Free Republic

Republican Rep. Dan Lungren of Gold River is getting some early help for his re-election bid from the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. A new television ad airing in the Sacramento area praises Lungren for "fighting to protect California jobs" and singles out his support for repealing the federal health care overhaul. A slight voter-registration edge for Democrats in the new 7th Congressional District and high turnout for the presidential election are expected to make Lungren a top target this year. He faces a rematch with Elk Grove Democrat Ami Bera, the doctor and medical educator who lost to Lungren by...

Republican presidential hopeful Newt Gingrich is spending Valentine's Day in the Central Valley. Sure, the former House Speaker is looking to woo California Republicans, whose votes he's hoping will still make a difference by the time the state's June primary rolls around. But the real object of desire for this trip is cash to fuel his campaign fund. The GOP presidential candidate is holding an evening reception at the Fresno home of Wendy Turner, daughter of former Secretary of State Bill Jones, and her husband Ryan as part of a fundraising swing through California. Gingrich is no cheap date. Spending...

Folks, we're not even being contrary when we point this out. For the 9th Circuit to rule Prop 8 unconstitutional, just as Gingrich is looking again for his footing -- just as Rick Santorum is about to steal his headlines -- is a Gingrichian dream. Look! He agrees: (TWEET FROM NEWT AT LINK) The link goes to the 9th (coincidentally) of Gingrich's solutions for fixing the judiciary, to prevent it from doing things that conservatives don't like -- abolishing courts that make "un-American decisions." He's been on the record wanting this treatment for the 9th circuit for a long, long...

Since just before the last California presidential primary, the proportion of voters registered as Republicans has fallen from 33.5 percent to 30.4 percent, according to new figures from the California Secretary of State.

Jon Fleischman, the conservative blogger, was brooding the other day on Facebook, underwhelmed by the presidential candidates he has left to choose from. It's "pretty alarming to me," the former executive director of the California Republican Party wrote, "how dispassionate, or non-interested I am in this new battle for the Republican nomination between Mitt Romney and Newt Gingrich." For like-minded Republicans – a cheerless majority of the party in California, according to a recent poll – a virtual therapy session ensued. One friend recommended a prescription for Xanax, another a vote for Ron Paul. Joe Ludlow, who helps run a...

The California Republican Party keeps making matters worse as it struggles against what seems inevitable. On Friday, the California Supreme Court unanimously decided to leave in place state Senate district maps drawn by the voter-created California Redistricting Commission. This was the second time the GOP turned to the court for help, and the second time it was slapped down. The Republicans spent – and probably wasted – $2 million on its drive to qualify a referendum challenging the maps. It's not certain that the measure will qualify for the November ballot.

While blue California is almost certain to go for President Barack Obama come November, California Republican Party Chairman Tom Del Beccaro sees opportunity for the GOP to be a major force from the presidential race down.Del Beccaro laid out his strategy and expectations for the 2012 election in a Wednesday interview with The Bee Capitol Bureau.>Can the Republican Party play at all against Obama in California? The Republican Party historically in California has sent money to other states. So we do have an impact, regardless of whether this particular state is in play. … It will look like a competitive...

One of former GOP presidential hopeful Rick Perry's most vocal California backers has thrown his support behind former House Speaker Newt Gingrich's campaign. "I think the people of America want to go back to work more than anything," Assemblyman Dan Logue, R-Penn Valley, said today. "Mr Gingrich has the courage and the intelligence to turn the economy around." Logue, who founded the Committee to Draft Rick Perry for President last year, had campaigned for the Texas governor in Iowa earlier this month. He said he decided to endorse Gingrich late last week, after Perry dropped his own campaign and announced...

Sen. Tony Strickland has made his plans to run for Congress official, launching his campaign at a Camarillo news conference for the newly drawn 26th Congressional District. The Moorpark Republican decided to enter the race after longtime Rep. Elton Gallegly announced plans to retire. Gallegly, who lives in Simi Valley, had been considering a run in the incumbent-free CD26 after his own home was drawn into the same district as fellow GOP Rep. Buck McKeon. Strickland, who served three terms in the Assembly before being elected to the state Senate in 2008, cited national security and promoting alternative energy sources...

Jeff Miller, Texas Gov. Rick Perry's presidential campaign chairman in California, was in Iowa with a handful of California lawmakers for last week's caucuses. He may find himself in South Carolina when the race arrives there later this month. He isn't missing much back home. "That June primary," Miller said, "might as well be 100 years away." It sure feels like it. While the Republican presidential campaigns fast-forward to New Hampshire on Tuesday and South Carolina on Jan. 21, hardly anyone in California is off the couch. Republicans here know the race may be over before they vote on June...

GOP Sen. Sam Blakeslee has started publicly signaling that he might not run for re-election this year. The San Luis Obispo Republican told Bee sister paper The San Luis Obispo Tribune that his decision is tied to the fate of the new district maps drawn by the independent Citizens Redistricting Commission. Democrats now hold a 16-point registration edge over Republicans in the central coast swing seat Blakeslee won in a 2010 special election. But critics of the new Senate maps have collected hundreds of thousands of voter signatures in an attempt to ask voters to reject the districts next fall....

Jules Manson, a former candidate for Carson, Calif. city council and an ardent Ron Paul supporter, has been caught calling for President Obama's assassination-- or, as he puts it: "Assassinate the f***ing n****r and his monkey children." In a Facebook post Sunday, Manson, a prominent Libertarian and supposed "Tea Party darling," posted the inflammatory comments in a rant entitled "The Constitution has been signed away," referencing President Obama's signing of the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA). Obama as Hitler, Ron Paul as God Manson, a Libertarian who frequently posts on Ron Paul's web site and Facebook page, has several controversial...

Now that Gov. Jerry Brown has decided to take his tax hike initiative directly to the voters, will Republicans have a role to play in the Legislature in 2012? Or will they be relegated to little more than a cranky but irrelevant presence in the Capitol, holding fast to their anti-tax ideology but with little to show for it? Increasingly marginalized with dwindling statewide registration numbers, Republicans have already lost leverage on the budget and may soon lose it on taxes if new district lines leave them short of a simple one-third minority. Perhaps the Republicans' last chance to have...

A very clear view from Rancho Mirage. Monday A grueling drive down from rainy Los Angeles to Rancho Mirage. It is about the drabbest drive there is anywhere on earth. The New Jersey Turnpike is like the 17 Mile Drive in Carmel by comparison. We always make a lot of stops because, well, because we're old and get tired easily. I visited with people at a hotel in Ontario, then at a CVS and a gas station in Calimesa, and at a Bob's Big Boy. I am like a small town politician and my district runs along Highway 10 from...

California Republicans still favor former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney in the GOP's presidential primary sweepstakes, but they have a new No. 2: Newt Gingrich. A new Field Poll shows the former House speaker has displaced Texas Gov. Rick Perry as the prime challenger to Romney in the Golden State. Romney leads the field at 26 percent, with Gingrich close behind at 23 percent.

With less than a year to go until the November 2012 election, a GOP challenger to Democratic U.S. Sen. Dianne Feinstein has emerged. Elizabeth Emken, a longtime advocate for children with autism and 2010 congressional candidate, has decided to run against the incumbent Democrat next year, announcing her candidacy on her campaign website and the conservative blog Flashreport.org. "She's definitely in and we're putting together the campaign now," campaign consultant Tim Clark said in an interview Monday. Emken, 48, most recently served as vice president of governmental relations for Autism Speaks, a national nonprofit organization that bills itself as the...

House Majority Whip Kevin McCarthy unveiled a new application for mobile devices this week designed to make the congressional process more transparent to the average American. By downloading WhipCast to a handheld device or tablet, users can get the text of bills headed to the House floor and view the schedule of votes and debate. Evidently, people want this kind of detail: McCarthy’s office announced Wednesday that within the first day of its availability, 23,000 people had downloaded WhipCast....

Not just the violence in Oakland, how about the billions wasted in Solar Energy Firms? Wouldn't you think the NAACP would of rather Obama give them the Billions? It seems that no matter what damage Obama causes, how much money he flushes down the toilet, allowing Eric Holder to lie over Fast & Furious, insulting Blacks for wearing "Bedroom Slippers". Yet NOT A PEEP FROM THE NAACP !!! Can anyone explain this racial bias? God, can you imagine if all of this happened under a Republican President?

Republican Michael Reagan has shot down speculation that he will challenge Democratic Sen. Dianne Feinstein in 2012, saying he has no plans to jump in the race. "I am not crazy enough to run..No I am not considering a run for senate," Reagan wrote in an email to The Bee.

A push to adopt a more moderate California Republican Party platform was was defeated in the final hours of the party's fall convention in Los Angeles today. The proposed language, which downplayed traditional GOP positions on gun rights, abortion and same-sex marriage, had come under fire from conservatives. Supporters had argued that the changes emphasized jobs and the economy and presented the party's issue stances in a way that would appeal to more voters. The plan, backed by wealthy GOP donor Charles T. Munger Jr., failed to win approval from the CRP Platform Committee Sunday afternoon. The committee instead approved...

Charles T. Munger Jr. isn't your run-of-the-mill Republican donor. The wealthy Stanford physicist is gaining prominence in a state Republican Party now regularly in search of money needed to win in blue California. But Munger's involvement in the state GOP goes beyond writing checks. His influence will be on display this weekend as California Republicans gather in Los Angeles for their fall convention and begin discussing a Munger-inspired platform that downplays traditional GOP positions on gun rights, abortion and same-sex marriage. The bow tie-wearing Republican has spent recent months shepherding a behind-the-scenes effort to adopt a more moderate California Republican...

Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney is maintaining his edge over a surging Texas Gov. Rick Perry among Republicans looking to California's June 2012 presidential primary, according to a new Field Poll. The poll shows Romney's support has dipped slightly since June while Perry more than tripled his. But Romney still holds an eight-point lead.

SACRAMENTO - Assemblymember Paul Fong (D-Cupertino) today issued the following statement regarding the federal E-Verify mandate bill by Rep. Lamar Smith (R-Texas): Assemblymember Fong: Rep. Smith's E-Verify mandate bill deeply concerns me. I do not support any flawed mandated system that costs jobs. E-verify was intended to be a voluntary process and requiring businesses to interview and hire in accordance with this faulty system is not in the best interest of businesses or workers. I've introduced a bill in the California Legislature, AB 1236 that addresses the problems with E-Verify. E-verify has mistakenly identified U.S. citizens as non-citizens which prevents...

Rep. Dan Lungren has decided against challenging fellow Republican Congressman Tom McClintock and instead will run in what is a swing district that extends from Elk Grove to Folsom, his campaign manager said today. "Unless something changes, he will run in the 7th Congressional District and is confident in doing so," Lungren adviser Rob Stutzman told The Bee. Lungren had toyed with running against McClintock, the more conservative of the two, in the 2012 GOP primary for the 4th Congressional District.

They've been dismissed as the inconsequential, angry, funny-hat-wearing political fringe. But conservatives and Tea Party activists at lively celebrations in the Bay Area say they're beginning to be recognized as something else as the 2012 elections loom: a mainstream movement. With two big gatherings - a California Young Republican Federation convention in San Francisco on Friday and a Tea Party Express gathering in Napa on Saturday - it wasn't so lonely being a conservative in the Democratic bastion of the Bay Area. "We're not afraid to come to the Bay Area, because the majority of the people in the Bay...

My friends, Fate has dealt the South Bay a rare opportunity to impact our national political dialogue. In a country of 310 million, fewer than 25,000 South Bay voters just might fire a shot heard 'round the world. That may sound melodramatic, but it's not. Tuesday, Democrat Janice Hahn and Republican Craig Huey face off in a special election to represent our 36th Congressional District. Let's consider the stakes. Two years after the US economy began to emerge from financial crisis and recession, most Americans understand we are seriously off track. The national unemployment rate is 9.1 percent - and...

He belies his age as he navigates the neighborhoods near his home in Belmont Park where he has resided for 51 years with his wife and where they raised their three children. The gait is firm, the voice is strong, the eyes are alert, the posture is erect, the hair is plentiful, and the face is unlined. His birth certificate insists he's 83, but the laws of time have been rescinded with George Deukmejian, who doesn't look that dramatically different now than he did when serving two terms as governor of California. He was in the political maelstrom for 28...

Meanwhile, while you were sleeping, while you were allowing your attention to wander to issues more pressing, heartwarming and good, such as gay New Yorkers in love and goofy dogs running marathons, easily the most insane and wide-eyed squirrelmonkey pseudo-politician in your lifetime announced that she is hereby running for president of the United States. And by "running" she does not mean putting on those supercute little silver jogging shoes with the funny blinky LED lights in the heels that she saw at DSW that one time, because that would be silly and not make any sense at all, and...

Andrew Breitbart, the self-described “biased journalist” who first released photographs “sexted” to various women by Rep. Anthony Weiner (D-N.Y.), closed out the Republican Jewish Coalition’s annual Summer Bash on Sunday night, June 12. By the time Breitbart took the stage, all but one of the television cameras and most of the members of the local and national press who had come to cover the foreign policy speech given by Presidential candidate Newt Gingrich earlier in the evening had packed up and left. In an interview earlier in the evening with the Jewish Journal, Breitbart called the former House speaker “a...

Sarah Palin is making a cameo on the South Bay political scene, and it isn't part of the bus tour that created a media frenzy as she traveled the East Coast last week. Democrat Janice Hahn, a candidate for the vacant 36th Congressional District seat, is hitting the airwaves this week with a TV spot comparing Republican rival Craig Huey to the former Alaska governor and 2008 vice presidential candidate. The 30-second spot, which will run on cable channels throughout the district, blasts Huey's stance on abortion and support for GOP Rep. Paul Ryan's federal budget plan as too conservative...

Secretary of State Debra Bowen conceded the second spot in a Los Angeles-area congressional race Thursday, leaving the runoff between Democrat Janice Hahn and Republican Craig Huey. Bowen, a Democrat who represented the Southland's coastal cities in the Legislature for more than a decade, had been considered a front-runner in the contest to fill the seat vacated by the retirement of Democratic Rep. Jane Harman.

New Assemblywoman Beth Gaines finally was sworn in to office Thursday, more than a week after her election – but don't trot out conspiracy theories about Democrats trying to keep her away.Sen. Ted Gaines, her husband, said Assembly Democratic leadership did not stall at seating the Roseville Republican.After her election May 4, the Assembly held two other floor sessions. The first was two days after balloting, too soon for the Gaineses to ensure that relatives and friends could attend a swearing-in. The second was Monday when Assembly chambers promised to be crowded for an annual ceremony honoring Latino newsmakers. Thursday...

Republican Beth Gaines has won the election to fill her husband's former Assembly seat. Gaines was ahead of Roseville Democrat Dennis Campanale in Tuesday's runoff election for the 4th Assembly District, leading 55 percent to 45 percent, with 90 percent of precincts reporting. The two emerged as the top vote-getters in an eight-way March primary election triggered by the January election of her husband, Ted Gaines, to an overlapping state Senate seat. While Gaines edged out her closest GOP rival by just one percentage point in the primary, she was considered the clear front-runner in this round of balloting. Campanale,...

Harmeet Dhillon has the loneliest job in politics: chairwoman of the Republican Party in San Francisco, a very liberal city that former California GOP leader Ron Nehring described as "just to the left" of the capital of communist North Korea. Dhillon, a tall, dark-haired attorney, has long been comfortable being the loud voice at the front of unpopular battles. Smart, blunt and outspoken, she is determined to make the GOP brand, which has been moribund in San Francisco for decades, relevant in the city and statewide. She's a different kind of Republican. Harping on social issues, she said, isn't the...

Allegations of fraud and vote fixing. Courts intervening in the election process. A call to police as officials convene behind closed doors to determine who is eligible to cast a vote. Sounds like the makings of a political thriller. But that's what unfolded at an Arden-area hotel over the weekend as political infighting (and maybe some real fighting) spiced up what could have been a drab weekend of bylaw amendments and officer elections at the California Republican Assembly's spring convention. Divisions at the conservative group -- which bills itself as the "conscience of the Republican party" -- emerged amid conservative...

Add the California Republican Party to the list of politicians taking their budget cases on the road. Starting a yearlong set of visits with a stop tonight in Fresno, Republican lawmakers said today they will talk about proposals for regulatory, pension and other government changes while objecting to Gov. Jerry Brown's tax plan. "Sometimes we get, I think we get insular across the street in that building," Assembly Republican leader Connie Conway said. "And it's a great opportunity to get out and talk to what I call real people, real Californians." She may cross paths with the Democratic governor or...

I love everything about Janet -- except how she stands for all the things I find bad and wrong in the world. Janet and I would likely have never met, save for the thing that unites so many women across divides of income and age: fat. We met in a weight-loss group. There were six or seven of us in that group, but Janet and I were drawn toward each other. I liked her refusal to lie about what she'd eaten or rationalize it. She liked my tenacity and optimism. She handed me a business card that said her name,...

Two sets of official numbers that were released this month should make California's Republican Party leaders – if they exist – very nervous. First were the results of the 2010 census that confirmed anew the state's incredible demographic and cultural change. California's rapidly aging white population, an overwhelming majority a few decades ago, has now dropped to scarcely 40 percent, while the rapidly growing Latino and Asian populations are now more than 50 percent. The second set of numbers was a new voter registration report, showing Republicans dropping to 30.9 percent, their lowest level in recorded history, while rival Democrats...

For just a moment during the state Republican Party convention this past weekend, hundreds of GOP delegates felt the excitement of the presidential race gearing up nationwide. Fox News commentator Frank Luntz asked the delegates gathered at the Hyatt Regency Sacramento to applaud their support for potential candidates such as former House Speaker Newt Gingrich and former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney. The hotel ballroom erupted in cheers as the names of presidential hopefuls flew by. Now that the convention is over, California Republicans shouldn't expect many more invitations for input. The nation's biggest state has already become a Democratic bastion...

Today is Tom Del Beccaro's first full day as chair of the beleaguered California Republican Party - and he freely says the next two years will be the most challenging the party ever experiences, bemoaning how the GOP has "trapped ourselves into talking to the converted.""We've become the party of limited communication," Del Beccaro, a Lafayette attorney, told 1,000 delegates and attendees Sunday at the close of the three-day California Republican Party convention.The party's troubles go deeper than communication - or that no Republicans hold statewide office. The weekend confab, held across the street from where the Legislature is deadlocked...

Taxes and primary endorsements were the talk of the California Republican Party convention in Sacramento on Saturday, as party officials and delegates wrestled with ways to boost their share of the statewide electorate. Some party officials and activists rallied around opposition to Gov. Jerry Brown's proposal to put tax extensions on the ballot. "If Republicans vote to raise taxes, hell hath no fury like a taxpayer scorned," conservative commentator and pollster Frank Luntz told several hundred delegates attending a Saturday luncheon. "Don't you dare vote for those taxes." Sacramento delegate Karen Klinger said the party needs more Republicans who will...

Saturday was just another drama-free day at the state Republican Party convention. Unless, that is, you count a protest by seven disabled activists who quietly commandeered a small tract of the Hyatt Regency lobby, holding signs that read "Tax Big Oil" and "Taxes Save Lives" while lying prone on the carpet. Or the initial decision by Republican officials to ban reporters from pollster Frank Luntz's luncheon address -- before backing down and letting them back in with the proviso that he would have to dial down his message. Defusing one of the controversial issues that hung over the convention, party...

The California Republican Party's rules committee approved by a 10-8 vote late last night an ambitious endorsement plan that would have the party send out ballots to all registered Republican voters in the state to determine the party's officially endorsed candidates. The plan comes as a response to Proposition 14, passed in 2010, which created a top-two runoff system, regardless of party affiliation. That proposition has drawn the ire of both major parties, which have looked for ways to stay involved in the process of selecting official party candidates, If approved in the party's general session today, as is expected,...

Sacramento, Calif. (AP) -- After steep losses at the polls and successive years of dwindling registration, California Republicans gathered this weekend amid infighting over the direction of a party that is ideologically divided and facing an uncertain future in a rapidly changing state. For the first time in many years, frustrated moderates are publicly pushing back, resisting efforts to further insulate the party in what they say is an effort to save the California GOP from itself. In the process, they hope the party will begin to appeal to independent and minority voters, the fastest-growing segments of the state's electorate....

Sparks flew on the opening day of the California Republican Party convention Friday as party officials and delegates debated competing proposals to address the party's role in candidate nominations under the new top-two primary system. Outgoing party Chairman Ron Nehring is pushing a proposal to force pre-primary candidate endorsements under the new election system created by voter-approved Proposition 14. Instead of party primaries, the top two vote-getters in an all-party primary now advance to a runoff election.

John R. Bolton, the former ambassador to the United Nations who is weighing a presidential run in 2012, accused President Obama on Friday of failing to address threats to U.S. national security and called the administration's approach to the crisis in Libya "pathetic." Hours after the president warned that the United Nations was ready to launch a military strike to defend the Libyan people if their leader Moammar Kadafi did not halt his attacks on civilians and pull back from the rebel stronghold of Benghazi and three other cities, Bolton cast the president as indecisive, inconsistent and uninterested in foreign...

After a combative meeting today marked by tough words and legislative walkouts, California Republicans continued to debate a controversial plan to change the way the party endorses candidates Friday night. Jeff Miller, the finance chair for the state party, warned Republicans gathered tonight that the party's most loyal donor community is "frustrated with the party'' in the wake of efforts by conservative activists lead by outgoing chair Ron Nehring to change the endorsment process. He said that big California GOP key check-writers think that most of the party is speaking to "30 percent of the state,'' not concentrating on its...

The video touting the California Republican Party's incoming chairman boasts that he "has a new playbook to help us be proud to be Republicans again." But what Tom Del Beccaro doesn't have as he maps out the party's comeback is a reserve of candidates with the appeal and credentials to be elected statewide.

After suffering widespread losses at the polls in 2010, the California Republican Party is trying to regroup and stay relevant in a state that appears to be leaning less and less toward Republican ideology. The party has had trouble attracting support from non-white residents, a troubling sign in a state that U.S. Census data show is becoming increasingly diverse. But Republicans also have been caught up for several years in a family feud over ideology — one that tends to flare up around its twice-yearly state conventions. The party's three-day spring convention opens Friday night with an address by former...

Months after taking office, Jeff Gorell is leaving the Assembly today - for a military deployment to Afghanistan. The Camarillo Republican, a lieutenant commander in the Navy reserve, previously was deployed to Afghanistan shortly after the 911 attacks on the World Trade Center. "I felt very safe when I was there before. and I hope I'll feel the same way when I'm there this time," Gorell said when asked about dangers inherent in his "boots on the ground" job as an intelligence officer. "I'll see when I get there." Gorell, a 40-year-old freshman who was sworn into office in December,...