Conservative Republican John Eastman wants to succeed Jerry Brown as our next State Attorney General
[poll id=”265″]
The race for California State Attorney General added one candidate and lost another over the past few days.
John Eastman, the conservative Republican who was serving as Dean of the Chapman School of Law, resigned from Chapman last week and he announced that he would be running for State Attorney General.
Eastman wasted no time in putting his campaign team together. The bad news is he hired Prop. 8 consultant Jeff Flint. And he hired former YAFer Brandon Powers, who was working for Assemblyman Jeff Miller. Some say that it was Powers who leaked the audio tape of Miller talking to former legislator Mike Duvall – when Duvall got in trouble for talking about sex with two lobbyists.
On the left, “Former Assemblyman Joe Canciamilla has decided to seek a judgeship rather than run for state attorney general,” according to the Sacramento Bee. Democratic San Francisco District Attorney Kamala Harris “announced she was running last November and had netted $2.3 million in contributions as of last week,” according to the San Francisco Examiner. L.A. City Attorney Rocky Delgadillo is also considering running for State Attorney General.
Other Democrats who are thinking of running for State Attorney General include “Assemblymen Ted Lieu, Alberto Torrico and Pedro Nava; and Facebook’s chief privacy officer, Chris Kelly,” according to the Sacramento Bee.
Eastman will be facing off against fellow Republican Tom Harman, who is currently in the State Senate. Harman’s website indicates he is a supporter of Three Strikes. And he supports the death penalty. Eastman has similar views. No bueno!
Below is Eastman’s latest press release:
John Eastman Campaign for Attorney General Hits Full Stride
Conservative Legal Expert Names Ed Meese as Honorary Campaign Chair; Schubert Flint Public Affairs as Campaign Strategists
SACRAMENTO, Calif., Feb. 1 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ — John Eastman, considered by many to be one of the top conservative legal voices in the nation, announced today that he has stepped down as Dean of the Chapman University School of Law effective immediately to pursue the Republican nomination for Attorney General of California. Eastman, a former Reagan Administration official and clerk to US Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, has been exploring a possible campaign for the past few weeks. The response has been so overwhelming that he has taken this next step to campaign full time.
Dean Eastman also announced that The Honorable Ed Meese, former Attorney General of the United States, will serve as the Honorary Chairman of his campaign, and that the respected political consulting firm of Schubert Flint Public Affairs will serve as general strategic and media consultants for the campaign. Brandon Powers, joining the campaign from his position as Chief of Staff for Assemblyman Jeff Miller (R-Chico), will serve as day-to-day manager of the campaign.
“It is clear to me that the power and responsibilities of the Attorney General lie in the protection of our fundamental rights. First among these rights is the right of Californians to be free and safe from violent crime,” said Eastman. “I will vigorously support and enforce our laws such as Three Strikes, and I will oppose any efforts to undermine these tough sentencing laws.”
Eastman also announced his intention to more aggressively fight against federal court orders hamstringing California’s prison system, saying the net effect of these orders would be the release of violent prisoners into society and massive tax increases to pay for benefits for incarcerated prisoners that in some cases may be superior to those of law-abiding citizens in free society. He also said he would pursue legal action against the federal government for their failure to reimburse California for the cost of incarcerating illegal immigrants in state prisons for other crimes they had committed after entering California illegally.
“Along with being chief law enforcement officer for the state, the Attorney General is also the peoples’ lawyer,” added former U.S. Attorney General Ed Meese. “I am supporting John Eastman because as a conservative he knows how to apply the authority of this crucial office to protect all our fundamental rights, including the rights not only of citizens to be safe, but also the rights of taxpayers, of property owners, and of the people to be masters of their own government. His distinguished legal career shows he is clearly the right choice for the job.”
Joining Schubert Flint and Powers on the Eastman campaign team are two other campaign veterans: pollster Dr. Jan van Lohuizen (Voter/Consumer Research) and internet strategist Patrick Ruffini (EngageDC). Van Lohuizen is one of the top pollsters in the nation, having polled for President George W. Bush as well as numerous successful statewide Republican candidates in California (Poizner, Schwarzenegger, Jones, Quackenbush and Deukmejian). Eastman’s campaign team predicted he would soon become the favorite to win the nomination.
“Dean Eastman made such extraordinary progress in just a couple of weeks that it makes sense to take the campaign to the next phase,” said Jeff Flint of Schubert Flint Public Affairs. “In the coming days, we’ll be announcing many prominent leaders who have already signed on board John’s campaign. We’re putting together a campaign that will help communicate John’s conservative record and message, and in doing so, help him win the primary and make a strong start towards winning this November.”
UPDATE: U.S. Rep. Jackie Speier has pulled out of this race, according to the Sacramento Bee.
Leave a Reply