Santa Clara City Clerk Rod Diridon Jr. was considered one of three serious candidates for Assembly District 22. His fundraising has lagged behind his opponents in the Democrat primary — Paul Fong and former Republican staffer Dominic Caserta.

He sent the message below to his supporters last week..

Many in the business community feel that Fong was not a good vote for business but that Diridon and Caserta were going to hand him the election. They are both young moderate candidates from Santa Clara.

Now the whole race has changed. Republican staffer Caserta is now in the running to win this seat. With Diridon in the race he would have been splitting a similar base.

Oh — did I mention that Caserta is running as a Democrat?

Dear Friends, First, let me say how much I have appreciated all of your support and friendship during my campaign for the State Assembly. Our effort is in good stead, with major supporters, a large fundraising base still to be utilized, and polling numbers that show us in the lead. With great forethought, and respecting your trust… Read More

In an episode of The Office, the tactless boss, Michael Scott, looks to Wikipedia to learn the art of negotiation.He seems to think that he’s getting reliable information: “Wikipedia is the best thing ever. Anyone in the world can write anything they want about any subject, so you know you are getting the best possible information.”Well, yeah, anyone can add to this site. And in some cases, your tax dollars are paying people to do so. A report released by The Sacramento Bee (October 17, 2007) revealed that “Sacramento government workers are doing their part to shape how we all see the world – inflating reputations, dabbling in pornography and whiling away work hours.” Shouldn’t we be proud that our state workers are (re)writing history? … Read More

Perhaps everyone should have been paying closer attention to the message being sent by Senate Republican Leader Dick Ackerman and his caucus during the Summer’s budget stalemate — that California is heading for a fiscal crisis, and that we needed to cut state spending.

Apparently the budget that was approved was smoke-and-mirrors after all. I think that the credibility of the Governor’s Finance Office and Democrat Legislative Budget staffers are at an all time low, as the ability to have a real balanced budget requires, as an essential component, the ability to make realistic forecasts of projected revenues. It would appear that projections aren’t just off, but they were grossly underestimated. Since state spending was set with these projections in mind, every day, week and month that goes by without revising our spending just makes matters worse.

While notable, it is not enough to for the Governor to ask his bureaucratic chiefs to plan for a 10% cut in next year’s budget. We need to deal with this problem now. As State Senator Bob Dutton has pointed out, the Governor has the power to call a State of Fiscal Emergency to… Read More

Yes, I am a Rudy Giuliani supporter. Let’s get that out of the way.

Yesterday a political bombshell hit the media. Former Christian Coalition leader and 700 Club personality Pat Robertson endorsed Rudy Giuliani for President.

In its reports yesterday the Washington Post called Pat Robertson one of the most influential figures in the social conservative movement. They said Robertson’s endorsement of Giuliani is a significant blow to Mitt Romney, who has worked hard to court evangelical leaders.

I have been reporting here for some time that national and state polls have consistently favored Giuliani for the Republican nomination. Rudy has never been behind in a Republican poll. I have also been reporting that national polls, including in liberal states like New Jersey, show Rudy neck-and-neck with Hillary Clinton, who will be the Democrat nominee for President. Rudy can beat the Democrat. Polls show the other Republicans can not.

So, with just a few weeks until the California Republican presidential primary, who do we want to be the next President? Bill and Hillary… Read More

Here is the question. I guess I will commit the heresy:

Is this Governor really any better than Gray Davis was? Set aside Workers’ Compensation reform for a minute, his single greatest policy achievement.

He has spent more, borrowed more, wasted precious resources chasing idiotic greenhouse gas legislation, run the State GOP into debt, ignored his down ticket running mates in 2006, pandered to left wing social interests, and up until this year, dissed Republican lawmakers and their legislative priorities.

The State budget we are in now will go down as the second worst in history, right behind the disastrous 2000 budget. Finances are cratering. Spending roars on, and we haven’t’ even sold 25% of the approved bonds yet from the "infrastructure" package. Once those bonds are sold, the state’s payment will skyrocket – without the revenues.

Finally, the Governor is chasing his tail on health care. Employer mandates are a serious part of the discussion. Meanwhile, the health care market continues to reform itself, without government intervention. My guess is that there are two reasons why health care… Read More

From Mighty Thor at www.redcountysandiego.com (I believe the news came first from a local progressive blog, actually) comes some amusing news of Republican turned DemocratAuday Arabo’s ‘frontrunner’ campaign for 78th state assembly imploding. Looks like the local Democrats are as eager as local Republicans to skin Auday alive.

The best part of the invite is where they mention Auday sued "the American Lung Association and City of El Cajon to block enforcement of tobacco sales to minors", always a winning issue.

The post:

Auday Arabo: A Man Without a Party MIGHTY THOR was just forwarded the following evite for a party for "the man without a party". The party scheduled for this Friday at Chevy’s celebrates Auday’s one year anniversary as a Republican Democrat. Click HERE to take a look at the evite. Here’s the text from the evite:

Host: No Fool For Assembly Location: Chevy’s Fresh Mex 1202 Camino Del Rio N, San Diego, CA 92108 US When: Friday, November 16, 6:00PM Phone:… Read More

In September, on our main daily news page, the FlashReport featured an LA Times article, “Cities, counties pay price for Capitol clout,” which reported that last year local government in California spent nearly $40 million on capitol lobbyists – more than labor, oil or business.

The League of California Cities and the California State Association of Counties justified these enormous expenditures of tax dollars by claiming that unlike other private interests, they can’t make political contributions to legislators and causes.

Apparently that might not be the case… In recent weeks, the League of California Cities campaign finance reports and a leaked memo suggests otherwise. In fact, their reported lobbying expenses are just the tip of the iceberg of a large and powerful political machine financed by California taxpayers.

Recent campaign reports and an internal memo reveals that the League is well on their way to spending millions of dollars on an eminent domain ballot measure that the state’s independent Legislative… Read More

This last week, I filed a complaint against the Clinton campaign alleging that the campaign had co-ordinated with the opposition to the California Electoral College reform to defeat the initiative. Clintonistas and their operatives filed a complaint against the initiative claiming that it was a secret Giuliani operation, alleging on very flimsy evidence that the Giuliani campaign was really running the operation to benefit Giuliani.

Well, since I have been involved with this issue since 2001, working on the campaign from the day of filing, and an endorser of Mitt Romney, I knew this was false, but when the campaign sputtered in July, the Clintonistas were bragging to the newspapers and media everywhere, that their aggressive opposition to the initiative caused its death.

Well, news of the death of the initiative was clearly premature, and those who were fighting the initiative literallyadmitted to the press that they had committed the very sins that they had accused the Giuliani campaign of committing. Not very smart for these supposedly very smart campaign operatives, and, if the FEC wishes to maintain any semblance of impartiality, they will pursue the… Read More