Calif GOP enthusiasm: Will it equal registration?

[Twoller]

This deserves a more legible repost:

Calif GOP enthusiasm: Will it equal registration?

By JULIET WILLIAMS, Associated Press Writer

Sunday, March 14, 2010

(03-14) 13:32 PDT Santa Clara, Calif. (AP) --

California Republicans are leaving their weekend gathering enthusiastic about their prospects for retaining the governor's seat and replacing their most reviled target, three-term Democratic Sen. Barbara Boxer.

Strong candidates for each office and their own rising anger over government spending have given the GOP faithful hope for a big year at the polls. But that success will turn largely on whether the party can reverse its long decline in voter registration in California, a Democratic state where independents who lean left are the fastest-growing voting bloc.

Despite an aggressive push to turn that around, helped in part by a $250,000 donation from gubernatorial hopeful Meg Whitman, it's still far from clear whether that effort will have much chance in a state that is increasingly diverse.

"Now is the time to strike, while the iron is hot, encourage those people who are now identifying with the party to register," said state Republican Party chairman Ron Nehring. "People who are turned off by what the Democrats are doing in Washington."

Whitman, the billionaire former chief executive of eBay, told delegates in Santa Clara this weekend that the voter registration drive has already yielded 100,000 new Republicans and that organizers hope to reach 500,000 by November.

It's an uphill climb for the GOP in California, where about 7.5 million voters, or 45 percent of the electorate, are registered Democrats and Republicans make up 31 percent with 5.2 million. To win statewide, candidates must secure substantial support from decline-to-state voters who now make up 20 percent of voters.

So far, Republican dreams of turning blue districts red aren't materializing, said John Burton, chairman of the state Democratic Party. He questioned whether voter dissatisfaction is being solely directed at Democrats, or at Republicans who have blocked legislation in the U.S. Senate and in the state Legislature.

"When people start focusing on the election, they're going to start realizing that the Republicans are a party of no solutions," he said.

Wealthy candidates who he said are out of touch with average residents won't resonate either, Burton said.

"I don't think two billionaires like Meg Whitman and Carly Fiorina are going to turn anyone on."

Republican candidates are veering to the right in their policy positions and rhetoric as they try to win over conservative June primary voters, and some worry that a strong wave of anti-illegal immigration fervor from some candidates this weekend could hurt the party's efforts to expand its base and attract Hispanics.

Gubernatorial candidate Steve Poizner told delegates Saturday night that he would cut off state-funded services to illegal immigrants and called the border with Mexico a national security threat.

"As governor, if I have to, I'll send the National Guard to the border," said Poizner, the state insurance commissioner. "If that doesn't work, I'll send the California Highway Patrol to the border, and if that doesn't work I'm going to send the California Republican Party to the border."

His speech was met with cheers, unlike an address earlier in the day from state Sen. Abel Maldonado, a moderate Republican from Santa Maria who has often been at odds with his party. He urged officials to make a genuine effort to talk with would-be Latino voters.

About two-thirds of Californians who are eligible to vote but are unregistered are Latino, according to the Public Policy Institute of California.

"We can't go out and have a fiesta and have tequila and mariachis and tacos and think that they're going to register as Republicans. That's not going to happen," said Maldonado.

The article seems to suggest that the Decline to State voters are those "independents" who are left leaning. And, that they left the Republican party because it was too conservative.

I would like to see the numbers as to where those Decline to State voters are actually coming from. I sincerely doubt they are leaving the Republicans because the Republicans are not left leaning enough.

And why should the Republican be trying to woo unregistered hispanics? They are all anchor babies, don't even speak enough English to know or care about what is going on and more likely to register Democrat since it was the Democrats who got them here -- or their non-citizen parents.

"As governor, if I have to, I'll send the National Guard to the border," said Poizner, the state insurance commissioner. "If that doesn't work, I'll send the California Highway Patrol to the border, and if that doesn't work I'm going to send the California Republican Party to the border."

I like that. If the Republicans allow Decline to State voters to use their ballots this primary, I would certainly take them up on the offer.

[admin]

The Associated Press has copyrights to their articles, and it prohibits reproducing their work without permission. There is a thread we started about this in the official section, and although we have been lax on enforcing the rule here, we're about to get more serious about it.
A few sentences of their atricles with a link to the original is about all we are allowed to do without running afoul of the copyrights.

http://www.ap.org/pages/about/terms.html

4. All material ("Materials") displayed or transmitted on this site, including but not limited to text, photographs, images, illustrations, video clips, audio clips, and graphics are owned by AP or its members, and are protected by United States and international copyright, trademarks, service marks, and other proprietary rights, laws and treaties.
5. Except as provided in this agreement, you may not copy, reproduce, publish, transmit, transfer, sell, rent, modify, create derivative works from, distribute, repost, perform, display, or in any way commercially exploit the Materials carried on this site, nor may you infringe upon any of the copyrights or other intellectual property rights contained in the Materials. You may not remove or alter, nor cause to be removed or altered, any copyright, trademark, or other proprietary notices or visual marks and logos from the Materials.

[Ole Glory]

oops, my bad.

[admin]

Originally Posted by Ole Glory

oops, my bad.

It's alot of us; I've contacted AP and asked for permission based upon our use of their stuff, but they are likely to reject that.

[Twoller]

Unless somebody who originally published the material complains, I wouldn't worry about it. The most important thing is that when you post an article, you absolutely must publish the link you got it from. Otherwise you might attribute the posted article to somebody else -- or even worse -- you might claim it for your own.

Publishing on the internet is very different from publishing in print. Reprinting in print somebody's work is a huge violation of the rights of the original publisher. But reprinting somebody's work on the internet, as long as you provide the original source is not that big a deal. If the article is long and you republish the whole thing, that's pushing it. But for really short news items, you are more likely to generate more hits for the original source as long as you post the link you got it from.

And also if the source requires that you register to view the material, then copying and pasting from there is also a no-no. Sometimes you have to pay to register to view the source, and copying and republishing from that kind of source is a huge violation of the rights of the source.

It also helps if you do as I do and always paste news items quotes.