Would it be the same insult-slinging, filterless personality Americans have grown accustomed to seeing on T.V., who protesters waited for hours just to throw eggs at and block his limo from entering the hotel complex thereby forcing him to enter through a back way?

Or would the business tycoon and GOP presidential frontrunner be more subdued to look more presidential — as media reports have recently suggested — while speaking to a politically experienced and partisan audience?

Wastes no time

His introductory video took shots at right-leaning media personalities, like Fox News’ Megyn Kelly, Washington Post columnist George Will and Republican strategist and talking head Karl Rove, who have at times doubted, challenged or decried a Trump candidacy. The video ended with a freeze frame of his hand (which has surprisingly been a storyline during the campaign) looming large above a crowd. 

The beginning of his speech chronicled his efforts to get inside, which was “not the easiest entrance” he’d ever made, having to go “under a fence and through a fence.” (A later account added mud and dirt.)

Here’s the hole in the fence Trump used to evade protestors adjacent to the 101.

“Oh boy, I felt like I was crossing the border,” Trump said. 

And with that, he launched into an extemporaneous, 20 or so minute speech that was short on policy — he mentioned building a wall across the U.S./Mexico border (“We want people to come in our country, but they have to come in legally,” Trump said) and bashed multiple trade deals — but was long on bravado and digs at other candidates.

Content

Trump spoke largely about how he’s “winning” the race for the nomination, how he’ll soon “win” the nomination and how he’ll make America “win.”

“America doesn’t win anymore,” Trump said, noting that as of today his campaign has 1,001 delegates locked down of the 1,237 delegates needed to win the nomination.

“I’m killing it, everybody,” Trump said. 

Trump spoke of a need for party unification. He spoke highly of the “incredible” Ben Carson, a former candidate who has since endorsed Trump.

Trump often complimented CAGOP Chairman Jim Brulte, who “did such a great job.”

He bragged about how he would compete and campaign in states that he said other Republican candidates write off, like New York (his home state) and Michigan. 

“No Republican would campaign in Michigan,” Trump said, overlooking the 2012 GOP nominee, Mitt Romney — the son of a former Republican governor of the Michigan — who vowed last cycle to campaign in the Great Lake State until the end.  

He spoke favorably of another former candidate, former Hewlett-Packard CEO Carly Fiorina, who this week was announced as Sen. Ted Cruz’s running mate (assuming he gets the nomination). 

“I like Carly,” Trump said, before adding that Carly brings no delegates with her to the Texan’s ticket (she technically won one delegate in Iowa).

On Cruz and Ohio Gov. John Kasich, the other two remaining GOP candidates, Trump said they were acting like “spoiled children” for continuing to stay in the race. Cruz has only 565 delegates and Kasich has only 153. 

Trump also doubled down on his favorite critique of former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, also a former candidate.

“Low energy,” Trump said. “Very low energy.”

Trump referred to Kasich eating as “disgusting.” Kasich eating at campaign stops has been another surprising side theme of the primary.  

“Did you ever see him do a news conference without eating,” Trump asked.

Trump decried the trend of candidates savaging each other in the primary, only to ultimately fall in line and support the other when one drops.

“Ted Cruz, he’s a wonderful guy,” Trump said. “But I don’t want his endorsement.”

Highlights of Twitter’s coverage of Trump’s entrance and the protests

https://twitter.com/hunterschwarz/status/726140981658193921 https://twitter.com/ccadelago/status/726136663554957312 https://twitter.com/ccadelago/status/726149867010056192 https://twitter.com/LATSeema/status/726122131860262912 https://twitter.com/LATSeema/status/726122723806601217 https://twitter.com/LATSeema/status/726128380215590913 https://twitter.com/eastbaycitizen/status/726096358612963328

By Steven Greenhut

SACRAMENTO — Most of the activists, insiders and lobbyists I talked to during this month’s California Republican Party convention in Sacramento expressed optimism about their party despite blistering election losses and persistently falling voter registration levels.

Their optimism came from the election of former lawmaker Jim Brulte of Rancho Cucamonga as state party chairman. “California Republicans have chosen a former state lawmaker known for his fundraising work to lead the party back from the brink of irrelevance in a state that once was a GOP stronghold,” pronounced an Associated Press report.

Given Brulte’s financial connections and vast Capitol experience, he was able to unite the conservative and moderate wings of the party at the convention.

Unite might be too strong of a word. The GOP has its back against the wall, is deeply in debt, has no blueprint for regaining momentum and is thoroughly lost ideologically. Brulte’s election may have been more of a “If you want it, you can have it” situation.

Also good news, the party event featured less of that internal bickering that has plagued past California GOP events (although it did have a couple of scandals, including yet another one involving some party member talking about rape). The old saying about academic battles being so vicious because the stakes are so small should be refined. The stakes now are so minimal, given the powerlessness of the state GOP, that it’s not even fun for them to fight with each other anymore.

Cynics joked that the convention theme was: “Republicans love Latinos.” Almost every public event was designed to highlight the party’s embrace of the state’s burgeoning Latino community. The party finally has recognized that it can’t win without deep support from a group that doesn’t vote for Republicans in large percentages, that it is paying the price for its past approach to immigration issues, and that its outreach efforts are ineffective.

Sending GOP emissaries into Latino neighborhoods to convince them to vote Republican worked as well as if left-wing Latino activists sent emissaries to Newport Beach to sign them up for the Democrats. The new efforts are designed to “grow” candidates and send them through the Republican pipeline. Unfortunately, it’s hard to launch this effort without it smacking of pandering. I’d feel better, also, if the new candidates were more about principles, less about ethnicity and values.

If I were giving the convention a theme, I’d have borrowed the title of the 2009 Jennifer Aniston movie, “He’s Just Not That Into You.” California’s voters just don’t care about the party. Ginning up fundraising by electing a deal-cutting former lobbyist makes sense from a party-structure standpoint. But where are GOP leaders who want to engage in the battle of ideas? And do they even know what ideas to engage in?

Karl Rove

The weekend convention’s Saturday luncheon featured campaign strategist Karl Rove, who blasted the Obama administration for increasing the federal government’s debt and failing to deal with the crushing entitlement burden from Social Security and Medicare. But, as former President George W. Bush’s top adviser, Rove pushed policies that doubled the national debt and worsened the entitlements situation under the faulty idea that voters would embrace the GOP if the party handed out goodies. Delegates in attendance for Rove’s speech should have at least walked out of the room or booed loudly.

Former Irvine assemblyman Chuck DeVore spoke at a lunch event. He is a solid conservative, but one who fled the state for Austin, Texas. He makes great points about Texas policy, but many California Republicans might have come away with a different lesson: How do I find a good job in Dallas?

Some of the politicians even were championing their newfound willingness to reach across party lines. That sounded nice, but the Democratic Party is committed to expanding regulation, increasing taxes, blocking reform to union entitlements and creating new government programs and agencies. Once in a while, an occasional “point of light” will emerge — i.e., a growing consensus for reforming the project-halting California Environmental Quality Act. But the Democrats don’t need Republican support for that or anything else.

New approach

What’s an irrelevant party to do? Its new approach will take many years, at best, to change the state’s political climate, and California needs help immediately.

Instead of worrying about the political process, the party needs to build ideas that resonate with the public. Republicans will never compete with Democrats in the game of government giveaway. They need to boisterously rebuild that old “Leave Us Alone” coalition and point out why government is the main obstacle to so many Californians’ freedom and prosperity, although I’m not sure how many of the party’s leaders or activists believe that.

Look at how Kentucky Republican Sen. Rand Paul’s filibuster dragged into the national spotlight the Obama administration’s police-state policies on drone attacks on Americans. Likewise, California Republicans need the courage and vision to engage Californians about how the ways the union-controlled Democratic majority is degrading our state.

That might not make the GOP lobbyists and consultants happy, but the party now needs ideological leadership even more than political leadership.

Steven Greenhut is vice president of journalism at the Franklin Center for Government and Public Integrity. Write to him at: steven.greenhut@franklincenterhq.org.

By Katy Grimes

SACRAMENTO — “Losing has one great benefit to it,” Karl Rove, told a large luncheon California Republican Party spring convention in Sacramento yesterday. “It gives you the chance to start fresh to look everything anew and start rebuilding from the ground up in innovative and thoughtful ways that will expand our reach and expand our members.”

What can you say about Karl Rove, “the Architect”? It seems everyone has an opinion of Rove — he is either loved or hated. And Saturday at the state Republican Convention, Rove did not disappoint.

“Get off your ass. Get back in the game and fight,” Rove told a packed luncheon crowd.

Rove, the former senior aide adviser to President George W. Bush, had plenty of advice for California Republicans — and it wasn’t always pretty.

“We are Republican because we believe in personal freedom and limited government,” Rove said. “And not because we believe government needs to give to this or that group. It’s about limited government that allows every person rise to life.”

Summoned by new California Republican Party Chairman Jim Brulte to speak to the conventioneers, Rove told Republicans they’ve been confortable talking to each other, but have broader obligations. “We need to be asking for the vote. And we need to pay more attention to who is asking for the vote.”

President Obama

“Obama is more concerned in beating the opposition, beating them down, and breaking his political opposition,” Rove explained. “That’s his principal focus.”

“He wants us to sit on sideline, wring our hands and say, ‘Woe is me.’”

Instead, Rove admonished California Republicans to get more effective with their communications.

“Losing has a great benefit to starting fresh, rebuilding from ground up,” Rove said. “We can expand opportunities and victories.”

But he warned Republicans to focus on more than “just the tactical stuff. We have great principles. But sometimes it sounds like 1960, or 1980. It’s not. It’s 2013.”

Rove said Republicans need to listen to how to modernize. “We need some forebearance. We need to stay focused on the big issues.”

Sequester deflection

With everyone focused on the national sequester, Rove said Democrats have successfully deflected some of the bigger things.

“The sequester is 2.4 percent of the budget.  We’re not cutting like you had to in California,” Rove said. “We’re just reducing future growth of government.”

Ray La Hood, U.S. Secretary of Transportation, is threatening to cut air traffic controllers, Rove said. Ken Salazar, U.S. Secretary of the Interior, threatened he will have to close every national park campground because of the sequester, instead of cutting real government waste and excess.

The bottom line

“There is not enough revenue, and too much spending,” Rove said. “Government getting too big, and too expensive.”

Rove said the debt is up about 60 percent from the $10 trillion Obama inherited.

According to the latest data, U.S. gross domestic product rose just 0.1 percent in the fourth quarter of 2012. Economists had expected GDP to increase 1 percent. “But there is no European Union to bail us out,” Rove said.

“The biggest problem is our economy. We’re in a recovery,” he said mockingly. “This is the weakest recorded recover in history of country, which means this is the first recovery in which median household income has dropped.

“We used to say everything important in America happened first in California. A Republican resurgence could happen in California. The future of this state is so important. The future of country depends on it.”

But, Rove added, “We in Texas are grateful for you sending your best and brightest to us.”