CRA Roundup

So I spent all of Saturday & Sunday morning out in Ontario at the annual CRA Convention. I missed Friday's dinner with Duncan Hunter. I'm told he gave a great speech. He must have because Rep. Hunter faired very well in our CRA Straw Poll which I'll talk more about in a minute. Saturday I had a chance to finally meet and speak with the best Representative in the US Congress. That would be Rep Ron Paul of Texas. Ron also gave a great speech before our assembled delegates. He faired well in the straw poll too. A few times during his speech he was rudely interrupted by a few delegates who weren't happy with his stance on the War in Iraq. Our Sergeant-at-Arms Aaron Park quickly restored order. Rep. Paul ripped the neocons in the GOP for their warmongering. I was pleasantly surprised by the reaction from most of the delegates on this subject, aside from the few that I previously mentioned who weren't happy about it. After the speech was over, I was speaking to Ron's campaign manager Kent Snyder about my willingness to have the Congressman back in OC for a fundraiser. He wants this to happen. So consider this a shout out/invitation to all like minded conservative/libertarian GOPers. Would you be interested in coming to a Rep. Paul fundraiser here in OC? Please email me and let me know.

Saturday evening I attended a couple of hospitality suites. The first was an ice cream social for Assemblyman Bill Emmerson of San Bernadino. The Assemblyman tells me he is doing great work on the illegal immigration problem in the state. His staff has been reading my blog! I'm always grateful that people appreciate what I have to say from time to time. The other suite was for Angel Sanchez who is running for the seat of termed out Assemblyman John Benoit. I also met up with John Paul Ledesma who is running in the 71st district. John has his work cut out. There are four strong announced GOP candidates already for this seat. It's great to see all the CRA candidates running for these Assembly seats. We need a lot more of them.

Lastly I want to talk about the wrongly convicted Border Patrol agents, Jose Compean and Nacho Ramos. I had a chance to speak one on one with nacho's father-in-law Joe Loya for about twenty minutes Saturday. I got to hear firsthand from Mr. Loya some of the despicable details of this case. They're not pretty. I could write pages about how wrong a message this sends our guys protecting the border, but I won't. President Bush needs to pardon these agents ASAP. It's ironic about the political heat President Bush & Alberto Gonzales are taking for their mishandling the firing of the US Attorneys. He should have fired Johnny Sutton who prosecuted this case a long time ago. I've never seen a President so tone deaf on one issue in my entire life.

So we wrapped up the weekend with results from our straw poll. The winner was surprising.

1. Fred Thompson: 28 votes
2. Duncan Hunter: 22 votes
2. Mitt Romney: 22 votes
3. Congressman Ron Paul (R-TX): 14 votes
4. Congressman Tom Tancredo (R-CO): 9 votes
5. (tie) Former US House Speaker Newt Gingrich (R-GA): 8 votes
5. (tie) Former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani: 8 votes
6. US Senator Sam Bownback (R-KS): 3 votes

John McCain, Former Cabinet Secretary Tommy Thompson, ex-Arkansas Guv Mike Huckabee all received ZERO votes. Hehehehe