On Friday I took the opportunity to critique the CNN/YouTube GOP Presidential Debate — where I candidly expressed my disappointment of the video questions that were selected for that event. I figured that I would swing back and take a moment to highlight what I felt was the low-point of the affair…

GOP Presidential hopefuls Mitt Romney and Rudy Giuliani were asked about whether they support taxpayer subsidies for American farmers… Both of them gave answers that were extraordinairily disappointing…. Romney and Giuliani both know better, and so I would catagorize this as political pandering at its best to corn-belt voters in Iowa and thereabouts. Check out this segment… : There are several basic… Read More

Not wanting to be contrarian to all the recent voices for the Governor to call a fiscalemergency special session to deal with California’s critical budget crisis – but if he does – nothing will happen.

Sure – a "Fiscal Emergency Special Session" sounds great, and it would be great if Prop 58 (which created this authority) had any teeth in it. But Prop 58 was written as window dressing for Prop 57 (the $15 Billion Deficit Bond) that the governor and the Democrats really, really wanted to bail us out of the Gray Davis deficit crisis.(update: please see Steve Maviglio’s comment below – I had orginally misnumbered the Props and he was kind enough to point that out – in his heartfelt way) Prop 57’s basic concept was for California to go into more long-term debt to pay off itsshort-termdeficit – which without Prop 58 to make it look like "real reform" would never ever have made it past the voters. (consumer warning: don’t attempt this at home – you will go bankrupt)

Prop 58 is rife with loopholes. It sounds awesome… Read More

Not wanting to be contrarian to all the recent voices for the Governor to call a fiscalemergency special session to deal with California’s critical budget crisis – but if he does – nothing will happen.

Sure – a "Fiscal Emergency Special Session" sounds great, and it would be great if Prop 58 (which created this authority) had any teeth in it. But Prop 58 was written as window dressing for Prop 57(the $15 Billion Deficit Bond) that the governor and the Democrats really, really wanted to bail us out of the Gray Davis deficit crisis.

Prop 57’s basic concept was for California to go into more long-term debt to pay off itsshort-termdeficit – which without Prop 58 to make it look like "real reform" would never ever have made it past the voters. (consumer warning: don’t attempt this at home – you will go bankrupt)

**There is more – click the link**

View Full Commentary… Read More

UPDATE: Incident OVER.

While not neccessarily a CA story, it is an incredible story.

We all have campaign "war stories" — but I’ve never seen anything like this:

Campaigns & Elections Update Friday Nov. 30, 2007 Man Takes Hostages at Clinton N.H. Campaign Office; Senator Cancels DNC Speech

Just thirty minutes before U.S. Sen. Hillary Clinton, D-N.Y., was scheduled to address the crowd at the Democratic National Committee’s fall meeting in Vienna, Va., her speech was canceled. Hundreds of her supporters filed out as news spread of a hostage situation at the senator’s Rochester, N.H. campaign office. Early reports of the situation have a man taking at least one hostage in the office. WMUR-TV in New Hampshire is… Read More

When the Orange County Lincoln Club endorsed the CalCounts Initiative, you knew it was only a matter of days before the big shoe would drop – a major contribution towards qualification. This is because the Lincoln Club has a long tradition of not just talking, but DOING. If you look back over the history of the Orange County Lincoln Club, you will see that they have spent a generation being at the forefront of great things. Of course, the other shoe was a six-figure one — a six figure check…

It’s actually worth taking a few minutes to read this great profile of the O.C. Lincoln Club penned by FR Blogger/OC Blog Proprietor Matt Cunningham for Red County Magazine.

We reached out to FR friend Rich Wagner, the President of the Lincoln Club, and asked him if he would put pen to paper (or more likely fingers to keyboard) and share with our readers why his organization, which is quite selective about which battles it chooses to wage, has weighed in to give the CalCounts Initiative a huge push towards qualification… … Read More

I told you so.

Yeah, I know, that is rude, but now that I am no longer in the Legislature, there are very few people who will relate the tale.

I voted for the 2004-05 budget, the Governor’s first budget, because I thought it was a responsible budget that dealt appropriately with the fallout from the Davis spending spree from 1999-2001. In those budgets, Gray Davis and the Democrats (with way too many willing Republicans), increased spending from $58 billion (general fund) to $79 billion (general fund). The next three budgets, 2001-04 moved spending from about $79 billion to $78 billion, and created a $13 billion debt, while revenue went from $66 to $76 billion over those same years. The voters passed the $15 billion bond to cover the Davis mistakes.

Governor Schwarzenegger, with the able help of his then Finance Director, Donna Arduin, brought spending under control in his first budget, increasing spending by only $100 million (as proposed in the May revise and passed by the Legislature). It was the right thing to do. Arduin then left, the Governor began his initiative campaigns, and, in the next six months, the wheels fell off the fiscal… Read More

When the Orange County Lincoln Club endorsed the CalCounts Initiative, you knew it was only a matter of days before the big shoe would drop – a major contribution towards qualification. This is because the Lincoln Club has a long tradition of not just talking, but DOING. If you look back over the history of the Orange County Lincoln Club, you will see that they have spent a generation being at the forefront of great things. Of course, the other shoe was a six-figure one — a six figure check…

It’s actually worth taking a few minutes to read this great profile of the O.C. Lincoln Club penned by FR Blogger/OC Blog Proprietor Matt Cunningham for Red County Magazine.

We reached out to FR friend Rich Wagner, the President of the Lincoln Club, and asked him if he would put pen to paper (or more likely fingers to keyboard) and share with our readers why his organization, which is quite selective about which battles it chooses to wage, has weighed in to give the CalCounts Initiative a huge push towards qualification…… Read More

In the weeks leading up to the well-advertised CNN/YouTube GOP Presidential Debate, I was actually getting pretty excited. What a great way to merge modern technology and politics, and get lots of people, especially younger ones, engaged in the process. Recently I gave a keynote address at a Junior Statesmen of America conference, and they had a room set up so that high school students could record debate questions, and I must have seen a hundred e-mails cross my desk referencing the debate, and people sending around their video taped questions for others to see. There was a great deal of buzz, and, for me, a hightened level of expectation.

As it turns out, this debate was totally hijacked by the MSM — and I don’t know whether to blame CNN exclusively, or apply some of the bad credit to the folks at YouTube. That is because I am not sure who was responsible for sifting through the thousands of video clips of questions, and choosing which ones would be asked of… Read More