Some tidbits of commentary from the long weekend:
In his post below, Jon Fleischman asks if the upcoming State of the State will be good for conservatives. Here’s the San Diego Union-Tribune commentary from Monday…
A defining moment
Bond will show if governor has lost his way
Jan. 5 is setting up as one of the defining moments of Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s time in office. 
That is when he is expected to unveil his proposed bond measure to pay for state infrastructure needs. If he introduces a relatively lean plan that focuses on roads and levees and that requires users and beneficiaries to help shoulder the cost – not just shovels the tab on all taxpayers – he will reassure the millions of voters who trusted him to bring fiscal responsibility to Sacramento.
But if Schwarzenegger goes the Christmas-tree route – introducing a grab-bag measure that tries to buy popularity by blithely throwing around billions – then the actor-turned-governor will have, to use a Hollyword term he surely knows, "jumped the shark."
Read it all here.
The Sac Bee slams Brian Bilbray for what they call "a political stunt to jump on the anti-immigrant bandwagon to advance a congressional campaign"…
Editorial: In-state tuition
Don’t kick around children of immigrants
A stuntman from the beginning in politics, Brian P. Bilbray of San Diego is at it again. He was defeated after six years in Congress in 2000 and has worked as a Washington lobbyist primarily for an anti-immigration group and the Viejas Band of Kumeyaay Indians, a gambling tribe in San Diego County.
On Dec. 1, Bilbray said he’s running for Congress to replace Randy "Duke" Cunningham, who resigned after pleading guilty to bribery.
In his latest stunt…
More here.
In the U-T’s Saturday letters-to-the-editor, National City Mayor Nick Inzunza (a 79th AD candidate) and others comment on the claim that he’s a slum lord…
Mayor Inzunza, others respond to story on properties
There is no excuse for a landlord providing a tenant with substandard living conditions. "Landlord of opportunity / National City mayor’s units have made him millions while tenants fight vermin, disrepair" (News, Dec. 15) shed light on a few instances in which our properties’ conditions were poor but, unfortunately, was largely inaccurate in its portrayal of the conditions of the units and my involvement with them.
The process of investing in properties in the barrio was a difficult journey. My wife and I started acquiring properties in the mid-’90s in a gallant effort to reinvest in the inner city and in abandoned properties. Every single property we purchased had code-enforcement issues that rendered them uninhabitable.
Read all the comments here.