OC Blog is holding its traditional prediction contest about today’s primary, and FR readers are invited to enter for fun and prizes.

Enter you predictions for the winner and loser(s) in the following contests:

– 33rd Senate District: Mimi Walters v. Harry Sidhu

– 29th Senate District: Bob Huff v. Dennis Mountjoy

– 71st Assembly District: Jeff Miller v. Neil Blais

– 60th Assembly District: Larry Dick v. Curt Hagman

– 1st Supervisor District: Janet Nguyen v. Dina Nguyen v. Hoa Van Tran

– 3rd Supervisor District: Bill Campbell v. Donald Ritze

Entrants need to enter the winning/losing percentages as well as the name of the winning/losing candidates.

Click here to read the rest of the post and make your predictions.… Read More

My boss Karen England was at the Placer County Registrar of Voters this morning when Doug Ose showed up to cast his ballot. Here’s her account from Red County:

Ose Doesn’t Know How to Vote in the 4th CD

As Mike Spence just reported, Doug Ose failed to sign his ballot when he voted at the Placer County Registrar of Voters this morning. I was actually there with Rick Staats and we witnessed the whole episode. Here’s what happened when Ose realized he hadn’t signed his ballot. The election officials had to get a key to unlock and reopen the highly secured ballot box and retrieve his invalid ballot. In true elitist fashion he was unwilling to take responsibility for his incompetence, muttering under his breath “this is bull ****!”

Since when is ballot security bull ****?

Keep in mind that yesterday Ose had McNally Temple employee Richard Robinson call the Registrar’s office and ask to have someone there to “show Doug how to vote.” He needs to be shown how to vote? Guess he… Read More

For die-hard FlashReport politicos, I thought I would take a few minutes and walk you through “Jon’s Guide to Republican Primaries” – a “cheat sheet” of sorts – with some predictions on my part on what promises to be a very low turnout election (thanks Fabian!)…

I should add for the vast majority of FR readers who are not “insiders” – this column might be a bit hard to digest. There is a facet of our readership who “lives” this stuff, and will appreciate all of this. They are the intended audience for this piece.

First and foremost, and this may go without saying, there are no incumbents that are up for re-election this year to Congress, Senate or the Assembly who are facing a serious primary challenger. So you can check all of those legislators off of the list.

THE UNCONTESTED (OR PRACTICALLY UNCONTESTED)… Read More

Competition in the marketplace creates the best possible scenario for the consumer, but it isn’t perfect.

My wife and I registered to vote last month, on the final possible day, at our new home in South Orange County.

We moved into a district that is “Ground Zero” for Republican legislative primaries. We now live in Senate District 33 where Assemblywoman Mimi Walters and Anaheim Councilman Harry Sidhu are spending vast sums of money to communicate with Republican and DTS voters. We also now live in Assembly District 71 where Corona Councilman Jeff Miller and Rancho Santa Margarita Mayor Neil Blais are in a pitched battle for the Republican nomination.

Clearly two newly registered Republicans would be prime targets as supremely likely voters. Right? WRONG, apparently.

Since registering to vote last month, the Fleischman household has received no mail from candidates. Not from Mimi, or Harry, or Jeff, or Neil.

And these candidates have “top… Read More

Check out results on the Secretary of State’s website here.… Read More

Can’t imagine what other newsworthy events are occurring in California today!

In that case, I’ll be brief:

The Abramoff "matter" continues and coverages recalls a California connection and new earmark troubles as well as a recent plea. From Politico, and the Post.

Garry South pens a column in Politico about the Dem. primary.

Newt’s California tech industry guru is profiled in the Post. Speaking of: the story uses the phrase "the Valley" an offending number of times–does anyone talk like that about Silicon Valley? Interesting work by Newt however.

And, Lou Cannon (now a California resident–Carpenteria, I recall) pens a Reagan-Hillary comparison in the Post… Read More

Sometimes a picture (or in this case, a chart courtesy of the Heritage Foundation) is worth a thousand words. If Republicans in Congress have any trouble at all figuring out why we are facing major challenges as a party, and why we are no longer considered the party of fiscal conservatism, look at how much Republicans (with a Republican President, no less) INCREASED federal spending… We aren’t going to win with a slogan of: "Vote Republican — sure, we’ll increase spending, but not as much as THEY will…" [Orange = GOP control; Gray = Split governance but we could have stopped spending increases. See large chart here.] … Read More

You have to wonder what they are sprinkling in the Wheaties over at the Sacramento Bee. The editorial board there never ceases to amaze me. In the Bee’s lead editorial today, they have the moxie to start it by saying, "With one vote, California Senate Republicans on Thursday added $3.4 billion to the state’s $15.2 billion deficit for 2008-09…"

Right.

Read on and what you really have is yet another liberal editorial whining because Republicans have refused to sign on with the issuance of yet another $6.9 BILLION (yes, with a "B") of bonds.

What kind of screwy math do they use over there at the Bee? By their convoluted logic, the state’s entire overspending problem could just be solved by passing one big, fat bond measure, and shoving the burden for our state’s irresponsible overspending to our children and theirs.

The main premise of the editorial is that if the legislature doesn’t borrow billions for building more prisons (didn’t we already do that?) then some judge will simply order those billions straight out of the… Read More