To all posters on this thread: Do you people seriously believe Novak?! I don't know when the man last had anything positive to say about any Republican. Somewhere along the way, Novak has turned into a sour, rather mean old man whose "reporting" is suspect. Perhaps when his long-time partner, Rollie Evans, died, Novak lost a significant tempering influence on his outlook.
As a Californian who is an active volunteer in local Republican politics, and who supports Simon, I can tell you there has been a long-standing divide between the center-right and hard right in this state. They spend more time squabbling amongst each other than they do uniting to defeat the increasingly hard Left Democrats who currently dominate this state's politics at every level. The differences among people on the right side of the political spectrum are vastly fewer than the differences they have with the hard Left. But they rarely get past their own internal squabbles to concentrate on winning elections. I have seen this time and time and time again in this state. Either the hard right takes a walk because a candidate is not "pure enough" on every issue. Or the center-right takes a walk because they think a candidate is "too conservative."
Simon needs EVERY Republican vote he can get, and he has to peel off lots of independents and at least some "moderate" Dems in order to have a chance of winning. But if he and his people are either unwilling to or do not know how to put together a winning coalition, he'll just go the way of so many other Republican losers in this state. Because I live here, I want to see sound conservative Republicans win lots of elections at every level. I believe it's the only hope this state has to avoid descending into a complete Leftist bannana-republic status. But I also understand that political progress comes in steps, that the battle to keep taking steps forward never ends, and that you never even obtain the power to take foward steps unless you WIN elections!!!!!!!!
BTW, my family has lived here five generations.