August 17, 2003Posted at 12:10 PM, Pacific
The center of California conservatism is Orange County, and the center of Orange County's Republican treasure chest of votes is represented by four men. The D.C. and Sacramento delegations are made up of Congressmen Chris Cox and Dana Rohrabacher, State Senator Ross Johnson and State Assemblyman John Campbell. All four have enthusiastically endorsed AS.
I made this point about an hour ago on the Fox News Channel in a conversation with Tony Snow. I was on with Bernie Ward, a radio talk show host out of San Francisco, but we followed a segment with California Democratic State Party Chair Art Torres, who spent his time trying to build Tom McClintock into the "real conservative" in the race and promoting the theory that conservatives will not vote for AS. How inconvenient that these four Orange County legislators have endorsed AS, as I have, the conservative pundit with affiliates and conservative listeners in San Diego, Los Angeles, the Inland Empire, Fresno, San Francisco and Sacramento. This audience, like California Republican legislators, is overwhelmingly pro-AS because the prospect of Cruz --Davis-light or Davis without the talent and charisma-- is simply awful and everyone outside of Tom McC's and Bill Simon's teams and contributors knows this.
AS doesn't need any advice, but an early media event with the conservative legislators from Orange County might make it clear to the out-of-towners that the prospect of major conservative defections from AS to Tom McC is an Art Torres' fantasy and not a serious prospect. Around ten percent is Tom's ceiling, and he's already there. Nowhere to go but down as the election draws nears and even the activists at the Party's right edge focus on those car tax bills and the prospect of Cruz in charge...