This came over a few days ago from Assemblyman Van Tran's office:
ASSEMBLYMAN TRAN JOINS WITH ADJUTANT GENERAL OF THE CALIFORNIA NATIONAL GUARD TO PROMOTE 2ND ANNUAL CHRISTMAS TOY DRIVE FOR LOCAL MILITARY FAMILIES
(Costa Mesa – CA) On Tuesday, December 4, 2006, Assemblyman Van Tran (R-Costa Mesa) will hold his 2nd Annual Christmas Toy Drive in partnership with our local U.S. Marine Corps ‘Toys for Tots’ program to bring some holiday cheer to our families who have a parent serving in Iraq or Afghanistan. The event will be held from 5pm to 7pm.
Continue reading "Assemblyman Tran Collecting Toys for Children of Military Families" »
This came over the transom earlier from the Larry Dick for Assembly campaign. I get deluged with post-debate spin e-mails from the GOP presidential campaigns, but this is the first time I've ever seen one from an Assembly campaign after a candidate forum:
MEMORANDUM
TO: LARRY DICK FOR ASSEMBLY CITY CHAIRS
LARRY DICK FOR ASSEMBLY FINANCE COMMITTEE
FROM: JOE JUSTIN
RE: REACTION FROM THE FIRST DEBATE BETWEEN LARRY DICK AND CURT HAGMAN AT THE ORANGE CITY COUNCIL CHAMBERS.
A quick update about last night’s First Republican Debate / Forum between Larry and Hagman. The debate was televised live on Time Warner channel 3 from 7:00- 8:30pm for the viewers of the 60th Assembly District. As we talked about on our last conference call, it’s tough to run against a self funding candidate like Hagman who has been running for this seat for two years, but after last night’s debate, it’s clear we’ve got the stronger candidate.
Continue reading "Larry Dick Campaign Declares Larry Dick The Winner Of Candidate Forum" »
Much is made of the influence of religious conservatives in the Republican Party. The mainstream media has been fairly obsessed with the topic for a generation.
Arthur Brooks wrote this article for National Review Online on the influence of secular Americans on the Left in general and the Democratic Party in particular. Here's an excerpt:
Secular liberals, and especially those who are explicitly nonbelievers,
have become a major force on the political left. Researchers have
found, for example, that delegates to the Democratic National
Convention — the politically-active folks who nominate the Democratic
candidate for the U.S. presidency — are more than twice as likely to be
completely secular as the population-at-large.
Continue reading "Religion & The Left" »
Yesterday I received an e-mail with this picture from a recent Democratic event in Iowa.

OK, I thought. This snapshot could very well be taken completely out of context. For all I know, Obama could have placed his hand over his heart the second after this photo was taken.
Continue reading "Obama & The National Anthem" »
I'm making an exception to custom by posting a few national news-related items today. The following about the CNN/YouTube Republican debate are from today's Political Diary (OpinionJournal.com's daily political news digest. It is an awesome service and costs only $3.95 a month).
PD points out how NPR's Mara Liasson viewed the debate:
"I think CNN does itself a great disservice when it doesn't apply the exact same kind of criteria to both debates. I covered both of them. In the Democratic debate, I don't think there were any questions that were clearly coming from, you know, a Republican point of view. They were generally sympathetic. They were about global warming and health care and education, all kind of Democratic issues. They weren't challenging them. There was one kind anti-tax question, I think, but they weren't challenging the basic principles of the Democratic Party. There were lots of questions last night [at the GOP debate] that were. I think the question about the Bible was mocking. I think one of the abortion questions was clearly not from someone who was pro-life"
And as John Fund reports, it turns out a large percentage of CNN's "undecided voters" posing video questions were actually partisan activists:
Continue reading "CNN/YouTube Debate Debacle" »