Earth to Governor Schwarzenegger: We Are In A RECESSION. Times are TOUGH. People are OUT OF WORK. Those who are working (and certainly those who aren’t) have LESS MONEY TO SPEND.

So it is certinly not appreciated when you sign legislation that sounds nifty but has the practical effect of making this state a more expensive place to live, work or run a business.

I think that it is remarkably tone-deaf of you to praise the California Energy Commission for passing new expensive and onerous regulations while you proudly boast that you veto "job killer" legislation.

Guess what, in your press release today, you are praising job killer regulation.

At some point, you need to come to terms with the fact that your aggressive agenda to cause people to consume less energy and emit less carbon comes at a significant economic cost.

If you want to "feel good" — donate your own carbon credits and go buy your own more expensive energy-efficient big screen television. But it is wrong to force everyone else to jump through your hoops so that can hang with Al Gore… Read More

Noting our publisher’s self-congratulations on predicting Tuesday morning the essentials of the Norby win in the 72nd AD special election that same day, I’ll do the same here, because my own poll, first published here a month ago, showed the victory in the making weeks before Jon’s prediction. My poll, taken Oct, 22-25, showed Norby’s positives at about 38% and Linda Ackerman’s as 19%. Though limited to Republicans, these figures are startlingly close to the actual vote results in the race. In addition, while my poll showed overall Republican voter support as 27% for Norby and 17% for Ackerman (underpredicting Norby’s election day strength a little but pretty much nailing Ackerman’s vote) the cross-tabs for the absentee vote almost exactly mirror the actual result of the election on November 17. Adam Probolsky attempted to sully my poll in this publication by calling the survey “funny numbers” in a post. He was wrong. The actual results strongly support the credibility of my poll results and I certainly don’t mind pointing that out to FR readers.… Read More

Meg Whitman’s credibility with voters in the Central Valley was destroyed today by yet another revelation about her effort to protect the Delta smelt over the needs of our farmers in the Central Valley. To make matters worse for Whitman’s candidacy, she is proudly standing by her past donations to defend the Delta smelt.

This morning, the San Jose Mercury News reported that after contributing $100,000 to the EDF in 2007, Meg Whitman contributed an additional $200,000 to the Environmental Defense Fund’s efforts to protect the Delta smelt as recently as a year ago in 2008.

… Read More

We received the following volley from longtime FR friend Bob Haueter. Bob is the Chairman of the Meg Whitman for Governor Campaign in Los Angeles County…

Californians know well that our state is in a fiscal meltdown, with new budget deficit projections running as high as $25 billion.

Each of us is feeling the pain of the failure of Sacramento politicians to rein in spending and make state government live within its means.

Between budget years 1998-99 and 2007-2008, state general fund spending grew an astonishing 80 percent, from $58 billion to $103 billion. And in the past few years, while Californians faced layoffs, home foreclosures and higher taxes, state government continued to hire.

This must stop.

We need real leadership in Sacramento. We need someone who will watch out for Californians. And we… Read More

I’m at Orange County Supervisor Chris Norby’s election night party at Cherch’s Restaurant and Bar in downtown Fullerton (a neat, funky place, by the way!). The place is packed with Norby supporters and conservative friends including collleagues on the Western CPAC board, Bill Saracino and Allen Brandstater, and volunteer extraordinaire Pete Sheridan, who all came down from LA County to walk precincts for Norby today. Even some in other categories are here (I think I saw Supervisor Janet Nguyen, whom I think endorsed Norby opponent Linda Ackerman). It looks like campaign manager John Lewis did a good job chasing absentee ballots. Norby has 36% in first pass by OC Registrar; the Democrat is in second place with 28%, and Ackerman is third at 20%. Norby’s almost twenty point lead over Ackerman should hold.… Read More

After talking with a number of savvy politicos whose opinions I hold in high regard, I think it is safe to say that the expected outcome of today’s Special Election in Orange County’s 72nd Assembly District will be that Supervisor Chris Norby will win the Republican nomination, but fall well short of the outright majority of the total vote necessary to avoid a run-off election next month.

The analysis is pretty straight-forward. Chris Norby, as first a long-time Fullerton City Councilmember (the largest city in AD 72) and then as a two-time elected Supervisor, simply had too much positive name identification in the district to be defeated. Most of those to whom I spoke felt that if this election were being held on a more traditional time-line, with a much longer period of time for voters to hear from candidates and advocacy groups, that Republican National Committeewoman and Metropolitan Water District Member Linda Ackerman would have had a very good shot at winning a plurality of support from Republican voters. The short time line meant that literally only a few weeks elapsed before absentee ballots were shipped out and high-propensity AB voters… Read More

After talking with a number of savvy politicos whose opinions I hold in high regard, I think it is safe to say that the expected outcome of today’s Special Election in Orange County’s 72nd Assembly District will be that Supervisor Chris Norby will win the Republican nomination, but fall well short of the outright majority of the total vote necessary to avoid a run-off election next month.

The analysis is pretty straight-forward. Chris Norby, as first a long-time Fullerton City Councilmember (the largest city in AD 72) and then as a two-time elected Supervisor, simply had too much positive name identification in the district to be defeated. Most of those to whom I spoke felt that if this election were being held on a more traditional time-line, with a much longer period of time for voters to hear from candidates and advocacy groups, that Republican National Committeewoman and Metropolitan Water District Member Linda Ackerman would have had a very good shot at winning a plurality of support from Republican voters. The short time line meant that literally only a few weeks elapsed before absentee ballots were shipped out and high-propensity AB voters… Read More

As we continue to assess the lay of the land of Republican primaries in “safe” GOP or competitive seats, today we turn our virtual magnifying glass on the 68th Assembly District. This district is located in the center-west of Orange County. (See the map here.) It includes all or part of the following cities: Stanton, Garden Grove, Westminster, Fountain Valley, and Costa Mesa. The seat is currently held by my friend going back to college days, Republican Assemblyman Van Tran. Tran is departing the Assembly after his third allowable term, and is running hard for Congress, where he is challenging incumbent Democrat Loretta Sanchez.

By the numbers, the seat has been considered safe Republican. There are 90,496 GOP voters (41%), 72,992 Democrat voters (33%), and 47,166 Decline to… Read More