The 2006 Republican Primary in the 65th Assembly District could go down as one of the dirtiest and most expensive primaries ever. In fact, I see it as a virtual case study on what’s wrong with gerrymandering: the major parties beat themselves senseless and broke during primaries and don’t ever face the opposing party to debate what’s best for the state. In this five-way contest, it’s about who’s the most against illegal immigration, and who’s the most against taxes. Then there are the lies, distortions, exaggerations, insults, accusations, character assassination and cheating that help define what a great species human beings really are.

How special this race has been. Anyway, now it’s time to speculate about what the results are going to look like tonight, based on limited information and partial analysis. First, the fundraising totals. San Jacinto Councilman Jim Ayres leads the field, having raised $472,804. Hemet Mayor Robin Lowe took in $395,159. Banning Councilwoman… Read More

It’s overcast and starting to rain in San Diego County, at least downtown. Not too many rainy days in the year here. If the rain picks up, expect turnout to drop. And more pile ups on the freeways, of course.… Read More

Oakland voters go to the polls today to choose their new mayor. I’m betting that it will be a run-off between City Council President Ignacio DeLaFuente and former Congressman Ron Dellums. I’d love to see DeLaFuente get enough votes to prevent a run off, but I’m guessing that there are enough wackos in my city to help Dellums make it into a November run off.

In the last days of the campaign, I received several phone calls in support of DeLaFuente, including one from the current mayor, Jerry Brown. But the most fascinating political marketing call I received was this message left on my phone over the weekend. It was a woman’s voice reading the following script:

“Ron Dellums left office 8 years ago to become a… Read More

There are loads of hot races here in Orange County, and with our 21st Century Registrar of Voters doing his utmost to feed our appetite for results it shouldn’t be too late an election night (barring another Diane Harkey/Tom Harman-esque squeaker).

I’m running the traditional predictions contest on OC Blog, but I’ll post my own prognostications on the competitive races here:

2nd Supervisor District: OC Treasurer John Moorlach trounces government union proxy Dave Shawver by 20 points.

5th Supervisor District: Pat Bates edges Cassie DeYoung out for first place (both in the low 40s), but it goes to a November run-off.

67th… Read More

In addition to tomorrow’s election day occuring on 6-6-6, [yes the devil IS in the details] we can remember amongst the giant struggles for primaryvictory for statewide offices,senate seats and new assemblymembers in either party, that it is also the 62nd anniversary of the Allied invasion to re-takeEurope from Hitler. More people, materiel; and effort had never been, at one time, expendedto fight for liberty. It was said the British Isles may sink from all the fighting men and equipment poised near the White Cliffs. Andhere was the US leading the way to help others once again taste freedom. Leadership, by our country,under General Eisenhower, made this vast undertaking a huge success and turned the tide of the war and ofhistory..

As we go to the polls tomorrow to decide many issues, from local government to Governor to Prop 82’s ‘soaking the rich’ again with yet another proposal that will drive the job providers out of state, take a minute to think of who we’re electing and will they honor in their elected office the sacrifice made for liberty 62 years earlier that day.… Read More

I was wondering why Datamar was so quiet over the weekend….ok, guys, now give us something on the 50th….

Democrats: Angelides Leads Westly, 42.9% to 41.3% Public Library Construction (Proposition 81) Losing 57% to 36.5% Voluntary Preschool Initiative (Proposition 82) Losing 63.1% to 32.9% San Diego – A poll released today by Datamar Inc., shows Phil Angelides leading by a small margin, 42.9%, to Steve Westly’s 41.3% in the Democratic primary race to be the party nominee, with 15.8% of voters still undecided. Overall findings are based on a telephone survey of 1,592 California high-propensity registered voters—voters who voted in the 2000 gubernatorial primary and general elections, the 2003 gubernatorial recall election and the 2004 Presidential primary and general elections. Sample size is 1,592 respondents and the margin of error is +/- 2.46. The sampling error for subgroups is larger. The Democratic primary race question was available to Democratic voters only. Sample size is 690 respondents and the margin of error is +/- 3.94.

See the … Read More

This Tuesday is a big election day throughout California, with a lot going on including a nationally-watched special election for Congress in San Diego, a heated battle between two Democrats for the honor of going up against Arnold Schwarzenegger this fall, Rob Reiner’s tax hike/government-run preschool scheme, and much more. All of those things and more have been talked about on this website. I am going to take a few minutes, though, and talk about a race that is near and dear to my heart. My apologies to the vast majority of FR readers who hail from outside of "The OC" — but I want to take a few minutes to urge my several thousand Orange County readers to vote to re-elect my boss, Orange County Sheriff Michael Carona. If you are reading this column, and live outside of Orange County, but have family, friends or acquaintances here, please contact them and ask them to vote for Sheriff Carona. I have known Mike Carona for nearly fifteen years. He and I first met when he was the… Read More

Jim Ledford won’t reveal his donors. No agency has a single copy of his campaign finance report. He claims He has nothing to hide. (Exceptpossibly union money. See here.)

Assemblywoman Runner has asked him to show us the money! See article here.He won’t do it.

Memo to Ledford: Any candidate that truly had filed and reported everything caught up in this mess would have posted his reports on the web.… Read More