Last month the media threw a homecoming party for Nathan Fletcher after he announced that he was no longer a Republican. In the wake of the media celebration, some Republicans have wondered if this announcement will have lasting implications for the GOP. Is Fletcher’s announcement the beginning of a moderate uprising? Or is he just one candidate in a moderate district attempting to garner attention from the moderate-loving media? I believe it is the latter. And if that’s the case, what is in store for the future of the Republican Party?

Congress has an eighty percent disapproval rating according to a recent Politico poll. A recent field poll shows that eighty-five percent of Republicans in California disapprove of the job state legislators are doing in Sacramento. Maybe voters are sick of the same old, business-as-usual politics. Maybe they’re so sick of it, that they’ll decide to stop electing the business-as-usual, career politicians; maybe Republicans are ready to buck the status quo of recycled politicians and send in a new crop of young conservatives who haven’t accumulated a lifetime of political baggage.

What does the future California Republican climate look like? It might be bright, as evidenced by a couple of smart, young conservative candidates who have an interesting combination of experience and new energy, and claim to be up to the task of shaking up the status quo. In the final stretch of the primary season, there are two new candidates who have stood out, demonstrating this type of new appeal:

David DeFrank, 26, out of Fresno, is running against two former mayors to fill Linda Halderman’s seat in AD 23. DeFrank earned a BA, JD and MBA from UC Davis, worked as a professional writer, and was the Executive Director of a non-profit organization that registered thousands of anti-ObamaCare voters in California. DeFrank has garnered local and statewide attention and support, securing an endorsement from former Gubernatorial candidate Steve Poizner, out-fundraising many of his opponents and generating positive buzz following a number of local debates. DeFrank is the only candidate in his race to have signed the No New Taxes Pledge.

Ricky Gill, 25, out of Stockton is challenging Democrat Representative Jerry McNerny. The son of immigrants from India and Uganda, he graduated Phi Beta Kappa from Princeton and is working on his law degree from Berkeley’s Boalt Hall. Gill has built considerable momentum, fundraising $955,000 in 2011. He has also earned the endorsement of Jeb Bush.

Perhaps these sharp, determined political up-and-comers, who are just beginning their investment in the future are just what we need right now. I think it might even be possible that these men will bring some fresh energy and ideas that are sorely needed.  Take for instance, DeFrank’s pledge to not take Legislative per diem.  He says we need to cut spending and practice fiscal restraint.  And, he’s willing to put his wallet where his mouth is.  Sounds like the kind of leadership we could use in Sacramento – and in D.C.

Both of these two are in tight races and the open primary rules add an additional unknown as to the outcome of each.  But, I wouldn’t be surprised if one or more prove to be the next Devin Nunes (who was first elected to public office when he was 22), Bill Jones or Kevin McCarthy who also began at a young age.

We’ll know June 5 if voters agree that bright, new leadership is the future of our party. I hope that they do.

http://www.flashreport.org/blog/2012/05/17/the-new-faces-of-the-california-gop-2/?fb_comment_id=fbc_10150898672063872_22418800_10150898688233872#f311c2b008

The biggest political surprise of the year is now the biggest political opportunity of the year: Assembly Member Linda Halderman decided against seeking a second term, and four Republicans and a Democrat want to replace her.

Two of the four Republicans seeking the new 23rd Assembly District seat are well-known local politicians, and one of them — former Fresno Mayor Jim Patterson — is widely considered the front-runner.

The question on everyone’s mind in the strongly Republican-leaning district is this: How will the June primary election end? Only two of the five candidates will advance to November.

If the top vote-getter is, as expected, a Republican, will the other be the only Democrat in the field, Richard Rojas?

Republicans enjoy a nearly 11-percentage-point voter-registration advantage — and a high number of them consistently cast ballots — but a Democrat usually can pull around one-third of the vote. With four from the GOP dividing the pie, that could benefit Rojas.

Or, will the 23rd District become a cause célèbre for the state’s new top-two primary by sending two Republicans to the November election?

If so, which two would it be among Fresno attorney David DeFrank, Clovis Planning Commissioner Vong Mouanoutoua, Patterson and Clovis City Council Member Bob Whalen?

“It’s really a tough call to say who that runner-up will be in the primary,” said Jeffrey Cummins, a political science professor at Fresno State.

The new primary was designed to promote competition and moderate candidates. Here’s the theory: If primary voters advance two candidates from the same party, then those candidates would have to moderate their general election message to appeal to all voters.

None of that moderation has been on display in Assembly District 23 as all four Republicans work to woo the political right that is the heart of the GOP. In fact, it is hard to find many differences among them as all hew to a rigid Republican orthodoxy:

–Less government is good. So are fewer regulations and lower taxes.

–High-speed rail — at least as currently envisioned — is bad.

So is the state’s climate-change “cap and trade” program, which limits the amount of carbon emitted by the state’s biggest polluters and creates allowances that can be bought and sold on an open market.

“On the surface, I think the Republicans actually have four strong choices, with different advantages and different backgrounds,” said Lincoln Club of Fresno County political director Tal Cloud, who is backing Patterson.

With such broad areas of agreement, many of the Republicans have ended up either delving into the political histories of one another to find chinks in the armor or offering a twist to differentiate themselves.

One area is high-speed rail.

DeFrank, for instance, says he has been “against high-speed rail from Day One.” By comparison, he points out that Patterson supported high-speed rail in the 1990s when he was Fresno’s mayor.

Whalen echoes DeFrank, and has even dug up paperwork on Patterson’s history of supporting the project.

Patterson says that support reflects a different, much-cheaper high-speed rail proposal that was to be routed along Highway 99 and paid for with private dollars.

Whalen said, however, that even in the 1990s, the project proposed tearing up private land and using public tax dollars.

Patterson in turn has brought up a January letter to the editor published in The Bee in which Whalen said he was reserving judgment on high-speed rail until all the facts were known.

Whalen — who has been endorsed by current Fresno Mayor Ashley Swearengin and former Mayor Alan Autry, both high-speed rail supporters — said that now that the project’s business plan has been released, he opposes it.

Patterson and Whalen also have picked at each other’s public service. Patterson touted his time as mayor of California’s fifth-largest city, while seemingly belittling Whalen for being only a council member in Clovis.

Whalen said Patterson has stated he supports a part-time Legislature, but supported Fresno’s successful push to make the mayor a full-time chief executive, rather than one of seven council members.

DeFrank said if elected he would forgo the lawmaker per diem — which averages around $29,000 a year.

A big question for the Republicans has been how they’ll work in a Democratic Party-dominated Assembly.

Mouanoutoua said that as a minority he both grew up and learned to work in a world where other races are a majority. As such, he said, those same talents could be put to use in working with the Democratic Party majority in the state Assembly.

Patterson said his time as Fresno’s mayor proves his statesmanship — Gov. Jerry Brown, a Democrat, was Oakland’s mayor then, and the two were able to find common ground as chief executives of major cities. Patterson also predicted he could find common ground with moderate Democrats on taxation and regulatory reform.

Whalen used his fight against a one-cent Clovis sales-tax proposal that voters defeated in 2009 as an example of how he would operate in Sacramento.

Polls, he said, showed 67% of Clovis voters favored the increase, but he always opposed the tax proposal. His work was part of an effort that ultimately resulted in 62% of Clovis voters rejecting the proposal.

DeFrank said he would “keep an open door and an open mind” on issues where Brown has “demonstrated a willingness to offer common-sense proposals.” Among them are pension reform, modifications in how education is funded and also modifying CalWorks, the state’s principal welfare program.

The question also allowed Mouanoutoua to address what it is like being a minority in the Republican Party.

He said the GOP could attract minorities with a focus on free markets and self sufficiency, as well as on family and conservative social values. Instead, he said, the party has alienated minorities and new immigrant citizens.

The din of the Republicans arguing among each other has largely left Rojas — a labor representative for Service Employees International Union Local 1000 — alone.

He said he has enjoyed watching the GOP fight. In the meantime, he has been lying low, but is ready to put on a strong push to get Democrats to cast ballots.

As for Rojas’ political stances, he basically offers voters a polar-opposite option to the four Republicans.

High-speed rail? He’s strongly in favor, saying it would bring badly needed jobs to a part of the state that suffers from chronic double-digit unemployment.

Rojas also wants “green jobs,” an oft-talked-about concept among Democrats that includes such areas as solar power generation. He says the four Republicans talk about agriculture-industry jobs, but with increasing mechanization, those jobs are disappearing.

Instead, Rojas talks about the need for a higher-educated workforce to help attract new industries. He said increasing vocational training and making higher education more accessible to Valley students is needed.

And Rojas adds that he supports the controversial health-care reform law that was championed by President Barack Obama and Democrats in Congress.

It’s not just that High Speed Rail is the embodiment of skewed priorities in Sacramento. There’s also something more fundamental than that. The problem is the premise that government has the ability to run a massive project that is supposed to make at least enough money to sustain itself. (See, U.S. Postal Service.) The government is only good at making money when it takes it by threat of force. The government is not designed to compete in the free market. Moreover, if building high speed rail tracks through the Valley were a money-making idea some entrepreneur would be implementing it by now.

This concept has been illustrated repeatedly with the multiple business plans put forward by the High Speed Rail Authority. Imagine you are on a board of investors or venture capitalists and the High Speed Rail Authority is an entrepreneur seeking investment. Imagine further that they proposed a $100 billion project during one meeting. Then, at the next meeting they put forward a substantially different plan with a $68 billion price tag. There’s not an investor in the world that would move forward with such a project. They’d know that the proposal had not been well-thought out and should be scrapped. If a businessperson put forward the kind of radically-changing plans we have seen out of the High Speed Rail Authority, they’d be fired. That’s not to denigrate the people working for and with the Authority, rather its an indictment of government’s ability to work efficiently without the unforgiving incentives of the free market.

We need to be the cold, sober voice of reality. We can’t afford High Speed Rail. It must be stopped so we can focus on our true priorities.

For Republican candidates this election season, high-speed rail is Enemy No. 1 — or had better be.

FRESNO, California (KFSN) — Four candidates running for the newly created 23rd Assembly District had a chance to reach out to voters in Northeast Fresno Tuesday night.

While addressing members of the Central Valley Strategic Forum, the four Republican candidates answered questions of about faith, family, and eminent domain. “The entire concept is you use eminent domain rarely. You do it just for the public good. Transferring private property from one private owner to another is just another example of the government trying to pick winners and losers in the free market. And we all know now how that’s worked out,” said candidate David DeFrank.

Read the story here

If Jerry Brown finds $68 billion dollars in his couch cushions tonight, maybe we can talk. But in the meantime, we have to prioritize what we fund.  ”Because it would be neat” is not good enough when you’re resources are limited.  This state has too many demands on its funds and I have yet to hear a compelling reason why High Speed Rail should be prioritized over water, education or public safety.  We don’t have enough money to build a dam or keep a felon in State Prison, but we can afford to build a high speed rail system that will tear through Valley farms? If you think High Speed Rail will bring jobs to the Valley, imagine what a state-of-the-art water infrastructure overhaul would do.  We need to get Sacramento to rethink its priorities, and soon.

 (April 11, 2012) FRESNO, CA – Today, Steve Poizner, successful entrepreneur and 2010 Republican Gubernatorial candidate, endorsed David DeFrank for Assembly District 23. Poizner’s endorsement adds to a growing number of Valley residents, growers and businesses supporting David DeFrank for Assembly.

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