(Understanding their problems can help keep us from repeating their mistakes – promoted by blogswarm)

One can reasonably argue that the downfall of the California Republican Party began in the early 1990’s.  At that time, the California Republican Assembly was putting together a concerted strategy to gain control of each and every Republican Central Committee, and thus of the internal power structure of the California Republican Party.  From that base, they were able to determine who would run in local elections, who had the name recognition to win State Assembly races, etc.

Along with that organization came the ability to activate the most conservative, most idealogical, most enthusiastic members of the party and get them to the polls to win almost all state-wide primaries. The results have been self-destructive.

The most recent Republican Convention introduced a possible change in the political structure as Contra Costa County Party Chairman, Thomas Del Becarro was selected as the Vice-Chairman of the party.  The old guard, Republican Central Committee controllers, like Richard Pombo, tried to defeat Del Becarro, but were not successful. Remember, Del Becarro is the one who filed a lawsuit to prevent Jerry Brown from taking office as Attorney General on the grounds that he was “not qualified” according to a strict reading of the law.

We now have an increasingly polarized environment in Sacramento, played out daily in the press. A 2006 report released by the Public Policy Institute of California documents the fact that the California electorate is increasingly disassociated from either major party.

What is the lesson to be learned from this?  What have the parties of the “left” (Democrats and Greens) not produced gains equivalent to the losses on the Right?

Equally important, if the electorate is going to remain disassociated from the major parties, will we continue to be governed by those who, like Schwarzenegger, have managed to position themselves as being outside of either? 

I have a lot more questions than answers.

(Poor Pombo, people don’t like him, and we dare to organize against him – promoted by SFBrianCL)

In a recent comment printed in the Manteca Bulletin, Congressman Richard Pombo (CA 11) gives blogs high praise by singling out their effectiveness.  Speaking of the Defenders of Wildlife, he said:

The group has a full-time office in Pleasanton with a full-time staff, Pombo said. They have drawn their activist workers from personal website blogs in the Bay area. They send them into the neighborhoods campaigning against him in his congressional district, he said.

“It’s a full-blown campaign,” he pointed out. “I don’t think there has ever been anything to this extent before.”

Just recently the campaign group had some six buses pick up the Bay Area activists they had searched out from San Francisco, Oakland and Berkeley taking them to district neighborhoods for door-to-door contact.

When Pombo was home in the district during the months of August and September, the group showed up at every event he attended with their signs charging him with corruption, he said.

Those blogs are PomboWatch  and SayNoToPombo. The effectiveness of getting feet on the streets is one thing that the Internet does as as well as it helps raise money.