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

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

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

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

The Schwarzenegger campaign insists they have no preference on which Democratic candidate for govenor ends up as their opponent. In truth, they’ll probably be able to run pretty much the same campaign against either Phil Angelides or Steve Westly.

But running against Angelides would be so much more fun.

Today’s Sacramento Bee reports on the anti-Arnold’s visit to an African-American congregation in East Oakland, where he promised the attendees that "wants to create a California ‘where the governor stands side by side with people like Barbara Lee, whether it’s the genocide in Darfur or the horrible war in Iraq."

Putting aside for a moment the lack of foreign policy decision-making in a governor’s portfolio, Angelides just promised the people of the state that he "stands side by side" with the only member of the House of Representatives who, on September 15, 2001, voted against authorizing the use of military force against those responsible for the terrorist attacks against the World Trade Center and the Pentagon four days earlier.

I don’t know of anyone who’s in favor… Read More

The Orange County Registrar of Voter‘s office used to be a statewide embarrassment. Every Election Night, eager politicos waited for the excruciatingly slow county election bureaucracy to tabulate the results. It wasn‘t unusual to wait until lat at night just to get the first round of absentee voters. It was like the tabulating was being done in "bullet time" — which is cool in The Matrix but not cool when waiting on the outcome of elections.

All that began changing rapidly with the accession of Neal Kelley as first Acting OC Registrar, and now as the permanent OC Registrar of Voters. Kelley is busily bringing his office into the 21st Century.

You can watch ballot boxes bring brought into the OC Registrar‘s on the… Read More

A break from weekend political activities for a few bites from the week…

Survey USA Poll in 50th CD… Jim Sills noted it after Jon’s commentary yesterday…if you missed it, the survey was conducted 5/30-6/1 for local KGTV…448 likely voters…prior to the Busby "You don’t need no steenkin’ papers to vote" comment. The results show Bilbray up 47% to Busby’s 45%, with virtually zilch undecided. Sills astutely notes, however, that "the cross-tabs show Bilbray far ahead among voters over age 65, with Busby’s best segment being those under age 35. I think we all know the respective turnout history of those two age groups!" Survey USA’s own analysis, "Turnout Will Decide CA 50 Special Election," you can see here, along with the cross-tabs.

The North County Times… Read More

Libraries and pre-school. Wow, is that the best we can come up with? This election’s statewide ballot measures will go down in election history as 1) the most boring and 2) the most worthless.

The independent library system is one of the least important government institution of this century. I don’t discount their value in certain communities. But in your typical middle class community where there is a library at each school site, a (or a network of) city or county library(s) and college or university library(s), I think that makes a few too many librarians.

I have nothing against them. In fact, I quite enjoyed going to the library as a kid. Getting my own library card at 6 was a special event. But times have changed and I no longer have to go to the library on a hot summer day because it is the only place in town with an air conditioner (I am being dramatic–we had air conditioning as a kid).

I also know that large amounts of research that could once be the done exclusively at ‘the library’ can now be done on ‘the Internet’. I… Read More