The late Rodney Dangerfield was the kind of performer who wasn’t afraid to acknowledge the obvious. When the act was bombing, he’d tug at his collar, wipe the sweat from his brow, and just blurt out the obvious: tough crowd.

The Dangerfield line seems worth noting after two big speeches delivered in less than 24 hours at this weekend’s convention of the California Republican Party.

The party faithful are gathered in Sacramento to elect new leadership and generally kibbitz about all things Republican. But because political conventions are largely attended by the most die hard, the political press corps was closely watching how the conservative base of the GOP reacted to two less-than-conservative Republicans: Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger and former NYC mayor Rudy Giuliani.

First… the governor, who spoke to convention attendees at last night’s dinner. Just minutes into the speech, the room already felt like the epitome of the Dangerfield experience. After weeks of a Schwarzenegger agenda focused on issues like health care and the environment– and positions that even he describes as “post partisan”– the Republican faithful were not as enthused for the chief executive as they have been in past convention appearances.

Some watchers called the crowd response “polite.” Others, being somewhat more candid, have called it “tepid.”

Either way, there were large passages of the speech where the audience sat on its hands. When the governor touted last fall’s infrastructure bonds, which many conservatives opposed as too much debt: no applause. When he talked about his $12 billion health care reform plan, there was some polite applause. But at the same time, I could see one woman near the back of the ballroom simply shake her head in disagreement.

Of course, there were lines that drew applause– most notably, some ‘red meat’ comments that mocked the notion that prison inmates should give consent before they can be transferred to prisons outside of California. The crowd ate that up.

And Schwarzenegger’s speech acknowledged the obvious. “We may have diverse opinions,” he said, “but we always stand together on our core Republican values.”

That same ‘big tent of a party’ theme also popped up this afternoon as not-quite-yet presidential candidate Giuliani took the podium. While he’s technically still running an “exploratory” campaign, it was obvious: Rudy is in.

But the former Big Apple mayor is also somewhat at odds with social conservatives. His well-known opinions on gay rights and abortion are anathema to many Republicans. Still, he received a noticeably warmer reception than did Governor Schwarzenegger. Of course, that’s probably in part due to his extensive focus on the war on terrorism. “We’re the party of freedom,” Giuliani told the crowd.

He also criticized the recent Capitol Hill debate about a non-binding resolution criticizing an Iraq troop surge. “In the business world, if two weeks were spent on a non-binding resolution, it would be considered non-productive,” he said. The crowd laughed as Giuliani kept going. “What we pay people in Washington for is to make decisions.” And with that, the crowd gave hizzoner a standing ovation.

Neither Arnold Schwarzenegger nor Rudy Giuliani is as conservative as the crowd probably would prefer. So why did America’s Mayor get a warmer reception than the Governator? Perhaps it’s because the governor is such a well-known commodity by this crowd, and the former mayor is not. Perhaps Schwarzenegger’s agenda, seen close up, is easier to poke holes in than Giuliani’s search for a campaign theme beyond his 9/11 resume.

Either way, Giuliani seemed to score some points… while the governor got the Dangerfield treatment.