Free Republic

YUCCA VALLEY, Calif. – Bill Warner is hardly a naive man. He ran his own engineering firm for three decades, and sold the assets just before the economy tanked. He built his dream home on a majestic hill abutting a national park, back when the housing market was steady. While some neighbors have since been foreclosed upon, Warner is resurfacing his flagstone deck. And so he understands, quite clearly, that in the world of politics, his little group — officially, the Lincoln Club of the Morongo Basin — is but a molecule in the figurative drop in the bucket of...

[The Lincoln Club of Orange County is threatening to pull its financial support for Republicans in the House and Senate if they do not replace their leaders.] The grumbling. The head shaking. The anger.Congressional Republican leaders clearly have no idea what we, their fellow GOP members (and financial backers), say to one another when we get together, yet for years one refrain has been constant: our extreme discontent over how the former GOP majority blew it on spending. Budget earmarks, which jumped by 285% between 1994 and 2005 as their cost soared by 60%, stand as the perfect symbol of...

WASHINGTON — If Andrew Jackson created the notion of a president’s “Kitchen Cabinet,” Sen. John McCain is reinventing it months before his possible election to the White House. And Sen. Lindsey Graham seems to be McCain’s one-man Kitchen Cabinet. Graham’s visibility as the Arizona senator’s closest political confidant has risen in recent weeks as the two men crisscross the country and travel abroad on McCain’s presidential quest.

Conservative activists are preparing to do battle with allies of Sen. John McCain in advance of September's Republican National Convention, hoping to prevent his views on global warming, immigration, stem cell research and campaign finance from becoming enshrined in the party's official declaration of principles.

WASHINGTON, D.C. -- When House Republican leaders left Washington for their Fourth of July break, they felt good about outwitting the Democratic majority. The feeling was not reciprocated 3,000 miles away, where conservative California Republican activists were drafting an ultimatum. The Lincoln Club of Orange County is telling GOP leaders of both the House and Senate that it is too late to repent. They must go -- or else lose big money. The message: "Come Nov. 5, should the current GOP leadership in either house survive to lead in a new Congress, the Lincoln Club of Orange County will review...

Should they decide to enter the 2010 race for governor, former EBay CEO Meg Whitman and State Insurance Commissioner Steve Poizner will likely have to explain to Republican voters why in recent years they have donated thousands of dollars to Democratic candidates. Contribution reports show that Whitman gave former State Controller Steve Westly, with whom she worked at EBay, $20,000 in combined donations for his 2002 run for controller and 2006 campaign for governor. In 2005 she contributed $1,000 to state Sen. Joe Simitian’s 2008 reelection campaign. She made contributions to candidates for national offices as well: $1,000 to U.S....

The name might be more wishful thinking than practical politics, but a group of Republican business leaders calling themselves the New Majority are hoping to reshape the GOP to give it a stronger role in state and local politics. Launched in Orange County seven years ago, the group raised more than $8 million - more than any other contributor - for the effort to recall Gov. Gray Davis and replace him with Arnold Schwarzenegger, who also is a New Majority member. Since then, the group has expanded to Los Angeles County and now has about 90 members in the area....

There is no doubt that in the eight years since they arrived on the California political scene, the New Majority has made a significant impact. But what is the New Majority? Who are they? And what are their goals? Just the other day, I was invited to participate in a "media roundtable" with the leadership of the California New Majority and the Orange County New Majority Chapter. It was an informative session, and so I thought that I would share some observations with FlashReport readers. The meeting was conducted by four leaders in the New Majority -- Tom McKernan, the...

Your trusty FlashReport Publisher has been to every State GOP Convention since 1988 and I can tell you that as far as these events go, this one is perhaps one of the most sparsely attended gatherings to which I have ever been. Why is the attendance so low? First and foremost, it is a weekend in August, which traditionally is vacation time for many people. That has been a factor with a number of people who told me ahead of time that they would not be here. But the "I'm on vacation" cases do feed into a bigger set of...

(Washington, DC) – “Nancy Pelosi should make sure that Pat Toomey is on her Christmas card list. Once again, Toomey and the folks at the Club for Growth are doing Pelosi’s work for her by undermining the GOP majority,” said Sarah Chamberlain Resnick, head of the RMSP PAC. “The Club for Growth’s vicious and deceptive campaign against Congressman Joe Schwarz shows just how far the Club will go to destroy our party. Congressman Schwarz’s loss tonight is a loss for Reagan Republicans everywhere.” “During the campaign, Tim Walberg and his backers at the Club for Growth worked hard to hide...

The goal of GOPProgress.com, according to one of its founders, is to provide a counterweight on the web to conservatives sites like RedState and serve as an online forum for moderate/centrist/mainstreet/mainstream/libertarian Republican candidates across the country. Site editor Liz Mair today calls on RNC chairman Ken Mehlman to stop giving interviews to RedState because they're leading a crusade against MI GOPer Joe Schwarz, who faces a competitive challenge from a conservative. Writes Mair: "Mr. Mehlman needs to hear from Republicans--moderates, libertarians, conservatives and everyone else--that the Chairman of the RNC should not be undercutting the efforts of his President, and...

Sometimes you read an article in the newspaper, and you just wonder aloud how some people's views of the world can be so skewed, and wonder if they are even from the same planet as you. Now I admit that usually, in the context of politics, that is me reading the latest rant of a Howard Dean or an Al Gore. But in the article I am referring to today, it is Congressman Tom Davis of Virginia, a Republican, who heavily quoted in an article in today's Washington Times entitled, GOP Left Slams Club for Growth. Davis is the head...

It’s Time To Go RINO Hunting By Herman Cain June 7, 2006 The split in the majority party between conservatives and RINOs – Republicans in Name Only – first became apparent during last year’s debate over proposals to restructure the Social Security program. The chasm has only deepened this session in debates and votes in Congress on immigration, tax policy, spending and judicial nominees. Whether we agree or not with all aspects of President Bush’s agenda, we at least know his positions. Conversely, Congressional Republicans are like a lost ship adrift at sea with no captain or compass. President Bush’s...

In a series of moves unprecedented in modern Party history Washington State Republican Chair Diane Tebelius this morning led a blackout session of the State Executive Board to ban the Ronald Reagan Wing of the Party from a display booth at the State Convention, reversing her position for the second time in less than a week. Whatever accusations were made of the group behind closed doors will remain unknown because, according to National Committeeman Jeff Kent, every member present was banned from talking about the session. There was no hearing of any kind, no defense allowed, no reasons given for...

What’s really stunning is this absolute certainty of angry conservatives that A) Republicans will learn the right lessons from the defeat, and not, say, respond in a panic by embracing their inner RINO and flailing around for MSM approval and B) that the Republicans can easily win back Congress in 2008, just by stiffening their spines and pledging to return to their conservative roots. I have my doubts on both counts. For starters, why would Republicans get the message that “we need to be more conservative” in a year that conservatives were knocked out? In the Senate, a bad year...

Former New Jersey governor Christie Whitman wants to destroy the Republican Party. You think I’m exaggerating? Think again. The liberal media’s favorite Republican is up to her old tricks. Whitman, writing on her new “blog” at MyPartyToo.com, says little of substance, but implies a great deal. Frustrated by the lack of progress on immigration reform and the budget, she wants everyone to kiss and make up. But what Whitman really wants is for conservatives to stop putting up a fight for the bedrock principles voters sent them to Washington to uphold—an enforcement-first immigration bill and a budget bill that doesn’t...

SACRAMENTO — A television ad campaign portrayed as an independent effort to help Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has been bankrolled partly by a group with deep ties to his political operation. An official with the New Majority, a Southern California Republican group at the core of Schwarzenegger's fundraising apparatus, said its members have given about $1 million to the Washington, D.C., business group that is the public face of the ads: the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. By pumping the ad money through the chamber, well-heeled New Majority members have bypassed requirements that their donations be publicly disclosed. And they skirted the...

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger could find a lot of reasons why the Legislature turned away his public works plan to spend billions of dollars on highways, schools and levees, but Paul Folino wasn't one of them. The wealthy chairman of computer-components maker Emulex Corp. who also is a personal friend of the governor and one of his most generous financial patrons was just one of the administration supporters who called legislators in an ultimately futile bid to secure votes for the massive bond issue. Folino's participation wasn't happenstance. His informal lobbying is just one example of the close and beneficial relationship...

NEWPORT BEACH – Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger met in Newport Beach on Monday with about 200 members and potential recruits of the New Majority to thank the group of wealthy Republican businesspeople for its support. He also stumped for his $222.6 billion public works plan, which would revamp roads, schools, levees and other infrastructure critical to keeping California running, said several businessmen who attended the Islands Hotel luncheon. "It was low-key," said Tom Tucker, a Newport Beach venture capitalist and co-founder of the New Majority, of the 45-minute speech and question-and-answer session. Tucker said the governor's message "played especially well because...

Actor and former U.S. Sen. Fred Thompson — whose potential candidacy for the Republican presidential nomination has drawn more attention than some of the declared candidates — Friday urged a continued military presence in Iraq as a barrier to even further destabilization in the Middle East. "I don't think it's any question that if we leave Iraq before there is some semblance of stability brought about in that nation ... that the world is going to be a more dangerous place," Thompson said, adding that "as long as those brave people on the front lines who are making our sacrifices...