AnnaZ's home is located in Ground Zero in the immigration debate: There is a travel agency nearby advertising trips to Mexico, in Spanish. And Spanish is all over the place, in the business names, on the streets, everywhere. You start to see what Invasion, the title of Michelle Malkin's anti-illegal book, really means.

Unfortunately, thanks to my own lateness in leaving work and a horrendous traffic tie up on Topanga Canyon, I missed Michelle Malkin entirely. And, as many of you know, I am on the other side in the illegal immigration controversy, so it may have been just as well.

AnnaZ and Mercuria were finishing their radio show, while a small crowd gathered in the living room of the house to start the discussion of strategy. DoughtyOne started the meeting by asking us to introduce ourselves and say a bit about what we wanted from the group.

It is genuinely impressive what a diverse group we have. The left talks about diversity, but we have it for real, everyone from passionate opponents of illegal immigration to equally passionate supporters of the status quo. From people keen on defending gun rights to those this issue didn't move. From vehement opponents of abortion to those who felt the issue should go away. And from people involved in a dozen or two organizations to those who just enjoyed getting together.

It was both heartening and intriguing that this very diverse group, with frequent passionate disagreements on many subjects, could unite behind a common agenda, but unite we did. The agenda, as hammered out during the meeting, has the following major points:

• Senator Barbara Boxer is a vunerable target, a hard-leftist who's done virtually nothing in the Senate. Our primary mission will be to get rid of her and elect someone we like in her place.

  We not only need to oppose Boxer by clearly defining her failed agenda; we also need to find someone we can sincerely and passionately support due to her or his conservative viewpoints on a wide variety of issues.

  For example, our work helping Simon, important as it was, concentrated too much in putting down Davis - who people knew was a slimeball - and not enough on showing Simon as a viable alternative.

• Reform the Republican Party. They have ignored our best people for too long. They gave Simon virtually no support at all, and it is no exaggeration that he might have been elected if they'd been behind him, with their money and troops. The same goes for candidates in lesser races such as MrB. MrB got 40% of the vote despite being in a 75% Democratic district; how much better could he have done with major backing?

  Right now, the Republican party only supports people who were elected before. This is absurd, since it will mean we'll never gain seats. We have to push them to become less risk-adverse.

• Train ourselves. A runner would not dive into the olympics on his first effort; he would do extensive training and testing of himself first. Likewise, we need more training.

  The Leadership Institute's training at FRiva Las Vegas in August was extremely well received by all who attended. Providing workshops on subjects ranging from fund raising to effective campaigning on a tiny budget, the Leadership Institute's program is a proven way to improve our members' effectiveness and get them fired up at the grass roots.

  Accordingly, we agreed to make a March 2003 appearance by the Leadership Institute a major priority for our chapter.

• Find and Train our candidates. We must find good candidates from the grass roots, make sure their ideas are compatible with ours, and give them the training and tools they need to succeed.

  For example, we can give them high-quality research that will help them answer tough questions, responsibly, yet without betraying our core ideas.

• Dealing with Divisive issues. There were people on all sides of the illegal immigration issue present, from anti-illegal immigration activists (Mercuria) to cosmopolitan people generally supportive of illegals (me).

  DoughtyOne tried to steer a middle path. On the one hand, he noted, many opponents of illegal immigration do more damage than help to our cause. Many of them feel that a giant moat and huge wall with flashing lights and alarms should appear magically on the border; this isn't going to happen. On the other hand, DoughtyOne also feels that the rule of law must be enforced on the border.

  How to reconcile these two viewpoints must be left for later meetings.

  In the mean time, it's very clear to him - and, I think, virtually everyone in the room including myself - that we must expend our best efforts to place quality people who share our overall platform into positions of power within our state. Then, they can deal with this and other issues from a solidly conservative viewpoint.

• Network Enthusiastically with other Republican groups. Find 'em, build bridges to them, develop mutual support policies, and implement activism using their numbers on top of our own. Last night, we had within our ranks members of the NRA, the Liberty Belles, the Republican Party, the California Republican Assembly, the Young Republicans, and several other groups. There are good conservative people within each of these organizations. It is important that we develop metworking relationships with the willing members from these groups and others.

• We need regular meetings - frequent, but not too frequent. Bob J recommends frequent electronic meetings and quarterly in-person meetings. Most of us seem to feel that monthly to every six week meetings would be ideal, especially considering some other monthly events the more active among us can use to network.

• We need to seek out regular officers, including a VP and Media Spokesperson.