• Jon Fleischman’s FlashReport is little-read but much-feared 
James Rainey, Los Angeles Times Nothing in Fleischman’s upbringing suggested he would grow into an Ayn Rand-quoting Ronald Reagan partisan. He was raised in Palms on the Westside of Los Angeles by parents whose politics were liberal to moderate. A turning point came in his teens, when he worked at a Mondale for President phone bank and became disgusted at what he recalled as his fellow volunteers’ obliviousness to the Soviet threat. He joined campus conservatives at Santa Monica College and got his entree into professional politics in 1988 as a part-time staff member on the reelection campaign of L.A. County Supervisor Mike Antonovich. That led to a decade of work for Republican politicians and causes, followed by his two-year stint as director of the state party.   Published: 2012-03-19