The registration numbers and past history tell us that the election for the 18th Assembly District was over when Mary Hayashi won the Democratic primary in June. But this year, the GOP candidate, Jill Buck, is making the general election matter by running a smart campaign that has attracted Republican and Democrat supporters. Even elected Democrats are coming out to publicly support Buck’s campaign for the Assembly. Check out this quote by Dublin Mayor Jane Lockhart (which will be going out on a mailer to district voters): “As a life-long Democrat I look to my party to provide the best candidate. Sometimes that does not happen, and I must step outside my party affiliations and select the best person for the job. Jill Buck is just such a candidate. I know she will work hard to form a bipartisan team in Sa cramento and will represent ALL of the district’s… Read More

This time of year is the silly season for candidates and their tripping all over each other to parade out their endorsements from newspapers. So I thought I would take a few minutes to share my ten cents about "newspaper endorsements" — which is this.

First and foremost — what IS the endorsement of a newspaper? In almost every case, it means that the editorial board of a newspaper has held some sort of vote and decided to put the good name of that paper behind a particular candidate for office. Who is on an editorial board? Well, to be honest, that varies from paper to paper. But it has been my experience that these are the editorial writers for the paper, and then add for good measure the editorial page director, sometimes it includes columnists, and even the local cartoonist. Decidedly NOT voting on the final decision to endorse a particular candidate are the political reporters from the ‘news’ side of a newspaper, though often the news reporters are invited to come and ‘explain’ the details of a race that they are covering, and answer questions from the editorial board. Of course, the important… Read More

Our crack team of FR programmers over at Cloudspace have finished their first pass at re-programming the FR’s main page, Commentary page and Blog page to be PDA ‘friendly’ — and I would like to ask any FR readers who use their PDA’s to look at the FR (or who can) to check it out and see how navigation works on these pages of the site, and let me know. Thanks!… Read More

This hopefully will be my last post on Judges (Please stop cheering) I’ve written about why we should vote NO on State Supreme Court Justice Kennard, my picks for LA County Superior Court Seats and how I’m voting on LA’s Appellate judges.

Finally, there is Carol Corrigan. Arnold Schwarzenegger recently appointed her to the State Supreme Court. Corrigan was appointed just after the Susan Kennedy debacle and some were relieved that she was at least registered Republican. Conservatives know that being a Republican isn’t necessarily good. (Souter, Stevens and Ron George here in CA)

Almost immediatelythere signs of some problems. She said the she admired the judicial philosophy of Sandra Day O’Conner. (I would like someone to tell me what that is; to me it is I know better… Read More

[This item is cross-posted on the O.C. Blog]

If I am State Senate President Don Perata, I am wincing this morning over news account that my Democrat nominee in my #1 ‘defend’ seat in the entire State has just cast a politically perilous vote. Orange County Supervisor Lou Correa is in the last month of what will be a hard-faught battle to win election to California’s 34th State Senate District. This seat was once reliably Republican (last held by former Senate Republican Leader Rob Hurtt) and then shifted to the Democrat column where it has been occupied by Joe Dunn these past eight years. Due to strong efforts by the Orange County Republican Party, Republican registration evened up with Democrats (despite the gerrymander) and has ultimately settled with Democrats having only a two point advantage. The Republican Party nominee for this seat is Assemblywoman Lynn Daucher. Electing Daucher to the… Read More

According to Shane Goldmacher over at Capitol Weekly, New York’s nominally Republican Mayor – who was elected on a “no new taxes” platform – has donated $250,000 to pass a new tax here in California – on cigarretes.

Billionaire Bloomberg is now officially a jerk. Who does this? Who pledges not to raise taxes in his own city, but finances a campaign to raise them elsewhere?

Bloomberg’s had a couple of appearances with Governor Schwarzenegger. No more, please. Time to roll up the red carpet!… Read More

This just came over the trasem… MEDIA ADVISORY WHAT: Tom Del Beccaro, Chair of the Contra Costa Republican Party and Mark Pruner, Chair of the Yolo County Republican Party, will be holding a press conference to discuss their filing of a lawsuit that seeks declaratory relief that Jerry Brown is ineligible to serve as Attorney General, because he does not meet the minimum qualifications for the office as set forth in California law and injunctive relief directing Registrars of Voters not to count ballots cast for Brown due to his ineligibility. WHERE: In front of the Superior Court for Sacramento County, 720 Ninth Street, Sacramento, California WHEN: 10:30 AM, Thursday, October 19, 2006 … Read More

San Diego Lincoln Club Executive Director Chris Niemeyer, largely responsible — with the support of his board — for taking the organization to a new level in recent years (see Duane Dichiara’s post of last December), is leaving for other pastures.I say "other," not "greener," in that my guess is Chris loves the political work, but also knows he’s capable of doing very well financially in the "real private" sector. He is right. The word is that Chris wants to take a stab at being a political donor, not just an operative. Good for him.

I wish him very well.

The rest of the inside word is that after running through about a half-dozen applicants, the list of replacements has been narrowed to two, a Republican legislative aide in San Diego (who will remain nameless for the present), and a local political consultant (who…yeah, yeah…I gotta keep this one nameless too).

My understanding is that the Lincoln Club may make a final selection tomorrow. More to… Read More