As quick as he declared his candidacy for re-election to the House Leadership as Conference Secretary, today Congressman John Doolittle (CA-04) pulled the plug.

House Republicans definately need to change out their top leadership who sailed them into stormy seas — as to whether ‘top leadership’ extends down to the minor leadership post held by Doolittle… I couldn’t say. But apparently the Congressman has made the decision about whether he deserves re-election to the spot moot.

His release:

Congressman John T. Doolittle (R-CA) made the following statement this afternoon:

"I’m very thankful for the opportunity to return to Congress and represent the fourth district of California. I’m grateful to the voters for sending me back to Washington, and I… Read More

Proposition 83 has already been blocked by a federal judge who said that thelaw was" punitive by design and effect." Wasn’t that the point? See update here.… Read More

(Dade County, CA) — The news reports of last week that the SD County Registrar of Voters had not ordered enough mail ballots eliciteda kind of "color me surprised" response from many political watchers.

It’s nice that photocopied versions were sent to those requesting ballots. What you may have missed, however, is that the information on the estimated-to-be-returned 5,000 photocopied mail ballots will have to transferred by hand to official ballots, so they can be run through the opti-scan vote counters.

Say what?! That’s right, the results of every up- and down-ticket race, every local office, and every statewide and local ballot measure for about 5,000 ballots will have to be recorded by hand.

And we thought hanging chads were bad.

As far as day-of-voting, the SDUT is already reporting technical glitches with many electronic voting machines. The line was long, but things seemed fine when I hit my polling placeat 7:15 a.m.… Read More

We’re almost through the the FlashReport Campaign MVP’s for this general election cycle. But they are only getting better! We’ve already seen Arnold’s MVP awarded to Katie Levinson, Tom’s MVP to Stan Devereux, and Tony’s MVP to Paul Hegyi. Now we are going to recognize someone who has been a key player in the campaign of Chuck Poochigian for Attorney General! And MVP is….

The feistiest campaign waged by a down-ballot Republican has to be that of Senator Chuck Poochigian’s bid to be Attorney General. Facing two-term former Governor, 3-time former presidential candidate, former Secretary of State, former Democratic Party Chair and current Oakland Mayor Jerry Brown, Poochigian has gained national media notice for the aggressiveness, creativity and hard-hitting nature of his underdog campaign.

The widely respected and likeable… Read More

Orange County’s board of supervisors is a powerful bunch. Controlling a $4 billion dollar budget is a big job and too often in recent years votes have gone the wrong way because there were not enough solid conservative valued board members.

Today that will change. The voters of the 5th Supervisorial District are going to elect former Assemblywoman Pat Bates a solid GOP conservative. Bates will get sworn in at the same time as OC Treasurer/Prophet John Moorlach. Both them have integrity that is unquestioned and conservative principles that they never compromise.

Supervisor Chris Norby who was not up for re-election this year is a bit more libertarian but nonetheless conservative and Board Chairman Bill Campbell round out the GOP majority.

There are high hopes that this majority will create a more open environment at the Hall of Administration. That they will make it clear to staff and the unions and anyone who asks, that their agenda is based on sound limited government principles.

Gilliard Blanning Wysocki ran Bates’ campaign against Laguna Niguel Mayor Cassie DeYoung who spent more than $4 million dollars of her own money to… Read More

Ten years after California passed Prop. 209, the California Civil Rights Initaitive, it appears that Michigan is following in California’s footsteps (10 years later) and passing the Michigan Civil Rights Initiative (MCRI) tonight. Only 17 of Michigan’s 83 counties are reporting so far, so the numbers could change, but the early returns certainly make it seem that Ward Connerly, Jennifer Gratz and the proponents of MCRI are going to be victorious tonight.… Read More

Real low turnout in San Diego County… Read More

California politics makes the election-day issue of the Wall Street Journal’s Political Diary (it’s tied into a piece on both California and New York):

A Tale of Two Megastates

As two of the nation’s largest states, California and New York share reputations as bastions of liberalism and a congenial home to moderate Republicans such as Arnold Schwarzenegger and George Pataki.

But the two mega-states are likely to diverge dramatically when it comes to tonight’s election results. In California, private polls show Governor Schwarzenegger with a 15-point lead over his hapless Democratic challenger Phil Angelides. More importantly, Republicans are mounting strong… Read More