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

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.

In general, the FlashReport as a publication doesn’t endorse candidates. There have been rare occasions, but right now I can’t even think of one. We did endorse John Shadegg in his run for Majority Leader of the House of Representatives. Shadegg didn’t win that election, but he really was never in the hunt – he joined late, as the conservative candidate for GOP leadership, and his candidacy shaped that debate.

The vast majority of the FlashReport’s many, many thousands of site visitors are not from Orange County, let alone from the 35th State Senate District, which hugs the coastline of one of California’s most populous, and Republican Counties. This coastal legislative seat, which stretches from Seal Beach on the Los Angeles border all of the way down to the southern-most end of the county, is the site of a special election. State Senator John Campbell was elected a few months ago to fill out the unexpired term of Congressman Christopher Cox, who was tapped by President Bush to serve as Chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission.

… Read More

In general, the FlashReport as a publication doesn’t endorse candidates. There have been rare occasions, but right now I can’t even think of one. We did endorse John Shadegg in his run for Majority Leader of the House of Representatives. Shadegg didn’t win that election, but he really was never in the hunt – he joined late, as the conservative candidate for GOP leadership, and his candidacy shaped that debate.

The vast majority of the FlashReport’s many, many thousands of site visitors are not from Orange County, let alone from the 35th State Senate District, which hugs the coastline of one of California’s most populous, and Republican Counties. This coastal legislative seat, which stretches from Seal Beach on the Los Angeles border all of the way down to the southern-most end of the county, is the site of a special election. State Senator John Campbell was elected a few months ago to fill out the unexpired term of Congressman Christopher Cox, who was tapped by President Bush to serve as Chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission.

There are two GOP candidates vying for what is a safe Republican seat — State… Read More

I’m in LA today and have seen the Governor’s first ads, all positive, and very well done.

It’s a good start.

These are easy ads to produce, and its an appropriate time of the year to run them.

The real test will be how to respond to the union onslaught.

We will then see how much political talent there is in the shop.… 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