A controversial resolution calling for a non-interventionist foreign policy – meaning a withdrawal from Afghanistan and Iraq – was shot down by the Alameda County Republican Central Committee last night, even as the committee’s chair changed hands between the party’s warring factions.

Former chairman Jerry Salcido – among a faction of “Constitutional Republicans,” a group often associated with former presidential candidate Rep. Ron Paul, R-Tex. – announced his resignation last week after just a few months in the post. He told me today he’s moving back to Utah to start his own law firm with his brother.

The Constitutional Republicans and the mainstream GOPers some call “neo-conservatives” have been embroiled in a battle for a year and a half. Committeeman Paul Cummings Jr. of Oakland has a lawsuit pending against several of the Constitutional Republicans, claiming their June 2008 election to the committee was invalid because they hadn’t been affiliated with the Republican Party for at least three months before their candidacy filing dates, and/or because they’d belonged to other parties within a year before filing, in violation of the state Elections Code. (A hearing on this is scheduled for Friday, Dec. 18.)

So with Salcido leaving, a struggle for control ensued: The Constitutional Republicans put up Brian Eschen, 34, of Pleasanton, while the neo-cons backed John Wyrwas of Berkeley. Wyrwas – a Ph.D. candidate in electrical engineering at Cal – narrowly prevailed, winning the county GOP’s chair one day after his 25th birthday.

“We’re all very excited about the next year,” Wyrwas told me this aftneroon. “I think starting in January our committee is going to be a lot more civil than we were in the past, and I think a lot of our problems will be behind us.”

He noted he ran as a moderate: “There’s a lot I agree on with both factions… We’re looking at a lot of potential.”

Salcido, 31, of Fremont, wished Wyrwas “the best of luck, he seems like a really good guy…. I’m hoping he’ll be impartial with the two factions that are there, because Lord knows we need it.”

Cummings, 53, of Oakland, said he’s thrilled and optimistic at the resolution’s defeat and Wyrwas’ election – he feels as if the good guys are back in charge. Walter Stanley III, among the Constitutional Republican faction’s leaders, isn’t so happy, knocking Cummings’ faction as “pro-national-offense Republicans… They don’t care about the Constitution, they don’t care that it’s an undeclared war, the just care about protecting George Bush.”

Salcido said he was “very disappointed” by the defeat of the foreign-policy resolution, which he co-authored and presented to the committee last night.

“It’s just an indication to me why the Republican Party is having such troubles nowadays, they just want to hold onto this pro-war, interventionist stance that is killing our soldiers and bankrupting our country,” he said, noting the opposing faction seems “more interested in power rather than principle. … They actually said the reasons why terrorists want to kill us is because we’re free and we’re prosperous, they actually believe that, and that’s incredible to me.”

(Note: A server-upgrade glitch has made my previous post about the foreign-policy resolution, from yesterday, temporarily unavailable; my tech people tell me they should be able to restore it and other posts tomorrow morning. UPDATE @ 1 P.M. THURSDAY: THIS HAS BEEN FIXED.)

Stanley said the foreign-policy resolution had 13 votes in favor and 20 against, but at least it was “an educational opportunity” that drew a few new observers to last night’s committee meeting – and expanding the party’s base of members and activists is supposed to be the committee’s goal.

“What they would prefer to do is absolutely nothing,” he charged of committee members such as Cummings and Dick Spees of Oakland, whom he described as “the leader of the ‘George Bushers…’ These guys couldn’t be doing better to sabotage the efforts of the Republican Party if they were Democrats.”

But Stanley said he’s optimistic that Constitutional Republicans will gain more ground on the committee in 2010. “We’ll keep doing things by the book… we’re going to be there, they’ll be forced to deal with us, and we’re going to attempt to get the Republican Party back on track.”

“We have nowhere to go but up, and that’s what we’re trying to do in Alameda County.”

Expect fireworks at tonight’s Alameda County Republican Central Committee meeting, as there’s a debate and vote on a proposed resolution endorsing a non-interventionist foreign policy – which in the short term means pulling out of Iraq and Afghanistan.

The resolution was introduced by committeemen Jerry Salcido, Walter Stanley III and David LaTour – the county GOP’s chairman, vice chairman and assistant treasurer, respectively. All three are “Constitutional Republicans” aligned with the Republican Liberty Caucus, a libertarian-leaning group often associated with former presidential candidate Rep. Ron Paul, R-Texas. The county GOP’s executive committee last week voted 4-1, with one absention, to approve the resolution and send it to the full committee’s monthly meeting for a 2/3 vote.

The Alameda County GOP has been torn by strife for well over a year now, with a lawsuit still pending over these and other Ron Paul supporters’ election to the committee.

The California Court of Appeal in September reinstated the case, in which committeeman Paul Cummings Jr. of Oakland claims Stanley, of Livermore, and several other Constitutional Republicans were ineligible for election to the committee in June 2008 because they hadn’t been affiliated with the Republican Party for at least three months before their candidacy filing dates, and/or because they’d belonged to other parties within a year before filing, in violation of the state Elections Code.

This resolution is likely to deepen the rift. Among its many “whereases” are that our foreign policy of the past century is deeply flawed and hasn’t served our national security interests; that “the terrorist threat is a predictable consequence of our meddling in the affairs of others and has nothing to do with us being free and prosperous;” and that “torture, even if referred to as ‘enhanced interrogation techniques,’ is self-destructive and produces no useful information and that contracting it out to a third world country or a corporation is just as evil.”

Incidentally, that’s not unlike the verbiage in a resolution approved last month by Berkeley City Council calling for the immediate withdrawal of U.S. troops and contractors for Afghanistan (or, for that matter, several other resolutions that council has approved in recent years).

Compare the county GOP’s proposed resolution also to an Afghanistan-withdrawal resolution approved Sunday by the California Democratic Party’s executive board.

And that’s not sitting well with GOP committee members other than the Constitutional Republicans.

“I’m certainly in knots about it,” Cummings said today. “I’m a retired Navy officer, and I’m shocked that while we have troops in the field, we would put together a document that is so disparaging of our policy in the war on terror. Some of the comments in it are beyond the pale.”

Read the full text of the resolution, after the jump…
Read the rest of this entry »

California Republican Party Chairman Ron Nehring is headed for New York City, where he’ll be holding a sort of summit meeting tomorrow with the GOP chairs from New York, Florida, Ohio, Massachusetts, Connecticut and Wisconsin to map out the party’s strategy for 2010.

To hear many tell it, they’re convening at the end of a great week for the GOP. New Jersey’s Democratic incumbent governor and Virginia’s Democratic gubernatorial nominee got their clocks cleaned, to be sure, but it sort of seems this merely proves the Democratic base won’t come out for what they see as crappy candidates.

Jon Corzine came into New Jersey’s governor’s office in 2006 under an ethical cloud and spent his entire term with low approval ratings after a showdown with fellow Democrats that resulted in a state government shutdown, an unpopular plan to lease out the state’s toll roads, budget cuts for state universities, nomination of a state Attorney General who soon had to resign in an ethics scandal, and more. His administration was a car wreck – literally. Polls going into the election showed massive voter disapproval of his job performance, while Republican Chris Christie – although not a great campaigner – fared better. Corzine discovered that money can’t buy you love.

In Virginia, younger and minority voters who flocked to the polls for Obama last year didn’t do so for Democratic gubernatorial nominee Creigh Deeds; Democrats couldn’t turn out their base. But before that’s blamed on Obama, consider that although Obama endorsed and campaigned for Deeds, Deeds actually ran against much of Obama’s liberal agenda – against cap-and-trade, against a public health-care option, against the Employee Free Choice Act, against several issues important to Latinos. And exit polls showed 56 percent of Virginia voters said Obama wasn’t a factor in their vote, 24 percent said their vote was meant as a swipe against Obama and 17 percent said it was meant as a show of support for him – so only about one in four voters had an anti-Obama sentiment. (That number was even lower in New Jersey.)

Also, New Jersey and Virginia are the only states that pick their governors in the years right after presidential elections, and Virginia has picked governors from the party opposite the president’s since the Carter Administration.

Meanwhile, a Democrat won New York’s 23rd Congressional District for the first time since before the Civil War – which seems fitting, as it was a Republican Party civil war that made this win possible.

And that civil war isn’t just in one district in the far reaches of upstate New York; the California Court of Appeal just this morning sent back to Alameda County Superior Court a revived lawsuit over control of the county’s GOP committee.

This, I’ll bet, is what Nehring and his fellow chairs will most want to discuss tomorrow – how to move their party forward without the moderate-versus-conservative infighting and undercutting that threatens to tear it apart.

Former Arkansas Governor and 2008 Republican presidential primary candidate Mike Huckabee is beefing up his Golden State grassroots, launching a new online headquarters and a Facebook page for California volunteers he’s soliciting to his “Huck PAC,” working nationwide to elect conservatives.

“We have set a goal of registering 100 members in our headquarters by Sunday at midnight. We are 89 members away from reaching that goal. Membership is free and by joining our team of volunteers our grassroots leaders will be able to keep you informed of our efforts in California and nationally and give you the opportunity to pitch in when you can,” he wrote in the e-mail. “We have set a goal of 250 new supporters on Facebook by Sunday at midnight. If you are a Facebook user, please join today!”

The memo said news reports of the “government takeover of health care,” “repeal of the Defense of Marriage Act,” a “cap and tax” approach to climate change and energy policy, and attacks on “the Sanctity of Life” mean “conservative ideas are under assault by the Democrats in Washington.”

“Republicans are on the move and it’s time we all get involved,” he wrote.

And they’d be strong grassroots for a 2012 presidential campaign, too, wouldn’t they?

The California Republican Party sent out this video smackdown over the ill-mannered behavior of Democrats toward Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger at a recent San Francisco event.

Really, what is wrong with these people?

On the other hand, as it appeared in the Bee’s Capitol Alert today, Attorney General Jerry Brown aptly pointed out that “Compromise in the rough-and-tumble legislative process is not achieved by doilies and tea.”

Warning: This video contains really bad language.

Members of the Alameda County Republican Central Committee will be arguing against each other this afternoon in the First District California Court of Appeal in San Francisco.

County committee member and former chairman Paul Cummings Jr. of Oakland is appealing an Alameda County Superior Court judge’s decision to throw out his case contesting the election of several other county committee members in June 2008.

Cummings has claimed committee vice chairman Walter Stanley III of Livermore and six other “Constitutional Republicans” were ineligible for election to the committee because they hadn’t been affiliated with the Republican Party for at least three months before their candidacy filing dates, and/or because they’d belonged to other parties within a year before filing, in violation of the state Elections Code.

But that’s not actually what this appeal is about. The Superior Court judge tossed the case, ruling Cummings hadn’t filed it within the five-day period required after a primary election; Cummings argues that this wasn’t a primary, as there’s only one election for party committee posts, and wants the appeals court to reinstate the case and order the county court to review it on its merits. The California Republican Party has filed an amicus brief on Cummings’ behalf.

Besides Stanley, the other defendants in this case are committee members Casey Fargo and his wife Lea Smart of Livermore; David Latour of Hayward; Deslar Patten of Hayward; Christopher Kuhn of Hayward; and John Bartlett of Livermore. All of seven are affiliated with the Republican Liberty Caucus, a libertarian-leaning group often associated with former presidential candidate Rep. Ron Paul, R-Texas. Fargo also is a former president of the Golden Gate Minutemen, an anti-illegal-immigration activist group, and Latour is a former president of the Castro Valley Minutemen.

Stanley et al – represented by attorney and fellow GOP committee member Jerry Salcido, who just a few weeks ago was elected the committee’s chairman – argue not only that it was a primary and Cummings sued too late, but also that the courts don’t have jurisdiction to police party committee elections.

I’ll be watching for the appellate court’s ruling over the next few months, and will report it here.

(UPDATE @ 10:10 A.M. WEDNESDAY 9/9: Cummings wins this round.)

To put this battle in context, 15.13 percent of Alameda County’s registered voters were Republicans as of May 4, while 57.82 percent were Democrats and 22.48 percent declined to state a party affiliation. The county GOP’s registration has slid by almost four percentage points over the past five years (data after the jump).

Read the rest of this entry »

UPDATE: The California GOP unanimously endorsed David Harmer in the 10th Congressional District over the other five Republicans running in the special primary election on Sept. 1.

California Republican Party Chairman Ron Nehring has called a Tuesday morning teleconference meeting of the party’s board of directors to consider whether to endorse one of the six Republicans running in the 10th Congressional District special primary election.

The board has invited the candidates to participate in an interview process, as the party’s bylaws require, and it takes a two-thirds vote of the Board of Directors to secure the party’s nod.

The GOP, for example, recently endorsed Teresa Martinez, one of several unsuccessful Republican candidates in the District 32 special election to replace Hilda Solis of Los Angeles, who now serves as the U.S. Labor Secretary under President Barack Obama. (Democrat Judy Chu was elected to the seat earlier this month.)

Primary endorsements raises hackles among some Republicans, who consider the practice antithetical to the democratic process. Critics within the Contra Costa Republican Party are already upset over several incidents they say demonstrate illegal favorable treatment of District 10 candidate David Harmer of San Ramon. (Some members of the committee have filed a complaint with the Secretary of State and Contra Costa District Attorney’s Office alleging this and other violations.)

This is an issue where democratic ideals smack up against reality.

Parties endorse in special primaries as a strategy designed to help elevate a viable candidate from among a field that often contains a mix of well-meaning but utterly unprepared people who have little chance of winning against a well-funded opponent in the general election. Special primaries are blanket primaries, where all candidates of all party affilitions appear on the same ballot. Any single candidate could win the election outright in the primary with a majority vote. (Clarification in underlined text added Monday morning. LAV)

At this point, less than four weeks before the Sept. 1 election, Harmer is the only GOP candidate who has raised money. As such, he is realistically the one candidate with a chance of competing against what will be a very well funded Democratic opponent in a district where Democrats have an 18 percentage point registration advantage.

On the other hand, the party risks alienating members who favor other candidates and may feel excluded from the process. They may not feel too warm and fuzzy about volunteering or donating money in the general election.

Party involvement through an endorsement carries even more significance in a special election, where all the candidates appear on the same ballot regardless of party designation and a candidate who receives a majority vote in the primary can win the seat outright.

Political strategists have said for months that the only chance the GOP has of victory in District 10 was to rally around a single, well-known and popular candidate. Local Republicans had hoped Contra Costa Sheriff Warren Rupf would run but he declined, leaving the party with six unknown political novices.

Read more for the full list of the Republican candidates and their Web sites. Read the rest of this entry »

Patrick Dorinson

Former California Republican Party spokesman Patrick Dorinson has started a new blog, the Cowboy Libertarian.

Check it out.

Patrick is a reliable source of common sense — and a sense of humor — at a time when both are in perilously short supply on so many fronts.

Here’s a snippet of what he wrote on Saturday, the National Day of the American Cowboy:

Given where this country finds itself today, we could sure use a few more cowboys.

And there is a little of the cowboy in us all no matter where we hail from.

It is my hope that this blog will reach the cowboy in all of us and during these hard times we can remember that the important things in life are not how many things we acquire, but that we live a good life, take care of our families and remember that fixing this country is our responsibility not the government’s.

Just when I think I’ve seen every possible trick to raise campaign bucks, this comes along  …

For a mere $50, you can attend the GOP 2009 Senate House Dinner on Monday without the pesky hassle and expense of actually flying to Washington, D.C.

The National Republican Congressional Committee is offering a $50 virtual attendee package, which allows you to watch from your computer at home or in your office all the very important Republican leaders like former House Speaker Newt Gingrich enjoy a banquet meal and deliver speeches Monday night about the state of national affairs.

But here’s my question: Does the virtual ticket come with a virtual rubber chicken dinner?

Lots of mainstream media outlets, liberal bloggers and others have been talking about the Republican Party’s decline as a viable political force as fewer and fewer people self-identify as Republicans, yet it sure looks as if the GOP has succeeded in framing several crucial debates in the past few weeks.

Rather than the nation moving forward with probes of whether the Bush Administration used torture to shore up a weak case for the war in Iraq, and whether those who authorized torture should be held accountable, the GOP has framed the debate as being about what Nancy Pelosi knew and when she knew it.

Instead of focusing on President Obama’s promise to shut down the Guantanamo Bay prison for terror detainees – a move encouraged by human rights leaders, the international community and a fair number of U.S. military officials including Bush-appointed Defense Secretary Robert Gates – the GOP (with a handful of Democrats) has framed the debate so that it’s about imbuing U.S. communities with NIMBY (Not In My Back Yard) fears that detainees brought stateside will somehow break out of a maximum-security prison to threaten your Main Street.

As debate begins this week on the Waxman-Markey clean energy bill – which advocates say would create new jobs, save consumers money, move the nation away from dependence on foreign oil and reduce global warming pollution – the GOP seeks to frame the debate as being about “a national energy tax on middle-class families and small businesses” despite evidence to the contrary.

And instead of having a serious debate about whether California needs more tax revenue to support the schools, universities, health programs, public safety and prisons it needs and deserves, the GOP has framed the debate as being about where next to make bone-deep cuts.

Seems like the GOP is getting its message out just fine.