Crippled by declining registration and frozen by intraparty battles, California Republicans are in such disarray - and so apparently nervous about their prospects - that they attempted to ban the media from a luncheon keynote speech of a nationally known pollster laying out the party’s future challenges.

The move to eject the media from the speech delivered by Fox News contributor Frank Luntz didn’t please many Republicans - and embarrassed a state party that, for the second time in its three-day convention, had attempted to bar media from reporting on the ordinarily mundane gathering of 1,000 party faithful.