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

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… Read More

A review of voters found only 8.1% ov voters turned out compared to 19.98% in February. AV votes are down. 249,283 received compared to 393,705 in the Presidential Primary.

This is despite a hotly contested County Supervisor race and several open State Senate and Assembly races.… Read More

With all the many candidates chasing few voters today, it brings to mind how interesting our traditional June primary could’ve been if our entire primary was today. Senator Clinton and Obama could have spent a ton of money in CA the last few weeks instead of a pittance in February’s term limit exten….I mean "presidential primary" election, not to mention the entertainment value of their hard fought effort to get all of CA’s delegates at this time.

We coulda been relevant! Would’ve helped our election vendors economy here too. Think of "all that revenue the state has lost" andat a time when the drumbeat for feesand taxes is getting louder because of our messed up budget…but hey, we know that the $90 million taxpayerspaid for a third election this year won’t be missed and will really help make the case for a subsequent term limit proposition to be embraced by the public! Meanwhile all you poll checkers, try to stay awake today, and thanks again Prop 93!… Read More

I got an email today from my friend Tim Rosales letting me know that Marcia Tookey passed away.

I didn’t know Marcia Tookey for the entire time she was active in politics. You see, by the late date of my birth in 1970 she was already an established volunteer in Los Angeles, during the glory days. She was a tireless organizer of precincts, and more important she had a working knowledge of the county of LA as a whole, almost quite literally precinct by precinct. She knew where the phone banks could be found, where you couldn’t walk, and who was reliable or not.She was one of the handfull of people who remembered the organizational methods of the previous years, and was willing to teach them. Her lessons made a huge difference in my professional life.

Marciaknew the details that made the difference between a GOTV program that works and one that doesn’t. In 2000 I was field director for victory 2000 and (before campaign finance "reform") we had established some two dozen staffed local offices in LA for various party programs, including the traditional election day push. Like a fool, I had centralized the printing of the election day… Read More

Last week the Field Poll released the results of a survey about the recent California Supreme Court homosexual marriage ruling. According to the Field Poll, 51% of Californians “support” homosexual marriage. Now any political veteran knows that you can make a poll say whatever you want based on the phrasing of the questions posed. From what I’ve read, the Field Poll didn’t release the questions it posed to obtain the 51% approval rating for homosexual marriage. But another poll conducted late last week found the exact opposite of the Field Poll.

Released just this morning, ccAdvertising announced the results of a poll that directly contradicts the Field Poll. According to ccAdvertising, when asked the question “Do you agree that only marriage between one man and one woman should be legal and binding in America?” California respondents answered "Yes" 56.20%, and "No" 43.80%.

The company explained that "the survey was completed in one 24-hour period ending at 7:00 p.m on May 30, 2008, with 528 California respondents and was statistically balanced by… Read More

One of the worst kept secrets in Sacramento is that many political insiders believe that the real reason Senate President Pro Tem Don (“The Golden Pig”) Perata launched the recall campaign against Senator Jeff Denham was to create an excuse to funnel money to Sandi Polka and members of his own family. Polka is the Senator’s longtime political consultant and very close friend – close to the point of actually being his girlfriend.

Now the East Bay Express newspaper, which has doggedly pursued Perata and done an outstanding job of aggressively exposing the powerful politician’s numerous ethical transgressions, has pointed to Polka’s financial well-being as the true motivation for the recall. (Their article is linked at the bottom of this post.) Perata spent more than $2 million to qualify the recall, launch misleading paid media attacks on Denham that failed miserably, and fund puppet replacement candidate and proven lightweight Simon Salinas. While Perata is a huge political loser because of the recall, not all of that campaign money appears to have been wasted from the… Read More

One of the worst kept secrets in Sacramento is that many political insiders believe that the real reason Senate President Pro Tem Don (“The Golden Pig”) Perata launched the recall campaign against Senator Jeff Denham was to create an excuse to funnel money to Sandi Polka and members of his own family. Polka is the Senator’s longtime political consultant and very close friend – close to the point of actually being his girlfriend.

Now the East Bay Express newspaper, which has doggedly pursued Perata and done an outstanding job of aggressively exposing the powerful politician’s numerous ethical transgressions, has pointed to Polka’s financial well-being as the true motivation for the recall. (Their article is linked at the bottom of this post.) Perata spent more than $2 million to qualify the recall, launch misleading paid media attacks on Denham that failed miserably, and fund puppet replacement candidate and proven lightweight Simon Salinas. While Perata is a huge political loser because of the recall, not all of that campaign money appears to have been wasted from the… Read More