• Last night Mary Salas conceded the 40th State Senate District Democrat primary to Juan Vargas, in what some are calling a victory for the big-business community, who largely funded Vargas’ effort.  At least until you look it up, and realize that in six years in the Assembly, Vargas scored between zero and five percent on the CalChamber’s legislative scorecard. 
• Just when you think you’ve heard it all, you read about an effort to hold a “virtual convention” where people can rewrite the state’s constitution using Twitter.   Really. 
• I’ll miss the dry wit of State Senator Dave Cox, who recently passed away.  He once told me that a lot of what I write makes a lot of sense to him, and that this fact scared him.  His passion for public service was strong, and he will be missed.
• The Governor’s Chief of Staff, Susan Kennedy (formerly Executive Director of an abortion-rights organization) and Mike Spence (former CRA Prez and longtime Right To Life leader) have something in common – both celebrated birthday’s last Saturday.  While they can’t agree on much, I’m sure that they will agree that if they throw a joint belated birthday party, they will not be inviting the leadership of SEIU 1000.
• If Governor Schwarzenegger signs legislation on his desk requiring that farm workers be paid overtime wages after eight hours of work on a given day, who loses?  It will be the worker, who right now wants extra hours to bring home much-needed income.  There is no doubt that if this bill becomes law, for business reasons, farm workers will get only eight hours of work a day.  Who can afford to pay overtime in a recession?
• Of the dozen or so elected officers of the California Republican Party, what are the odds that two of them would be from the same relatively small town of Rancho Santa Margarita – yet CRP Secretary Steve Baric and I are both live here, by coincidence.
• Notice to political reporters:  Conservatives “get it” that Meg Whitman is simply more moderate (or liberal) than us on a few issues.  We aren’t comparing her to [insert favorite conservative icon here], she’s running against Jerry “Moonbeam” Brown.  Next to him, she is still akin to Attila the Hun. 
• If you needed another key difference between Chuck DeVore and his former primary opponents, Fiorina and Campbell, would either of them have taken their family on vacation to Comic-Con in San Diego?  We’re still checking on the rumor that DeVore went dressed as the DC Comics character, “The Flash.”
• If the large grocery store chains that fund the California Grocers Association want to stop selling plastic bags, and want to charge customers five cents or more for paper bags, they can do that now, without a law.  But what they seem to want is to fool shoppers by supporting a law “making” them do this.  You’re not fooling this shopper.
• It seems to me that while Juan Vargas may be an incremental improvement over Mary Salas, the vast sums of money spend by business interests to boost Vargas would have been better spent retiring Democrat Lou Correa, who is a loyal liberal  vote, when it matters.
• The GOP contest to replace Dave Cox in the State Senate will be between Roger Niello and Ted Gaines.  The entire campaign will be about whether the massive 2009 increases in state sales, income and car taxes was the right thing to do – Niello was the deciding vote to enact them, Gaines was a solid vote against them.
• I recently flew on Southwest flight with the Executive Director of the CA Association of Nurse Practitioners.  I looked them up online.  They seem to be a pretty serious group focused on healing the sick.  Unlike the California Nurses Association, that seem to be more focused on electing a liberal Democrat as Governor, than on patient care.
• I don’t think groups, by and large, are trying to avoid disclosure with issue-advocacy ads, they are trying to avoid draconian and immoral spending limits.  If you want disclosure and transparency, end campaign contribution limits. 
• Steve Baric is running for City Council, and is a strong candidate.  You can click here to read more about that. 
• After reading enough articles about the beleaguered Cal-Expo State Fair, my tweet for the new constitution will be, “State government shall not sponsor, conduct or fund entertainment events, especially where funnel cake is sold."

This entry was posted on Thursday, July 22nd, 2010 at 12:00 am and is filed under Blog Posts.