I was very excited to see that my friend Janice Rutherford, currently Councilwoman in the City of Fontana and an aide to Acting Board of Equalization Member Barbara Alby (a for a looong time for Bill Leonard before that) had an awesome election night. Janice is running for San Bernardino County Supervisor — she’s taking on an incumbent, Paul Biane.

When all was said and done, Biane posted a dismal 34.27% of the vote in his re-election bid — this after spending more money, by far, than Janice or anyone else. Clearly Biane’s strategy was to try and "win it all" in June. Coming in right behind Biane was Janice, with 31.21% of the vote. Four other candidates divided up the rest of the vote.

So in the Fall, Biane and Rutherford will face on in a run-off. Conventional wisdom is that Rutherford is now the front-runner. First and foremost, it is unheard of for an incumbent Supervisor to end up in a run-off, but to perform so poorly is really embarrassing. Second… Read More

The "California Top Two Primary Act," known as Proposition 14, passed with surprising margins in counties across the state yesterday. The campaign for the proposition should be congratulating itself; many political observers did not see this big win coming for Prop. 14.

Under Prop. 14, voters can vote in the primary election for what used to be referred to as "partisan elections" for any candidate regardless of party affiliation of either the candidate or the voter. Candidates can even chose to not disclose their party affiliation on the ballot. For example, and admittedly at the extreme, if the Communist Party qualified as a political party in California and had a candidate running for Congress in say, Congressional District #9 (Berkeley), the candidate could chose to not disclose that significant political affiliation on the ballot.

Lawyers for both political parties will now be focusing on a legal challenge to Prop. 14. I think the fact that candidates can chose to remove information from the ballot about their party affiliation is a significant line of legal attack. It emasculates the political parties. Prop.… Read More

From today’s Wall Street Journal Political Diary E-mail…… Read More

Los Angeles County District Attorney Steve Cooley not only won the Republican nomination for Attorney General, he got his dream match-up in Kamala Harris, the uber-liberal District Attorney of San Francisco, and he will be California’s next Attorney General.

Kamala Harris is simply unelectable as Attorney General. She has the worst criminal conviction rate in the state, having barely won over 50% of her felony trials. She presides over a Sanctuary City and actually provides support and legal comfort for illegal immigrants. She is on the hot seat for failing to disclose massive negligence in the San Francisco crime lab, a failure that could result in the release of thousands of violent criminals. She opposes the death penalty. She was THE most liberal candidate in the Democrat primary, and now she is toast. (PS – How do you feel today, Chris Kelly? $10 million for a 2:1 loss. Ouch.)

Steve Cooley is certainly not a perfect candidate. He’s got big problems with his administration of the Three Strikes law, especially his office policy not to pursue a third strike unless it is a violent felony. He also authored a ballot initiative to weaken the Three Strikes law.… Read More

Sadly I received my last piece of campaign mail today, Wednesday, the day after the polls closed, at my home in Dana Point. It was a Poizner piece mailed out under an Orange, Ca bulk mail permit. If someone from that campaign wants to contact me, I’ll send you a scan of the piece. The Dana Point post office is notoriously slow in processing and delivering “red tagged” political mail, which is entitled to First Class priority handling. But arriving a day after the election just adds insult to injury.… Read More

As is always the case after a major election, there is much more to write about than there is time to write! Look for more substantive analysis on specific races and such, but for this morning, I will take a stab at some overall analysis – all of which will be too brief in any one, but this is an overview, after all. I am not going to be pouring election numbers into this, you can get plenty of that elsewhere. Before I start my run down, I want to echo the praise extended by FR friend Aaron McLear to the Capitol Press Corps who all stepped up in their blogging and tweeting last night. Outstanding. Also a reminder – I am mostly looking at GOP races – someone else will take a closer look at the Dems…

OK, off to the races…

STATEWIDE RACES GOVERNOR: Congratulations to Meg Whitman, and to her (extensive) campaign team. Whitman posted a convincing win over rival Poizner. So much so that Whitman goes into the Summer with significant momentum. I wonder if her first commercials will be up…today?… Read More

From today’s Wall Street Journal Political Diary Email… (yours truly is quoted)…… Read More

Tonight I will be trying to provide some analysis of election returns from the comfort of home. While the State GOP’s election night festivities are here in Orange County, I have a great reason to spend this evening with my family. Today we brought home Sophia Elizabeth from the hospital — our daughter, Sophia, was born last Friday!

So besides this blog, the best place to track my musings and observations will be on Twitter here.… Read More