In the last thirty years, I have attended a number of California  state-wide political conventions, mostly because my late wife, Pat Wiggins, was an active politician and officeholder.  Much useful work was done at these conventions on identifying public policy ideas and in developing relationships, but they had very little effect on the selection of…

My grandfather, John Conner, Professor of Government at Texas A&i University (now part of Texas A&M) was proud to call himself a populist.  For him, it  meant standing up for the little guy, for supporting workers and farmers, rather than the big business elite.  Above all, populism was about equality for ordinary citizens under the…