The news cycle is no longer measured in days or in hours, but in minutes. It is a natural phenomenon that the Main Stream Media political types would be developing blogs of their own, in order to stay ahead of the curve. Those of us that maintain weblogs outside of the press welcome the entry of our normally paper-bound reporters to the blogging world. We only want to get as much content to our readers as possible and the more places from which we can get it, the better!
There are a number of places where MSM folks are really doing well on the blog scene — last year, I spent a lot of time checking out the San Francisco Chronicle’s 2005 Special Election Blog. Well, they have recently rekindled their political blog, and have put their capable team of political reporters into the mix: Jim Brewer, Zachary Coile, Edward Epstein, Paul Feist, Lynda Gledhill, Carolyn Lochhead, Greg Lucas, Carla Marinucci, Mark Martin, Andy Pollack, Marc Sandalow and John Wildermuth. With this many contributors, there should be a lot insights there.
Needless to say, we here at the FR will keep an eye on this site, and bring you the ‘best of the best’ — but this blog is now accessable on our pull-down "Blog Roll" menu above.
Of course, the best part about the blog is that you can comment back at your favorite Chronicle reporters. With the hopeful "wink and a nod" from Paul Feist, the Statehouse Editor of the Chron, who drew the short-straw for oversight over the Chronicle’s Political Blog, I am going to cut and paste one entry below, along with my comment back… One little piece of input for Paul – if you really want to mix it up, allow some of your columnists to write for your politics blog!
So check out the new site via here, and remember you can always access it from the FlashReport.
Schwarzenegger the policy wonk?
Last year, many political observers noted that Gov. Schwarzenegger’s year-long campaign to enact government reforms was more style than substance.
Schwarzenegger gave very few policy speeches explaining in detail why his reforms were needed, instead relying on well-scripted appearances among GOP supporters and several events that could charitably be described as cheesy — the lowpoint had to be the governor’s appearance with "Count Cartaxula" on Halloween, an attempt to argue that taxes would go up if his budget reform wasn’t approved.
The result was a disastrous election that clearly showed the governor had failed to justify why his ideas mattered.
Fast forward to this year, and there’s hardly a theatrical stunt to be had. Schwarzenegger has clearly learned his lesson as he works to gather support for his mega-spending proposal on roads, schools and levees.
During the last month, Schwarzenegger has given policy speeches at USC, in front of a Silicon Valley business group in San Jose and spoke Thursday to the Northern California Water Association in Yuba City about the water and levee portion of his plan. The speeches are chock full of numbers and justifications for why the state should spend big money. He noted in Yuba City Thursday that there are 3,700 public and private water agencies in the state and that his proposal calls for more cohesive regional plans for handling flooding and water storage.
The governor has also held press conferences along crowded highways, but that’s a far cry from last year, when he patched a road in San Jose or turned off a spigot of red ink.
| February 16 2006 at 04:41 PM
Comments
Mark, with regards to your statement concerning last year’s special election: "The result was a disastrous election that clearly showed the governor had failed to justify why his ideas mattered."
I think that the special election proved the Governor’s point. The special interest groups (employee unions primarily) whose members directly benefit from Governor largesse were able to exact so much money from their members that they successfully confused voters and defeated the measures.
The whole point of the election is that these interest groups, with their vast political warchests, dominate California politics, and keep a lot of meaningful reforms to reign in the size and scope of state government off of the table.
Jon Fleischman
Publisher, www.flashreport.org
Posted By: Jon Fleischman | February 19 2006 at 12:21 PM