SACRAMENTO -- These should be heady times for the California Republican Party, which has a resurgent, world-famous governor in place whose outsize fundraising capabilities could flood its coffers with relatively little effort.
But the party Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger will address at its semiannual convention in Palm Springs tonight is hardly flourishing.
It's broke. It's been embarrassed by scandal. And it's almost entirely bereft of a bench; few members are considered strong enough to capitalize on Schwarzenegger's momentum.
The governor has shown little interest in throwing the organization a lifeline. And some party leaders leave the impression that if one were to come their way, they might just throw it back.
"He doesn't agree with the vast majority of Republicans on most issues," said Mike Spence, president of the California Republican Assembly, which works to elect conservatives.
"I imagine the gathering will not be a particularly happy one," said Jack Pitney, a professor of government at Claremont McKenna College.
The party is still reeling from an internal row that ended with the resignation of its chief financial officer. The official was an Australian immigrant who had been ordered deported in 2001 and was jailed on visa violations in 2004.
The group also hired a Canadian with no political experience to be its political director, through a visa program that provides a limited number of work permits for immigrants with the skills to do jobs Americans can't.
The moves came under attack from Republicans throughout the state, who charged that they undermined the party's hard line on illegal immigration and suggested incompetence.
"I can't understand how they could have been so stupid to hire these people," said Raoul Lowery Contreras, a longtime Republican activist and blogger in San Diego. "Republicans were totally embarrassed by it. They felt betrayed. They couldn't understand why they couldn't find a single American to do these jobs."
Though the Canadian stayed on, the finance official from Australia ultimately resigned.
Meanwhile, one GOP congressman from California, Rep. Randy "Duke" Cunningham, went to jail last year on a bribery conviction. Two others, Rep. Jerry Lewis of Redlands and Rep. John T. Doolittle of Roseville, are under investigation for alleged ethics violations.
The party's troubles were compounded when required filings with the state revealed that it was about $4 million in the red.
