Some random thoughts on the passing California political scene…

Apparently in both San Francisco and in Oakland, they have adopted a bizarre method of “ranked voting” in their elections, designed to save the expense of runoff elections. Instead of voting for their favorite candidates, instead they rank-order their favorites – 1st, 2nd and 3rd choice. Then when the ballots are counted, if no one gets a majority, the lowest vote getter is dropped, and the people who voted for that candidate have their votes redistributed to their 2nd choice candidate, and so-on. Totally bizarre. Well, from the “be careful what you ask for…” files, a totally bizarre, off the wall candidate for Oakland Mayor, Councilwoman Jean Quan, who got less than a quarter of the 1st place votes, has apparently emerged as the new Mayor. This system allowed all of the whack votes to ultimately solidify behind the top whack. Crazy. It looks like both the University of California and the California State University systems are going to raise their tuition and fees, respectively. Look for faux outrage from … Read More

It was predicted. Dana Point Councilmember Lisa Bartlett pushed through a plan last year, as Mayor, that made hotel taxes in Dana Point even higher than New York City’s. For that, she should have been automatically disqualified for endorsement for re-election to the Council by the Orange County Republican Party. I had warned Scott Baugh and Jon Fleischman that Bartlett would nevertheless be knocking on their door, and had a very bad vote sitting out there. But Scott and Jon soon forget the warning, and local CRA volunteer Craig Alexander, a member of the endorsements committee, who lives in Dana Point and knows Bartlett is a tax raiser, nevertheless quietly cleared her for the endorsement. With that, Bartlett’s manager, Scott Hart, who also produces the “Continuing the Republican Revolution” slate, produced a mailing for Bartlett littered with references to her Orange County GOP endorsement, including the official seal of the party. In the meantime, Baugh called Bartlett, and as I understand subsequent events, she pledged to never raise taxes again. But last night, less than one week after her re-election, Bartlett simply walked out before a… Read More

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Here are a couple of good items from today’s Wall Street Journal Political Diary E-mail from FR friend John Fund… … Read More

Your Five Days After Campaign Advice… You shoulda listened to me. Uhh, okay, that was really unfair. So, let’s move on. Watch for my San Diego Winners and Losers here in the next few days. In the meantime, a brief post-election pot-pourri from the San Diego area…

A San Diego Sweep… Revolution 2010 may have been ignored by most California voters, but in San Diego there were conservative and GOP victories in a number of key races, not the least of which is a Republican winning a long-held Dem seat on the San Diego City Council. Jim Sills at SD Rostra shares his musings on the top wins:

Conservatives take all the "Big 5" races in San Diego’s election showdown____

So, What Do We Do Now?… Much was made during the election — at least by the proponents — of the sheer devastation the City of San Diego would face if the Prop D sales tax increase failed.… Read More

This isthe followup to mycomments of last Thursday.

As bad as it was for Republicans Tuesday, one can see that, still, voters on one hand, are for limited and accountable government. What am I talking about? The election in California was a total wipeout. Yes, of course it was on the statewide offices. But we look to the propositionsand one can see the roots of a conservative, keep-government-off-my-back mentality.Now the logic of placing the candidates in statewide office in that same election that defy those tenets of limited and accountable government, is the voter schizophreniathat election experts and party officials are always trying to get a handle on. So it happens again in California as it appears 8 or even all 9 statewide elections will go to Democrat candidates.Even then,several good propositions passed and bad ones were stopped.

My own favorites were that Prop 20 passed and Prop 27 was soundly defeated, meaning the redistrictingprocess will be at least 90% cleaner than it has been with… Read More

It was a Republican tsunami nationwide, that turned into a riptide when it hit California, and sucked the Republicans in this state into the ocean. The question is why? How could a year that began with so much promise fall apart so completely?

The loss was complete. Even if Steve Cooley is able to pull out of his embarrassing showing against the weakest Democrat ever to run for Attorney General, it is no great victory. $140 million for Governor, and other millions for the various other seats. Never has so much been spent on so few to accomplish so little. We could have all gone home, watched football, saved the money, and still done just as well as we did in this election. What went wrong?

I have my own theories, and they begin with Arnold Schwarzenegger. Meg Whitman began her campaign sounding like Schwarzenegger, and ended up losing. Schwarzenegger has given the Republicans a bad name in California. The country showed its dislike of Obama by voting against his candidates throughout the country. The state showed its dislike of Schwarzenegger by voting against Republicans.

On a national… Read More

From today’s Wall Street Journal opinion page…

The Two Left Coasts: Why the GOP wave didn’t wash over New York and California. Tuesday’s GOP landslide didn’t spare many Democrats, but it did stop at the state lines of California and New York. These coastal exceptions deserve some explanation, because they illustrate the difficulties Republicans will face if they fail to reform entitlements, taxes and public spending. In California, Senator Barbara Boxer cruised handily to a fourth term, defeating Carly Fiorina by nine percentage points and change. Democrats also notched a victory with Jerry Brown’s restoration to the Governor’s mansion; he… Read More