Day after thoughts on some local “stuff”….

SD City Attorney… Aguirre is evacuated, victim of his huge mouth and even larger ego, mixed in with delusions of grandeur and a tad paranoia. Jan Goldsmith will make a great city attorney.

52nd Congressional… Congrats to Duncan D. Hunter (now simply Duncan Hunter). Registration was tough enough to beat, add the name factor and the combo was lethal. Virtually everyone knew this was over a year ago, except for a handful of Mike Lumpkin supporters that became constant commenters on GOP blogs. And, every moment spent trying to convince GOP activists on a center-right leaning blog that Lumpkin had a chance was time that could have been used with real swing voters. And, they say the blogs have no impact.… Read More

I started my day today the way I usually do…I read my Bible and prayed for all the people on my prayer list…until my kids starting fighting over the breakfast table, and I felt like I was in the middle of the Seinfeld episode with George’s dad running around saying, “Serenity Now!” In fact, the Serenity Prayer is printed on a coin I carry in my pocket: “God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change; the courage to change the things I can; and the wisdom to know the difference.” How apropos for the morning after this election. Last night, I was asking the question, “What happened?!”, and desperately trying to make sense of the past year and the outcome of the election. It was only leading me down a path of sadness and disappointment, because I’ve been so very proud to support Senator McCain all this time.

So this morning, I asked a new question, “What now?” And I asked it prayerfully, and not in hopes of finding the answer from another person, because we’re all… Read More

The 2nd District, Wally Herger’s, came thru strong, with nearly 57%. Dan Lungren did OK, too, in the 3rd with 49 to 44% in a 4 way race. I’m at McClintock HQ right now in Roseville, where the numbers are very close…much closer than this district should be but it’s obviously a wacky year. Right now it sits at a 500 vote lead for Tom with a bunch left to count in Nevada County, where they have quit counting for the night. The McClintock crew is on top of it, monitoring thecounty officeswhereneeded overnight and early tomorrow morning.Thisseat has no business falling into the wrong hands and should be ours at the end of it, as Tom feels good about how the numbers will break to him. What a night.… Read More

The elves all had other plans this morning, so I am busy trying to compile the main news page. Look for it around 9am. After that, I will start tackling the 15 or so short analysis pieces that I would rather be writing right now! But, first things first…… Read More

Setting last nights unpleasantness aside for a moment, ithad beenexpected the Guv will announce a special session on our crumbling budget and call for that today, with the likelihood that the Assembly and Senate will convene that session Thursdayand immediately recess it. The caucuses meet anyway on Thursday to elect their caucus leaders so everyone will be in town anyway, the termed out and the newbies.Conveningit allows the special session budget committees to be formed and perhaps hammer out some fixes to the massive budget revenue shortfall..or not.

Republicans remain firm that no new tax, sales tax, tax onbusiness, whatever,will help fix thisslumped over economyor subsequently, state revenues.Instead removing dumb mandates like AB 32 could help kickstart some investor confidence, along with our position of tax credit incentives to employ people and invest in this state, not Nevada. We’ll see. It would figure that we only have til November 25 with this session as Thanksgiving is 2 days later and the true end of the term is November 30 at midnight. The new crop will be sworn in the… Read More

A good friend of mine who has always lived in the Midwest (Ohio, Indiana and Missouri) moved to California about two years ago. Yesterday was her first California election.

She called me today and left this message on my voice mail:

“Jennifer, so I live in a state that values the safety of its chickens more than the safety of its daughters?”

It’s sad, but true.… Read More

We’ll put out a Winners & Losers column for this General Election. Who should make the list? Who were the movers in front of the ballot measures? How about behind the scenes? Architects of legislative wins or defeats? How about some big local races? IE’s that worked? Didn’t work? Send in your suggestions, and we’ll try to see if we can’t inflate the egos of some winners — and dump on the losers (politely, in most cases).

Send in your suggestions here, or comment below.… Read More

I have gotten a lot of e-mails and a few phone calls this morning lamenting the "loss" of Tony Strickland’s bid for State Senate in the 19th District. Currently, he is down around 100 votes to Hannah Beth "Taxin’" Jackson.

That said, the race is FAR FROM OVER. In the Ventura County Star, it is being reported that "tens of thousands" of late absentee and provision ballots remain to be counted. You can be sure that similar large numbers of late votes remain to be cast in the Santa Barbara and Los Angeles County portions of this sprawling district.

I have no doubt that Senate Democrats and Senate Republicans have dispatched their top operatives and attorneys to the three Registrar offices, as this kind of thing turns into quite a production.

It actually reminds me of a similar situation not too long ago. Jeff Denham was down over 300 votes on election night in his first bid for the State Senate in 2002. He went on to win by over 1800 votes. Like Strickland, Denham was called "too conservative" for… Read More