Yesterday in their Capitol Alert blog, the Sacramento Bee reported that Chris Kahn, the Deputy Chief of Staff for Governor Schwarzenegger and Director of Legislative Affairs will be departing his post at the end of the year. This departure is the second extremely high-profile Republican in the Governor’s inner circle to step away in just a couple of months, with former Cabinet Secretary Dan Dunmoyer having recently left as well. In the Bee’s blurb about Kahn’s departure, they mention that he was “unavailable for comment” for his story.

Well, I thought that I would try to help fill in the blanks for those wondering what Chris “would have said” had he actually spoken out on his departure. Readers should understand that I have not spoken to him about this, and that this is an editorial on my part, presuming what Chris might say (if he could):

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It isn’t really clear if a candidate for Governor can suffer a “significant campaign setback” if they aren’t even a candidate yet, but that is what has happened to ersatz Gubernatorial candidate Meg Whitman, the former CEO of eBay who, relatively new to the GOP, has had high profile roles with the Presidential campaigns of Mitt Romney (with whom she was once a co-worker) and Senator John McCain – with the confirmation that her top two most prominent advisors are no longer engaged professionally on Whitman’s behalf.

For most of this year, Whitman has been rumored to be looking at a run for Governor, and she moved quite a bit past the rumor stage with a series of meetings around the state with GOP stakeholders, where she made it clear that she was, indeed, contemplating a run. In fact, she reached out to bring on some pretty highly respected political operatives – perhaps some of the best – in… Read More

This just in from Assemblyman Chuck DeVore, who recently announced his candidacy for the Republican nomination for U.S. Senate in 2010, for the seat currently occupied by Democrat Barbara Boxer…

I’ve opposed all the mega-billion dollar bailouts – they reward failure and bad decisions and leave us and our children to pay the trillion dollars in new debt. And, if you think this out of control spending is bad now with Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid, and Barbara Boxer in Congress and President Bush in the White House, just wait until Obama is President and even more liberal Democrats run Congress.

Now we hear about the new Congressional visitor center, the one Harry Reid said would allow his colleagues to no longer have to… Read More

It isn’t really clear if a candidate for Governor can suffer a “significant campaign setback” if they aren’t even a candidate yet, but that is what has happened to ersatz Gubernatorial candidate Meg Whitman, the former CEO of eBay who, relatively new to the GOP, has had high profile roles with the Presidential campaigns of Mitt Romney (with whom she was once a co-worker) and Senator John McCain – with the confirmation that her top two most prominent advisors are no longer engaged professionally on Whitman’s behalf.

For most of this year, Whitman has been rumored to be looking at a run for Governor, and she moved quite a bit past the rumor stage with a series of meetings around the state with GOP stakeholders, where she made it clear that she was, indeed, contemplating a run. In fact, she reached out to bring on some pretty highly respected political operatives – perhaps some of the best – in… Read More

FR friend Andy Roth, Political Director of the Club for Growth, has recorded a podcast interview with Congressman-Elect Tom McClintock. For those of you who know Tom, you can already anticipate a good interview. For FR readers who aren’t familiar with him, here is a great opportunity to get acquainted with McClintock. He will be a great new Congressman, and will quickly rise to leadership amongst House conservatives.

You can check out the interview at the Club for Growth blog here.… Read More

Recycling is economically possible because there is a market for recyclable goods. However, a good deal of that market demand comes from Asia, and with the recent global economic downturn, recycling markets have become incredibly volatile and unpredictable, causing instability in our domestic recycling efforts. Recyclers are stockpiling recyclable materials in hopes of an upturn in the market, but if that doesn’t occur, how long before our recyclables end up in landfills? Even if you are an eco-Grinch who maliciously throws your cans and bottles in your garbage just to be a pill, the fact is that our landfills simply cannot hold the recyclables that will go into them if the market for these commodities evaporates. And that’s every taxpayers problem. The more we throw away, the more space we take up in landfills. When a landfill becomes a “landfull”, taxpayers have to build a new one. The less we throw away, the longer our landfills will last. The amount of taxpayer money we save by extending the longevity of our landfills is an important … Read More

[Cross-posted from OC Blog]

Although I’ve hardly blogged on the topic, I’ve done a good deal of thinking about the November election and what it portends for the Republican Party and conservatism (and they are two different things).

Much ink and many pixels have been spilled writing prescriptions for the GOP’s recovery, so I don’t see the need to add to the pile of punditry. Suffice it to say I don’t think the GOP needs to gin up a new set of principles, or even that the election constituted a rebuke of the center-right physiology of the Republican Party. No political party can win every election, and the GOP has done much to merit back-to-back defeats for reasons that have been amply commentated… Read More

H/T to Cap Weekly…. Steinberg selects committee chairs

Senate President Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg has chosen his committee chairs. They are:

Sen. Christine Kehoe (D-San Diego): Senate Appropriations Committee Sen. Ron Calderon (D-Montebello): Senate Banking & Finance Committee Sen. Denise Ducheny (D-San Diego): Senate Budget and Fiscal Review Committee Sen. Gloria Negrete-McLeod (D-Chino): Senate Business, Professions & Economic Development Committee Sen. Gloria Romero (D-East Los Angeles): Senate Education Committee Sen. Loni Hancock (D-Berkley): Senate Elections, Reapportionment & Constitutional Amendments Committee Sen. Alex Padilla (D-San Fernando Valley): Senate Energy, Utilities and Communications Committee Sen. Joe Simitian (D-Palo Alto): Senate Environmental Quality Committee… Read More