Last Saturday the Orange County Republican Party held the much-awaited grand opening of its new headquarters. No longer is the OC GOP a renter — thanks to the hard work of OC GOP Chairman Scott Baugh and a team of generous donors, the county party has now purchased a new building to house its permanent headquarters. Located centrally in the county, in Tustin, the new HQ features state of the art technology, a large call center, and much more.

As astute followers of politics know, the past few days GOP strategist and former White House Deputy Chief of Staff Karl Rove has been criss-crossing the Golden State pitching his new book, and helping GOP candidates, committees and causes. Rove was the headliner for the OC GOP HQ opening, and I was there (I serve on the OC GOP Committee as the Alternate for Assemblyman Chuck DeVore) with the handy FlashFlipCam and recorded Rove’s entire speech (runs slightly over 30 minutes with the introduction from Baugh). That video is below.

I also have included a clip of some video taken at the opening where the building was dedicated to the Frank Greinke family for their generosity (much of the down payment for this… Read More

The following Memo will be hitting the press corps this AM from the Poizner for Governor campaign authored by former State Senator and Proposition 187 author Dick Mountjoy…

TO: California Press Corps FROM: Richard Mountjoy, former State Senator DATE: March 30, 2010 SUBJECT: Meg Whitman’s “Path to Legalization” Meg Whitman’s incoherent attempts to explain her support for amnesty for illegal immigrants reveals a… Read More

From today’s Wall Street Journal Political Diary E-mail…… Read More

Last Saturday night I had the pleasure of joining the better part of a thousand guests at the storied Millennium Biltmore Hotel in downtown Los Angeles to celebrate the occasion of the 30th Anniversary of the venerable Claremont Institute.

Each year the Claremont Institute hosts a wonderful evening dinner event at which they bestow their coveted Statesmanship Award to a deserving individual who has, in word and deed, furthered the mission of the Institute, which is, to restore the principles of the American Founding to their rightful, preeminent authority in our national life. These principles are expressed most eloquently in the Declaration of Independence, which proclaims that "all men are created equal and are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights." To recover the founding principles in our political life means recovering a limited and accountable government that respects private property, promotes stable family life, and maintains a strong national defense.

… Read More

Last Saturday night I had the pleasure of joining the better part of a thousand guests at the storied Millennium Biltmore Hotel in downtown Los Angeles to celebrate the occasion of the 30th Anniversary of the venerable Claremont Institute.

Each year the Claremont Institute hosts a wonderful evening dinner event at which they bestow their coveted Statesmanship Award to a deserving individual who has, in word and deed, furthered the mission of the Institute, which is, to restore the principles of the American Founding to their rightful, preeminent authority in our national life. These principles are expressed most eloquently in the Declaration of Independence, which proclaims that "all men are created equal and are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights." To recover the founding principles in our political life means recovering a limited and accountable government that respects private property, promotes stable family life, and maintains a strong national defense.

… Read More

Sheriff Watch… Two weeks ago in Sunday San Diego it was noted that a challenge was filed against Sheriff candidate Jim Duffy’s use of the ballot designation, "Sheriff Lieutenant." Duffy was pinning his hopes for using the title on the County of San Diego’s personnel department indicating he was on leave of absence from the position and legally able to return.

Last week the Registrar of Voters weighed in on the matter, in essence saying that leave of absence or not, since Duffy hadn’t acted in the role of a lieutenant in more than a year, he could not use the title. He will however be able to use "Chief of Staff," a positionhe held withCounty Supervisor Ron Roberts more recently.

Short of the possibility of Duffy taking the matter to court and reversing the Registrar’s interpretation, the decision has some significance, especially with the other candidates, Bill Gore and Jay La Suer, using the designations "San Diego County… Read More

Earlier this month, FR friend Andrew Breitbart, long with U.S. Representative Darrell Issa, was a featured speaker at one of the breakfast functions. Since I was on hand (in a cruel maneuver, State GOP Chairman Ron Nehring asked me to lead the Pledge of Allegiance to our nation’s flag at this very early event), and I had the "FlashFlipCam" in hand, I captured video of Breitbart’s remarks. They are worth watching — note that, as usual, Andrew delivers his thoughts extemporaneously, with no prepared notes…

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How ironic that successful international movie star and businessman Arnold Schwarzenegger, who is literally volunteering his time as Governor of California, has overnight become the largest donor to the campaign to pass Proposition 14, the "Top Two" initiative, which purports to somehow make things work "better" in Sacramento.

The reason for the irony is that Proposition 14 is truly the "wealthy, special interests empowerment act" where the vastly wealthy people like Arnold Schwarzenegger, and the vastly wealthy special interest groups that dominate state capitol politics (starting with the public employee unions and big business) will significantly increase their influence.

Why is this? First and foremost, Proposition 14 makes it a whole lot more expensive to campaign for public office, while doing nothing to make it any easier for a candidate to raise money. So this really advantages those players in system who have money to spread around.

Let’s also remember that the stated purpose of this measure is to decrease the role of "ideologues" in the legislature. This will play right into the hands of the… Read More