOVERNOR IN ATTENDANCE… Yesterday afternoon, for about an hour, the Board of Directors of the California Republican Party, along with some guests, had a meeting at the Hyatt Hotel across the street from the Capitol. The board members gathered first at the GOP’s Sacramento headquarters (the meeting location was not disclosed to board members ahead of time). Then they were escorted as a group to the Hyatt where the meeting took place. It did not take long for the ‘cone of… Read More

If you didn’t see yesterday’s Union-Tribune front page story on the "other" Inzunza, it’s a must, a blockbuster when it comes to the ramifications it will likely have on next year’s 79th Assembly District race.

Nick Inzunza, mayor of National City and brother of resigned SD City Councilman Ralph Inzunza of stripper-gate fame, just had the county’s "newspaper of record" hand him his political future in a dead bouquet of black roses, kinda like those growing in front of one of his rentals.

The 79th seat, currently held by Juan Vargas, has one of the highest Democratic registrations in the state … it’s considered a cakewalk in November for the D winningthe primary … unless the Republican nominee gets to run against a slum lord.

Before yesterday, Mayor Inzunza was considered the Democratic front-runner for the seat. Some may say theU-T isn’t doing… Read More

There was a great column by Shane Goldmacher in yesterday’s edition of Capitol Weekly. If you haven’t had a chance to read it, you should. I am biased though, because it prominently features this website, and talks about the influence that it is having on California politics!

Also prominently mentioned are the efforts of my long time friend, Steve Frank. Like me, Steve is a former President of the California Republican Assembly (though he is OLD, so his Presidency was like around Lincoln’s time, or something like that). In all seriousness, Steve and I were on the phone joking about the ‘Rise of the Jewish Right’ — pretty funny!

Here is the beginning of the article, with a link to the rest at the bottom:

This morning members and guests of the San Gabriel Valley Lincoln Club (I’ve been a member for over a decade) were to hear a post-election polling analysis from pollster Steve Kinney. He wasn’t there and Assemblyman Bob Huff was asked to fill in at the last minute or give off the cuff remarks if you will. Bob Huff represents parts of Los Angeles, Orange and San Bernardino counties. He spoke about many issues, but his comments on Kennedy are also worth noting. Bob has a 100% voting record on the CRA Score Card. See the rest here .He doesn’t sign off on pulling the pre-primary endorsement and wants the Gov. to win. Huff says he relayed to the Governor "that he knows no one in my district who supports this appointment.” Huff added that “Leadership is not just doing things, sometimes it is symbolic. And this was important”. Huff continued, “People can only hold their nose so much and that this is the point people are at.” He told the … Read More

Today in the Sacramento Bee, my friend, State GOP Chairman Duf Sundheim was quoted as follows after emerging from a closed-door, executive sesison of the California Republican Party Board of DIrectors, which included Governor Schwarznegger:

Assuming that Duf was quoted correctly, I am struggling with the big question of who is the "we" that "support his decision" to hire Democrat Susan Kennedy.

The members of the Board of Directors, I believe, have been done a disservice here. It is clear to me… Read More

One of the central hubs on the blogosphere in Orange County is the OC Blog. It has a "blog pen" of a lot of great folks – but no one knows who there are! Their leader, and site host, is "Jubal" (seriously). Jubal is quite the personality – he’s even been published in the Orange County Register.

The OC Blog makes news and makes a real impact on OC politics.

All of this to say that many readers of the OC Blog also come to this site, and Jubal contacted me, to ask that I convey the following message to his loyal readers:

"I wanted to let all our faithful readers know that TypePad, which powers OC Blog, is experiencing some big glitch. I can’t update it, readers can’t post comments, and it is only showing posts up until December 9.

Bear with us until TypePad resolves this problem.

Jubal"… Read More