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

Kevan Otto, the Republican President of a Police Union has withdrawn from the race for the GOP nomination for the 59th Assembly District. He endorsed Chris Lancaster. While Otto’s name will be on the ballot, the Union supported anti- Prop 75 vote among Republicans won’t be as diluted. Lancaster has significant union support. This leaves Lancaster as the only active candidate from the San Gabriel Valley part of this sprawling district. A definite plus. See the attached Press Release. See past posts on this race starting here.… Read More

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

So Rob Reiner decided to do Arnold Schwarzenegger a favor.

While it’s too early to tell how much damage the First 5 controversy has caused to Reiner’s campaign for Proposition 82, it is clear that it was causing Schwarzenegger all sorts of political problems within his own Republican party.

Now that Reiner has departed, the next step for the governor is to move to the forefront and aggressively lead the investigation into First 5’s activities.

If Reiner is correct and there was nothing illegal or inappropriate going on, Schwarzenegger still gets points for making sure that was the case. If there were improprieties, better for the governor to be the one leading the charge to uncover them.

Either way, it’s one big headache that Arnold doesn’t have to deal with anymore. But there’s still a terrific opportunity here for him to be the political outsider who promised to clean up the mess in Sacramento when he first ran for governor.… 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