The CRA Turns 75
March 10th, 2010
I had the honor and privilege this past weekend of attending and speaking at the California Republican Assembly 75th Anniversary Convention in Buena Park, California.
http://www.californiarepublicanassembly.com/content/cra-call-convention
Buena Park is in Orange County, and the event was held at the Knottsberry Farm Hotel.
While Knottsberry Farm is a well known amusement park that turns into Knotts Scary Farm on Halloween, the Knotts family is actually fairly religious. In addition to their spiritual beliefs, they were also great with food. The fried chicken and blackberry pie at the luncheon was from Mrs. Knotts’s very own recipes.
I would like to thank Ken Mettler, President of the CRA, and beloved CRA member Peggy Mew for the gracious invitation. Baron Night, head of the Buena Park CRA, had the responsibility as head of the host city CRA with making sure the trains ran on time.
The Saturday luncheon featured four speakers. Congressmen Ed Royce, Darrell Issa, Dana Rohrabacher, and me. Many people looked at me initially and probably thought about James B. Stockdale minus the heroism.
“Who am I? Why am I here?”
As I spoke, Gubernatorial candidates Meg Whitman and Steve Poizner both sat at tables in the front. There is nothing like giving a speech and knowing that one wrong word could get me waterboarded by the next governor. Thankfully both of them had kind words for me.
I let the crowd know that the day after the primary, I will immediately fall into line behind the winner and support them in the general election. I hope all right of center voters do this without hesitation.
I did add a couple of new lines, including an opener, “Anybody who thinks that Barack Obama runs the world has never attended a meeting of the Republican Women’s Federated.”
Congressman Rohrabacher offered a stinging defense of American liberty. He is the original surfing congressman. He brought a surfboard with him to the stage, and publicly endorsed Steve Poizner for governor as they took a picture with the surfboard together. Congressman Issa offered his endorsement to Ms. Whitman.
On Saturday evening, a gala dinner had Hannah Giles and James O’Keefe as headliners. Hannah and James are the two young people that exposed criminal enterprise ACORN. Mr. O’Keefe has even been arrested in an attempt to silence any ACORN critics. Andrew Breitbart has taken them under his wing, as ACORN is suing him as well.
I had extensive amounts of time to talk to Hannah and James. They are good young citizens. The only people against them are those who still believe ACORN is a law abiding entity.
James O’Keefe has his legal defense fund up, and anybody that wants to support a young man exposing leftists corruption should help this young man.
I also managed to make friends with some of the Orange County Young Republicans, briefly performing for them at a late night party.
Sunday was the day for formal endorsements.
For the senate race to fire Barbara Boxer, Chuck DeVore easily defeated Carly Fiorina and Tom Campbell on the first ballot.
(DeVore and Fiorina both spoke to the Los Angeles County Young Republicans Friday night, and DeVore appeared to be the heavy favorite.)
The governor’s race required a second ballot, but Mr.Poizner got the endorsement.
In the hotly contested Superintendent of Special Instruction, Diane Lenning came out ahead of Lydia Guiterriez. George Runner got the nod for the Board of Equalization,
I had the pleasure of meeting Republican Assembly members from all over America, including the National Republican Assembly president and his wife. I even received an offer to speak at a San Juan Capistrano Independence Day Tea Party, in addition to speak in Rhode Island. I have never been to Rhode Island, so of course I want to go there because it is there.
Like good conservative citizens, we left the hotel as spotless as we found it as Baron Night made sure that every sign was picked up. We were not going to be like environmental protesters leaving our signs on the grass.
While there was plenty of serious politicking, and plenty of socializing, the best aspect of the CRA Convention was seeing old friends and making new ones that I will have for life.
Happy 75th Birthday CRA.
Well done Buena Park!
eric
