One aspect of the party elections at the California Republican Party convention this past weekend that hasn't been much remarked on is a noticeable shift in party offices to Orange Countians -- and the defeat of Schwarzenegger cat's paw Duf Sundheim's efforts to ensconce Schwarzeneggerian GOPers in party offices.

Steve Baric was elected -- unopposed -- as Secretary, while the redoubtable Keith Carlson was re-elected as Treasurer.

Linda Ackerman was elected -- unopposed -- as Republican National Committeewoman, while Shawn Steel crushed incumbent National Committeeman Tim Morgan by more than 20 points. Palos Verdes resident Shawn isn't technically an OCer, but he's here often enough to qualify for honorary citizenship.

The back story is the defeat handed to Duf Sundheim, and since it's late and I'm tired, I'll excerpt this able summary of Duf's bad weekend from California Political News and Views:

Hands down the biggest loser of the California Republican Party convention was Duf Sundheim.

Regardless of how much he received by the PAC CRAFT to "control" this convention, it did not work.

He was assigned the job of passing a pale pastel Platform. Instead it was a solid conservative GOP document.

He was to re-elect National Committeeman Tim Morgan. Instead Shawn Steel won with 61% of the vote. Morgan had been elected three times without Sundheim's help.

Three solid conservatives were elected to the CRP Board, Baric, Steel and Ackerman and one was re-elected, Carlson.

Not a good weekend for Duf Sundheim. Wonder if those financing his efforts will look for someone else to take the lead?

The man largely responsible for dealing defeat to Duf? OC's own Dark Lord, Mike Schroeder:

Mike Schroeder - wins for all three of his candidates, Steel, Carlson and Baric and provided platform that supported GOP principles in bold colors over platform by supporters of the Governor that were pale pastels..

Schwarzenegger started a Section 527 called CRAFT funded with donations from Paul Folino, Larry Dodge, Tom Tucker, and Howard Leach among others. Immediate Past Chair, Duf Sundheim, was hired to operate it. Its purpose is 2-fold - to elect Schwarzenegger type Republicans to GOP party offices and to find more Schwarzenegger type Republicans to run in Republican primaries.

So far the results have been dismal. CRAFT did not elect a single CRP officer that it supported and could not stop a Schroeder drafted platform from passing overwhelmingly that repeatedly repudiated all of Schwarzenegger's policy positions. All of [Schwarzenegger']s candidates either were defeated or withdrew from their races. The GOP's new platform repudiates [Schwarzenegger]'s positions on tax increases, bonds to cover operating deficits, abortion, and how judges should be appointed.

Might be time to re-think the CRAFT approach. Gov. Pete Wilson tried it in the 1992 primaries, and it was an expensive, destructive effort in which nearly all the Wilson candidates lost -- and the conservative winners of those bitter primaries narrowly lost in November despite the most favorable redistricting in decades. Both sides learned from that experience and by 1994 leveraged the fair redistricting and the GOP wave to win an Assembly majority.

My point: Governor Schwarzenegger might profit from his predecessor's experience and ditch CRAFT.