O.K., time to stick a fork in this one. Tuesday’s results in San Bernardino County were a mixed grill of (mostly) road-kill. The GOP performed on par with other counties in terms of support for the propositions compared with Republican registration. The County supported Prop. 73 (58%) and Prop. 75 (50.37%). The rest of the initiatives were defeated. Low turnout didn’t work in the GOP’s favor this time around, with a 36% total turnout and an unusually low 9.97% absentee voter turnout. In local races, with the notable exception of the City of San Bernardino (where Republican Chas Kelley missed getting into the runoff), a majority of the Party’s local endorsed candidates won.

Perspective? Well, you know how sometimes you see a carcass on the highway that’s been so thoroughly flattened you can’t even tell what it was when it walked the earth? If it’s deader than dead, what’s the point of asking what killed it? In a way, that’s how I feel about putting this election into perspective. But I’ll give it a try. We all know that if the people of California… Read More

San Diego City Republican Mayoral Jerry Sanders firmly defeated Democrat Donna Frye last night, beating her 53.87 to 46.13 (a 7.74 point spread). At this point in the game, Frye’s loss is not a huge surprise. None of the several citywide polls I had access to ever showed that Frye could expand beyond the mid 40’s. And the reality is if she had stayed the same "liberal surfer Democrat" Frye that had originally been elected to City Council she probably would never have hit the high 30’s in what is still a center right city.

Instead, Frye spent the last two years playing the part of the "outside reformer" tapping the discontent and disgust that voters of all stripes have with a government they view is venal, corrupt, incompetent, and tied to shadowy lobbyists and special interests. This allowed her to vastly increase her numbers among voters who were disgusted with city government and who might not otherwise have considered voting for a Democrat candidate. And as long as she stayed the course and ran… Read More

I want to be wrong. I want to be wrong! But my gut feeling about 2006 is very, very negative. And its not just an emotional reaction about tonight’s election results.

First, I have to disagree with my colleague Dan Schnur about the Governor’s re-election chances for next year. Having been swept tonight by California’s voters, an already uphill fight next year, in my mind, is essentially decided. I mean, how can a political team that took him from a 73% approval rating to 37% be trusted to reverse course next year in the face of the same intense opposition? Unless there is a total housecleaning in the political shop, there is minimal chance of re-election. How much money will it take to buy Arnold’s approval rating back up to 50%, drive unknown quantities Westly or Angelides negatives to over 50%, and talk about issues? Me thinks more than Arnold can raise. I want to be wrong, but its probably not a stretch to say that his fundraising capabilities have just taken a beating for next year along with the initiatives tonight.

Second, I think a case can be made, in a cruel way, that the Governor’s early successes hurt him in… Read More

Dan Schnur does mention illegal immigration in his analysis of why the Governor won the recall and what enable him to reach out to more voters.

What he doesn’t mention is that the Governor had a chance to help get an initiative on the ballot that would have dealt with this issue. The Save Our License Initiativepromoted by CRA was in circulationuntil Feb. of this year.

It would have stopped licenses and other public benefits from going to illegal aliensexcept emergency medical and K-12 education.Despite great grassroots support, there wasn’t the money to qualify it.

The Governor’s consultants were all approached about this issue. They wouldn’t listen.Why? Because the Governor still talks of giving licenses to illegals under the "right" conditions.

Last month I saw a focus group of Democrats that voted for Arnold. In this key group they had turned on the Governor and his propositions. But, they were with us on illegal immigration.

HadArnold supported this on the ballot, the talk wouldn’t have been about Arnold destroying teachers and nurses , it would have been about… Read More

“Never has so much resulted in so little change.” Paul Pfingst, the former D.A. and now a local KUSI-TV news analyst, said it about the San Diego mayoral election, in which Democrat Donna Frye could barely muster a higher percentage (46%) than she did in the primary. Yet, the comment would about hit the mark for the statewide special election as well. Over $200 million spent, significantly more when everything is analyzed, and status quo has been achieved.

If someone is looking for the bright side, while grasping at straws, they could say that the statewide unions were forced to spend a third of that money to get exactly what they have now, nothing more. But, of course, nothing more is pretty much political control of the state.

It’s not over until it’s over, a great baseball philosopher once said. This one was over the day the election was called. Plenty of other pundits will get into an in-depth analysis of all the “whys”. Aside from money spent, low turnout, voter fatigue, mixed messages, another special election, yadda, yadda, yadda … lastly, Republicans had no… Read More

Orange County did as it always does, came through on the right side of just about every contest. See a .pdf run-down of the OC numbers here.

Chairman Scott Baugh is a clear winner tonight, having overseen an impressive county party run precinct operation. The OC GOP won each of the measures it endorsed, plus Steve Knoblock for San Clemente City Council (consultants Janice and Paul Glaab utilized well the county party endorsement there).

Measure D, a move by the firefighters to re-allocate some of the Prop. 172 monies from OC Sheriff and the DA to the OC Fire Authority lost big. The was a lot of wound licking and cheering in the respective two camps, this fight was the OC Sheriff’s Deputies Union with help from Sheriff Mike Carona and DA Rackauckas vs. the Firefighters Union with help from various local electeds who sit on the Fire Authority Board. The bottom-line analysis shows that if there is a pot of money, someone is… Read More

Funny how not standing for anything in particular until your consultant tells you what to stand for comes back to bite you–sooner than later.

Cassie DeYoung, a councilwoman in Laguna Niguel is running against former Assemblywoman Pat Bates for Orange County’s 5th Sup. Dist. Presumably at the urging of her consultants, she is pushing an anti-tunnel agenda. A tunnel proposal would link Orange County with the Inland Empire, reducing traffic and pollution on the 91 Freeway and spur economic opportunities between these growing communities.

What is funny and the reason I suggest hers is a consultant driven life, is that it turns out our handy local editorial writer for the Orange County Register, Steve Greenhut discovered that DeYoung voted FOR the tunnel, before she voted against it.

Greenhut writes yesterday in the Orange Punch Blog:

Cassie DeYoung voted to support tunnel in 2003… Read More

Next week I will be penning an entire column for the Capitol Weekly on where Republicans go from here, in light of the tragic results of yesterday’s election. Fortunately, this gives me a little time to contemplate the results, and what it all means. I’ll have the benefit of reading a lot of different points of view on this in the coming days – as a matter of fact, I’ve already read a lot of great stuff this morning (including from the FR bloggers).

One thing I will say is that when you get close to an effort — and I got very involved in trying my hardest to see these much-needed reforms get the approval of voters — you really built up a high level of respect for the people you work with — as months, becomes weeks, becomes days, and then the election is here. So I want to salute all of those hard working grassroots activists who walked precincts, emailed friends, made advocacy phone calls and who, like me, engaged in public speaking on behalf of these measures. Also a big thank you to all of the donors, big and small, that gave from the heart for these important measures.

In e-mailing… Read More