As our readers know, we here at GayPatriot define a diva as “a strong, confident woman who commands the respect of men.”   A conservative blogress diva need not be conservative  per se; all she must do command the respect (or have otherwise earned the admiration) of gay conservatives.  In the past, as I noted back in 2006, some of our nominees have been

libertarian. And others, while more centrist, distinguish themselves by their iconoclasm and the manner in which they take on the silliness of certain leftists — and conservative pretenders, i.e., those who, in the words of one of our [past and possibly future] nominees, “drive . . . liberals nuts.”

This year, our readers have already submitted the names of blogress divas new to the contest, including, we believe, only the second lesbian ever nominated, Cynthia Yockey, aka a Conservative Lesbian.   Will she perhaps replace that other dyke diva Tammy Bruce by capturing this year’s Endora and reigning a Conservative Blogress Diva Regent or will she join Sondra K and Pamela Geller as only the third woman to become the Grande Conservative Blogress Diva?

Other names drawn to my attention this year include Cassandra of Villainous Company, Nic Deb, Megan McArdle, Phyllis Chesler and Karin Quade (of anti-anti-Americanism.com).

Also in contention are reigning divas Pamela Geller, Tammy Bruce and neoneocon as well as Amy Alkon, The Anchoress, Ann Althouse, Little Miss Attila, Dymphna of Gates of Vienna, immediate past Grande Conservative Blogress Diva Sondra K of Knowledge is Power, Mary Katharine Ham of The Weekly Standard, Rachel Lucas, Michelle Malkin, Camille Paglia, Virginia Postrel of The Dynamist, Jennifer Rubin of Commentary’s Contentions, Sister Toldjah, Debbie Schlussel, and Fausta Wertz.

Please submit your nominations (or seconds) in the comments section below or via e-mail.   Bruce and I will review the submissions (and the seconds) and choose this year’s roster, posting a poll as soon as this coming Friday with balloting continuing for at least a week.

So, if you want your favorite diva to appear on the ballot, make sure to second her nomination below.

While I have been outspoken in my support of Carly Fiorina’s bid for the United States Senate, this blog has yet to endorse either of the two Republican candidates vying for the opportunity to take on one of the Senate’s most liberal and ineffective members.

In the contest for Virginia’s Eighth Congressional district, however, we here at GayPatriot are now prepared to make our first endorsement in the 2010 elections, supporting a principled conservative who happens to be openly gay to defeat one of the House’s most liberal and ineffective members, that is, if you don’t count how effective he has been in sucking up campaign cash in exchange for political favors.  Along with his fellow Democrats John Murtha and Pete Visclosky, Jim Moran,the incumbent in that district “received hefty campaign contributions from [lobbying firm] PMA and its clients and who approved millions of dollars in earmarks for those companies.”

Matthew Berry is a far different sort of man than this corrupt Democrat.   Unlike Moran, Berry sees politics are an arena in which to promote his ideas rather than an environment in which to enrich himself.  I have known Matthew for nearly fourteen years and in that time, have been impressed with his intellect and ideas. He has long believed in the principles of small government, not just on their philosophic merit, but also for their practical benefit.  He knows that with less federal regulation, industry can more readily prosper, leading to a better and cheaper products, a more efficient delivery of services and more rapid creation of jobs.

Matthew also knows, as he has written on his campaign website, that the “current explosion of government spending and debt is not sustainable and imperils our nation’s future.”  And he has been a strong voice against Obama/Reid/PelosiCare, opposing greater government control over health care. Instead, he has put forward a 5-point plan for health care reform, favoring policies which reduce government intervention in this growing sector of our economy and do not impose additional costs or mandates on the American people.   Nor do they deprive senior citizens of Medicare benefits.

In short, Matthew Berry is running the kind of campaign we hope Republicans will be running across the country in the coming year. (more…)

In a further example of bias at the AP (in the guise of journalism critical of a Democratic politician), “reporter” Kevin Freking covers how the two Republicans vying to replace Barbara Boxer in the United States Senate have been making much of her “reprimanding a general for calling her ‘ma’am’“.   After detailing how Carly Fiorina and Chuck DeVore are using video of that encounter to raise money for their campaigns, Freking quotes some professor of communications who informs him that this is “not the kind of thing that plays well in California”.

Freking concludes by quoting the arrogant woman who “reprimanded” a general; she faults her opponents for focusing on trivialities while she is focused on the issues. The journalists so shows the three-term incumbent as the season legislator rising above the fray.  Referencing Fiorina, Boxer, who has seen unemployment in her jurisdiction jump by nearly 33% since her election to the Senate, “If this is what she thinks is the most important issue as people are struggling to get jobs, and housing, and health care, it’s fine”.

Actually, Ma’am, she doesn’t.  She’s also been talking about jobs, so, yes, Ma’am, fine, let’s talk about jobs.   And why don’t you tell us just why it is that, after you voted to spend $787 billion dollars of taxpayer money (as well as that of their children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren), one in eight Californians are out of work?

Ma’am may give a pretty good talk about jobs (heck, that’s how she justified the “stimulus”), but has hasn’t backed any policies which have actually helped create job here in the Golden State.

“Waaah” is Not a Constitutional Right.

I wish I could be as sanguine about the the election of the firmly openly gay Speaker of the California Assembly as I am about the first openly lesbian Mayor of the City of Houston.  And while I have met Assemblyman John Pérez, an openly gay Latino Democrat from Los Angeles elected by his fellow partisans to preside over the state’s lower house, I don’t have great hopes that he’ll initiate the kind of reforms we need here in the Golden State.

Pérez is certainly a very  nice man with a polished presence, but he’s also the favorite of the state’s unions. According to the biography on his his campaign’s web-site, he spent the 15 years prior to his election to the General Assembly “working for labor unions, most recently serving as UFCW (United Food and Commercial Workers International Union) political director.“  Wikipedia identifies his as a “union organizer“.  Just what we need another “organizer” in a position of political power.

Don’t think he’ll be standing up to those public employee unions who, while one in eight Californians are out of work, with employees in the private sector taking pay cuts to keep their jobs, continue to fight for higher wages for the already highly paid state employees.  Those unions will continue siphon off a hefty portion of their members’ salaries to fill their coffers, replenish the war chests of state Democrats and campaign for higher taxes.

I would wager that Pérez was elected to such a powerful position so early in his legislative tenure (he was first elected only last year), in large part, due to backing from public employee unions who wield the power behind the various Democratic Party thrones in Sacramento.  They know that a man who cut his political teeth in union activism would not join the growing chorus of Californians upset at that power.  Indeed, thanks to that power–and the unwillingness of California politicians to challenge it, our state is in one heck of a fiscal mess.

His election may be a historic milestone for gay Americans, but it’s also a sign that Democrats in the California Assembly are in the pocket of the state public employee unions and a guarantee that the fiscal problems which have plagued this state won’t get any better.  In fact, they are likely to get worse.  Much worse.