Naturally when I am out of the country on vacation, we have one of the busiest days in California political news in a long, long time. It took me a long time to put together the main page this morning, which means less time to write up a commentary on the news. We’ll try it in bullet-point format today:

The lead column today is by California Secretary of State Bruce McPherson. Today marks the one-year anniversary of his appointment to this post by Governor Schwarzenegger, filling the vacancy left by the resignation of Democrat Kevin Shelley. Shelley had been elected to the post in 2002, but was forced out of office due to scandals. McPherson has really been doing a great job with the office – and has thoroughly ‘cleaned house’ from the previous administration. The culture of corruption has been replaced with a culture of hard work, and desire to bring the principles of representative government to every Californian. Please take a few minutes to read his column! Yesterday Rob Reiner finally called it quits from the Prop. 10 commission. In doing so, he may be attempted to shift the limelight away from the boatload of … Read More

The 69th AD battle for the Democrat nomination could be a brutal.

The campaign of Santa Ana Councilman Jose Solorio has announced he has received the endorsement of two statewide unions: California Federation of Teachers and California Professional Firefighters

Solorio’s chief opponent is Santa Ana City Councilwoman and OC Deputy District Attorney Claudia Alvarez, the third candidate in the race is Armando de la Libertad, an executive with Wells Fargo who does community development, even though he lacks elected experience, I never discount someone who hands out money for a living.

All three candidates bought ballot statements. Alvarez has over $100,000 cash on hand while Solorio and de la Libertad each have about $75,000.… Read More

Click here to read John Wildermuth’s (SF Chronicle reporter) blog entry on Phil Angelides’ appearance on Al Franken radio show this morning at the Crest Theater in Sacramento. Liberal voters will be thrilled to learn that Anglelides plans to "make California home to a new progressive movement." If Angelides bests Westly in the Democratic primary, hopefully Republicans who are now planning to sit on their hands in November will rethink the power of their vote. While I’m not thrilled with everything that Schwarzenegger is doing (I share Matt Cunningham’s feeling of "It’s getting to the point where I’ll be surprised if I’m not disappointed by the Governor’s actions."), my vote will be cast as a "anybody but Phil vote." I can see it now–the Big Five under Governor Angelides will be Angelides, Al Franken, Michael Moore, Cindy Sheehan and Susan Sarandon.… Read More

Teachers unions on both sides of the Bay Bridge are threatening to strike. Yesterday, an Oakland Teachers Association representative said the union shortly would be announcing their “scheduled work action” plans while San Francisco teachers gave a big thumbs up to the union’s plans to strike if the district does not go along with their pay demands. The SF union representatives said that a strike could happen by mid-April if negotiations don’t go their way. Rumors in Oakland have been flying about a possible strike as early as next week, although parents and teachers have been working on plans to run “strike schools” for quite some time.

The big disagreement in … Read More

The good news is Rob Reiner has finally done the right thing and resigned as chairman of the California Children and Families Commission, colloquially known as the First 5 Commission. It would have been nice if Reiner was resigning because he knows it is wrong to use tax dollars to promote his universal government pre-school ballot initative, but the world is an imperfect place. We’ll have to content ourselves with a resignation letter equal parts self-pity, self-congratulation and moral obliviousness (probably penned by Reiner’s new smashmouth PR guru, Mark Fabiani).

The bad news is our Governor has replaced Reiner with a political clone (of Reiner, not Schwarzenegger) named Hector Ramirez, head Para Los Ninos (Spanish for — what else? — For The… Read More

While there is always lots of interesting political goings on in the Bay Area, I can’t help to read the daily stories on the Polk murder trial. While it doesn’t have the celebrity status of the OJ trial, the Polk trial is the most interesting legal drama in the country today. I’m sure that the writers for "Law and Order" and other TV legal shows have already got copy-cat scripts in the works.

The courtroom happenings are fascinating. For example, this week, the defendant—on trial for murdering her husband and who is acting as her own attorney—objected to something the prosecution said on the grounds of….hyperbole.

First, for some background. For those of you not familiar with the East Bay, Orinda is a small, affluent town on the other side of the Caldecott Tunnel from North Oakland. For many “crunchy” Berkeley/Oakland residents, they simply cannot stand to… Read More

It’s pretty much a given among politicos that even though the average person says they hate negative campaigning — and actually do — they are also influenced by it.

Similar with surveys. Most of us say polls means very little, but go off the deep end when they don’t reflect our candidates in a good light, and — alternatively — immediately crank out a press release when they do.

Datamar’s latest survey in the 50th C.D. has been the target of much criticism and comments the last few days. I’ll leave it for you to decide the merits of both the survey methods and the resulting arguments.

The SDPolitics Blog has been awash with commentary. Check it out here.

Perhaps the most succinct criticism of the Datamar survey, I received from GOP activist Warene Wall (in support of Bill Morrow):

Those who have been in grassroots politics for a long time have learned that polls can… Read More

It isn’t on the Governor’s website yet, but Arnold appointed another judge to the Los Angeles County Superior Court.Richard Goul is a decline to stater and worse from USC. I was told to be glad it wasn’t another Democrat as the Governor’s appointments run two to one on the Dem side. Hooray.

Here is the release since it wasn’t up yet.

Governor Schwarzenegger Appoints Richard Goul to Los Angeles County Superior Court Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger today announced the appointment of Richard M. Goul to a judgeship in the Los Angeles County Superior Court. Goul, 48, of Newport Beach, has served as a deputy district attorney with the Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office since 1989. He is currently deputy-in-charge of the sexual assault unit in the Long Beach branch … Read More