Today is election day! Have you remembered to vote? I’m going to go vote right after I finish up this commentary.

There is a practice within the main stream media to pretty much stop election coverage in the final couple of days before the election, with some notable exceptions. I think that the idea behind this is that at a certain point, it becomes too late for anyone to contest or disagree with the analysis of a newspaper or a TV station, and that it may just seem a bit unfair to weigh into races in the final days/hours. That said, there are a few stories on the main page worth a read, on individual races. Today we have featured a column from Sacramento Bee ace columnist Dan Weintraub, who pens a piece on what the various ‘hot spots’ are around the state, providing a ‘guide’ to follow election day results. Definitely worth a read. In the "Golden Pen" today is a must-read column from the Wall Street Journal’s Brendan Miniter on the lessons of the Congressional District 50 special election. An excerpt:… Read More

Today is election day! Have you remembered to vote? I’m going to go vote right after I finish up this commentary.

There is a practice within the main stream media to pretty much stop election coverage in the final couple of days before the election, with some notable exceptions. I think that the idea behind this is that at a certain point, it becomes too late for anyone to contest or disagree with the analysis of a newspaper or a TV station, and that it may just seem a bit unfair to weigh into races in the final days/hours. That said, there are a few stories on the main page worth a read, on individual races. Today we have featured a column from Sacramento Bee ace columnist Dan Weintraub, who pens a piece on what the various ‘hot spots’ are around the state, providing a ‘guide’ to follow election day results. Definitely worth a read. In the "Golden Pen" today is a must-read column from the Wall Street Journal’s Brendan Miniter on the lessons of the Congressional District 50 special election. An excerpt:… 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

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

From the Wall Street Journal Political Diary:

Busting Busby

Mainstream media outlets will be closely watching the special election tomorrow to fill the House seat of former San Diego Congressman Duke Cunningham, who has been sentenced to federal prison for bribery. Should Democrat Francine Busby defeat Republican Brian Bilbray in a heavily GOP district, it would embolden Democratic hopes of winning control of Congress.

But almost no national media outlet has covered the late-breaking news that may decide the election. Last Thursday, Ms. Busby addressed a group of supporters and in response to a question in Spanish about how someone who was an illegal alien could help, she answered: "You don’t need papers for voting," she said.… Read More

On Thursday, my job was all but done. The mail was written, printed, and dropped. The radio buys were running. The paid calls were recorded and scheduled. So, like most every election, I decided to spend the last few days walking precincts so I could get a first hand feel of what the electorate was thinking.

Over the weekend I walked two large precincts – one in Vista and one in Carlsbad – in North County San Diego. The targets were GOP and Decline to State Primary voters. Probably close to a total of 250 households, of which I spoke to around 85… maybe more.

The temperature the first day (Vista) was a boiling 95 and I drew a hilly precinct in an inland upper middle-class community called Shadowridge. This precinct is not in the hotly contested CD50. It is represented by Congressman Darrell Issa, and amusingly I actually ended up walking his precinct and knocking on his door (he wasn’t home). The second day, mercifully, the weather was in the 70’s and I was fairly near the coast in another upper middle-class community. In the second precinct, I was in the middle of the Bilbray-Busby brawl. These are both very, very Republican and… Read More

In speeches across the region this year I’ve been talking about the misery index in politics this year – but building a head of steam since the 2004 Presidential election. At the heart of the misery is this: Conservatives are miserable over record federal spending, the immigration debacle and the failure of the Congress and President to lead on domestic issues. GOP moderates are miserable because they hated the appointment of two pro life Supreme Court Justices, Democrat moderates are miserable because they have to look at the three stooges – Pelosi, Reid and Dean as the standard bearers of their Party. Democrat liberals are miserable because they HATE, I mean HATE, the President. Peggy Noonan writes more about this phenomenon here. As you see the dismal turnout across the State tomorrow ask yourself this question: who INSPIRES YOU?… Read More