This video of Stephen Colbert interviewing California Congresswoman Jackie Speier is awesome. It is totally a must-watch video. Thank to Torey over at the SacBee for hipping me to it.

The exchanges on gay marriage are… priceless. And Colbert’s razzing of Speier’s proposal to allow 14 year olds to vote… A must watch…

The Colbert Report Mon – Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c … Read More

Today the Governor announced that he is promoting Fred Aguiar to be Deputy Chief of Staff and Senior Advisor. At the same time, he has tapped Aguiar’s long-time protege and trusted right-hand Scott Reid to be Cabinet Secretary (the primary liaison between the Governor’s Executive Office and the various Agency heads).

Aguiar has served in the Schwarzenegger Administration in a variety of capacities from Agency Secretary to Cabinet Secretary, to Commission appointee. Aguiar has served on the San Bernardino County Board of Supervisors (during what now seems like the good old days) and served in the State Assembly.

I have known Aguiar for many years and know him to be a calm, collected and pretty conservative guy. We applaud Governor Schwarzenegger for elevating Aguiar’s role in his administration.

That said, Fred, your job will certainly be a tough one. The seeming inability of the Governor to apply any consistency in his governing philosophy (except his now record-long… Read More

I guess it’s almost time for us to just establish the "web ad of the day" feature here on the FlashReport. Today’s featured piece has been produced by the Poizner for Governor campaign, and it seeks to highlight the fact that while Meg Whitman has taken a pro "turn on the water" position in terms of the federal orders to keep water from being pumped from the delta in order to preserve the Delta Smelt, Whitman’s family foundation has apparently donated hundreds of thousands of dollars to the Environmental Defense Fund, which has as one of its priorities the preservation of said Delta Smelt.

Here is is the background data for the ad.

Jarrod Agen, of the Poizner campaign, also adds (this is lifted from his e-mail):

In 2007 and 2008, Meg Whitman gave $300,000 to EDF’s Center for Rivers and Deltas. But in 2009, she’s pretending to support the Central Valley farmers. Earlier this year, Meg Whitman was a “huge fan” of Van Jones. But then a few months later she claims that she … Read More

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

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