The Republican Latino GrowElect Revolution and Malaguena Salerosa

Strolling through the Hyatt Regency after dinner Friday at the CRP convention, I heard the sound of the Latino Republican Revolution, the rhythmic, infectious and joyous music of a mariachi band on the second floor bridge leading to the Orange County Lincoln Club party. Upstairs the band was in full mariachi mode.  Dressed in subdued […]

The Graveyard or the Base? Part 2

In Part 1, I put some of the latest Pew Latino polling on the table and argue that the Republican base has a problem with the left, not with Hispanics per se.  I argue that Governor Pete Wilson’s Prop 187 was a mistake and that a necessary but not sufficient prerequisite is to insist our […]

Graveyard or the Base (Part 1)

Between Tony Quinn’s statement of the problem on immigration and the Republican Party, “Republicans can’t count” and John Seiler’s rebuttal, “it’s about the base” lies a riddle that can only be solved through leadership. We’re doomed either by Quinn’s chilling demographics or by Seiler’s angry grasssroots. Real leaders need to step in. On Hispanic issues […]

A Nuts and Bolts Approach to Rebuilding the Republican Party

Jim Brulte said in his candidacy speech to the San Diego Republican Central Committee that he wanted to be “a boring state party chair focused on the nuts and bolts.”   He said it wasn’t a matter of new ideas, Republican ideas are fine thank you.  Brulte announced he would focus on fundraising, volunteers and candidates […]

A Principled Conservative Raises California Taxes

In  his 1977 address to CPAC titled, The New Republican Party Ronald Reagan asks, “Isn’t it possible to combine the two major segments of contemporary American conservatism [social and economic] into one politically effective whole?”  Reagan says , “I envision not simply a melding… into an uneasy alliance, but the creation of a new, lasting […]

California Republicans—The Education Party

Republican assembly leader Connie Conway announced recently two new education bills, AB 67 and AB 51 that are an important and exciting move in the right direction. AB 67— co-authored with Assemblyman Jeff Gorell of Camarillo freezes tuition at all California public colleges and universities over the next seven years while Proposition 30 tax increases […]

Tea Partiers Ice Tony Quinn

Tony Quinn’s recent article Voters Ice the Tea Party struck a nerve.  My count was 881 comments.  Here are a representative few: Hate to disappoint you Libtard (Tony Quinn) but the Tea Party is alive and well…! I say we storm the white house and clean it out… What do you think? You WISH we […]

Mere Conservatism and the California Republican Party

Russell Kirk in The Conservative Mind (1953) argues that Edmund Burke (circa 1790) is the father of modern  conservatism.  Kirk is correct.  Burke was a pro-American-Independence British Whig who stemmed the intellectual tide of the French Revolution.  The Conservative Mind is an elegant polemic that brings Burke’s moral-religious politics to the historical crossroads of the […]

Republicans Must Make Their Own Effort on Education Reform—Part Two

In Part One, I argue that the alternatives are threefold: Behind door one, massive statewide Democrat tax hikes controlled by a one-party legislature for bloated unions and bloated social services and bloated bureaucracies. Behind door two, small, targeted voter approved education taxes as part of a Republican education strategy.  Behind door three, No-tax purity and […]

Republicans Must Make Their Own Effort on Education Reform

Joe Mathews in these pages has the CA education issue mostly right.  Let’s start with where he is dead wrong, dangerously so. This is Part One of two articles on a new CA GOP education vision. Joe says, “Republicans, despite their small numbers, can – by siding with one side or another in the Democratic […]