California Republican Party's Latino Outreach Secret Weapon

On KPBS's evening election report they asked what today's election results meant for the California Republican Party of Chairman Ron Nehring. During his re-cap he unrolled the Party's secret weapon to help bring Latino voters back into the Republican fold, Luis Acle.

San Diegians should make a double take, including Republicans. We should all remember Acle failed to pay his taxes, failed to pay his campaign manager and failed to pay his campaign bills. These are just the providen business facts, not the rumors or issues involving his personal life.

So, I don't think the California Republicans have a serious plan for Latino outreach.

Republican Electorial College Initiative Dead for Real

It was reported today by Steven Maviglio on the California Majority Report that the California Republican Party had their first lost before the polls even closed today, their Electorial College Initiative.

It seems with all their hype, money and supposed vast system of volunteers they could not even buy enough signatures to get their measure on the November 2008 ballot.

Race for San Diego is heating up!

For those interested the California Republican Party (CRP) they have issued a press release of a New Finance Director, Molly Parnell. It seems the former Finance Chair, Steven C. Francis, is no longer around, except on their website. As they said in Usual Suspects, "And like that, he's gone." The CRP update comes a day before Charles Gallagher made the call into Voice of San Diego that "if" Steve runs for mayor, then he will be his campaign manager.

I don't think Kris Mitchell and Fred Sainz feel these are good signs for their hope of a smooth re-election bid, because they probably don't see Jim Bell and Rocky Neptun as real heavy weight challengers.

Electoral College Initiative is Running out of Time

The SacBee is reporting tonight that State Election officials are saying that backers of the California electoral college initiative are at risk of missing the June ballot. Election officials said it will be difficult to finish counting the signatures in time for the January 24th state deadline.[Link]

Despite a recommendation from Secretary of State Debra Bowen that the proponents submit the signatures to the counties three weeks ago, they have yet to submit the necessary signatures. Supporters of the initiative need 433,971 signatures to qualify for the ballot. They are aiming at collecting 700,000 signature to ensure that they have enough to qualify for the ballot.[Link]

Supporters originally the aimed at turning the in the signatures by Friday December 1st. They received a late infusion of cash when the Orange County Lincoln Club made a $100,000 contribution to the initiative effort.[Link] The Republican political consultant Dave Gilliard, who is heading up the effort to qualify the initiative for the ballot, didn't return phones repeated phones calls to the SacBee on Monday.[Link]

Cross posted on Calitics

OC Lincoln Club joins fight to steal electoral votes

Capitol Alert from the Sacramento Bee is reporting that OC Lincoln Club is donating $100,000 to help qualify the Electoral College reform initiative for the ballot. [Link] The measure, if it qualifies for the June ballot and passes, would award California's electoral votes by Congressional district instead of the present winner-take-all system.

The initiative qualifying effort was dropped by its original sponsors, but in recent weeks was pickup "by a group led by Republican strategist David Gilliard." Their goal is to turn in 700,000 signatures by the end of the week.[Link]

The OC Lincoln Club joins 49th Congressional Representative Darrell Issa as the single largest contributors to the effort by the California GOP to malapportion the electoral system here in California. Here is a list of some of the donors who have contributed to this effort.

Cross posted at Calitics

More on State GOP fundraising woes

Just to follow-up on the previous post by Adam Smith. The AP article from this afternoon reporting about the state GOPs struggling fundraising mentioned:

At the end of the year the state party will eliminate what is called its county executive director program, which distributed about $260,000 a year among about a dozen counties to assist with fundraising activities and grass-roots organizing. [Link]

While some counties with extension local party organizations like here in San Diego will not be effected. It will be interesting to how these cuts tickle their way down to some of the other fast growing counties in the state and the impact that they might have in next year's election.

George W. Bush is even bad for GOP Fundraising

Whatever you may think of President George W. Bush and Iraq, we all have to admit he has been bad for the GOP. Since his last election, the GOP lost both houses of Congress and now are set up to loss the White House.

It is so bad today that the National Republican Senatorial Committee (NRSC) might be closing their fundraising gap to the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee (DSCC), but the DSCC still brought in $45.1 million to the $26.3 million by the NRSC. The NRSC is not alone, the National Republican Congressional Committee has raised only $6.1 million to the $13.4 million from the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee members.

Now the Union Tribune reported today the California Republican Party is moving forward to slash its most important program, their county fundraising and organizing program. It is reported they were $1.7 million in debt by the end of October. Maybe the Republican Party should look to outsource their party's programs and fundraising, because clearly they can't do it in house very well.

Though you won't read any of this in the Republican blogs.

Monday - Quick Hits

The Republican initiative to thart the popular will of California's voters is nearing enough signatures to qualify for June ballot. UT

Cal Fire report from October's fires strangely quiet on providing details to why the military aircraft were grounded. UT

Council to consider stricker "Mini-Dorm" ordiance today. UT

Home forclosures auction reveals the depth of housing crisis. NC Times

Former CV mayor Steve Padilla set the record straight regarding CV's budget mess. La Prensa

Frustrated Charger fans can go to this site to vent: FireNorv.net

Ron you're no longer in the Minor Leagues

I'm sorry, I'm late on posting this, but props go out to Lucas O'Connor who is a regular contributor at Calitics blog, as well as a part time contributor here San Diego Politico. He has a great article is this week's City Beat detailing the sorry saga of Ron Nehring's reign as head of the California Republican Party. In particular his failured effort recently to try change the way California allocates its electoral votes. Go read the whole article, its a good read.