You call that 'hope?'

A prominent conservative activist in California says reports of the Republican Party's demise in his state have been greatly exaggerated.

Mike Spence, president of the California Republican Assembly, acknowledges that John McCain's 24-point loss to Barack Obama in the Golden State was not exactly a vote of confidence in the GOP.

Since 1900, the only Republican nominee for the White House to be trounced by a wider gap in California was Alf Landon, President Franklin D. Roosevelt's challenger in 1936.

And Spence admits that it's probably not a good sign that registered Republicans do not constitute a majority in a single California congressional or legislative district.

Already, many districts drawn specifically to protect solid Republican seats are no longer safe. Take the 44th Congressional District, which stretches from Riverside to San Clemente. Lawmakers carved it out as a conservative bastion, and Republicans have routinely won landslide victories there. Yet the Republican incumbent, Ken Calvert of Corona, squeaked to reelection last month by just two points, making him a ripe target for Democrats in 2010.

But Spence says it would be a mistake to underestimate the raw coalition-building power of today's California GOP. In fact, thanks to an explosion of fresh ideas, a new Republican majority is just over the horizon.

Conservatives can take heart, he said, in the strong support of Latinos and African Americans for Proposition 8, the November ballot measure that banned same-sex marriage.

"There's at least one issue we agree on," he said.

Spence, a former Mormon bishop who serves on the West Covina school board and advises the National Right to Life Committee, also sees Republican resistance to tax increases as attractive to many Californians.

Gay marriage and taxes! Of course! Why didn't the Republicans think of that before? Somebody get John Boehner on the phone!

Oh, hey, here's a thought! While you're trying to unite your state around freeloading and homophobia, why not throw in a little racial hatred for good measure?

Oh, right, because that's already cutting into all those huge gains from Prop H8, and then some.

And the party's hard line on illegal immigration has hurt its standing among Latinos, a group that grew from a 7% share of the electorate in 1992 to 18% last month.

"That's a very important issue to Latino voters," Baldassare said.

No, you think?

Really, the only thing sadder than the story itself is the headline:

Conservative sees reasons for hope in season of gloom

I suppose that's one way of interpreting the facts as the story lays them out. Another would be:

Conservative curls up into fetal position, pulls covers over head, and pretends his entire world isn't falling to pieces all around him

But I guess that would be mean.

Giuliani ally was behind plot to steal 2008 election

The L.A. Times is reporting that a close friend and financial backer of Rudy Giuliani was the "mystery financer" of a GOP plot to split California's electoral votes, and make it easier for a Republican to win the 2008 presidential race.

He is New York hedge fund billionaire Paul Singer. He said he provided the $175,000 to initially finance the petition drive to get the measure on the June 2008 ballot. But as The Times' Dan Morain revealed in an exclusive story on this website last night, the drive has foundered on internal disputes and lack of further financing.

The petition drive's backers had remained a mystery since the effort was first revealed here in a July Top of the Ticket item. Democratic critics portrayed it as a power grab to wrest away some of the state's electoral votes, which have all gone to the Democratic candidates for the past four presidential elections. Some 19 of the state's 53 congressional districts would seem likely to vote for a GOP presidential candidate, enough to swing some recent national elections.

A Giuliani campaign spokeswoman, Maria Comella, said today that Singer's donation "was completely independent from our campaign."

California 'electoral reform' is dead

The L.A. Times reports that organizers are giving up on a GOP dirty trick to steal the 2008 presidential election. The plan was to use a ballot initiative to split the allocation of the state's rich cache of electoral votes.

Plagued by a lack of money, supporters of a statewide initiative drive to change the way California's 55 electoral votes are apportioned, first revealed here by Top of the Ticket in July, are pulling the plug on that effort.

In an exclusive report to appear on this website late tonight and in Friday's print editions, The Times' Dan Morain reports that the proposal to change the winner-take-all electoral vote allocation to one by congressional district is virtually dead with the resignation of key supporters, internal disputes and a lack of funds.

The reality is hundreds of thousands of signatures must be gathered by the end of November to get the measure on the June 2008 ballot.

[...]

The initiative began in July with an air of mystery. Its text and paperwork were filed by a Republican law firm in Sacramento -- Bell, McAndrews & Hiltachk -- but the actual identity of the backers was unknown. Observers noted the initiative would have helped independent candidates because its text specifically provided for third-party or independent candidates to win electoral votes by district.

Supporters said the initiative would increase California's role in presidential politics and better represent the state's diversity.

Opposition was led by Democratic consultant Chris Lehane who received financial backing from donors such as Stephen Bing, like Lehane a Hillary Clinton backer who saw any threat to keeping all of California's electoral votes as unacceptable.

"We want to to make sure this is not the Freddy Krueger of initiatives," Lehane said today, "that comes back to life. We'll continue to monitor it."