Democrat Jim Dantona has declared that he is out of the 19th State Senate primary against former Assemblywoman Hannah Beth-Jackson. Former Assemblyman Tony Strickland is the probable GOP nominee for the seat, currently held by conservative icon Tom McClintock.

With no Democrat Primary to bloody the water look for the race to bloody the Democrat nominee, look for a more hotly contested general election. Republicans currently hold a slight voter registration edge (187,000) over Democrats (169,000) with some 110,000 ‘other’ party members or decline to state voters.… Read More

Here are the Giuliani for President submitted potential delegates… (See the Romney list below this one for more explanation on this — also, the formatting is largely the way they were sent to me by the campaigns themselves…)

At-Large: William Simon, Jr., Pacific Palisades Ali Jahangiri, Newport Beach Dr. Tod Allen Burnett, Los Angeles Wardell A. Connerly, Sacramento John McMonigle, Irvine Tracy Price, Laguna Hills David W. Hanna, Laguna Beach Jon Liebman, Santa Monica Former Governor Pete Wilson, Los Angeles Lyle R. Davis, Newport Beach Thomas F. Tait, Anaheim 1st Congressional District: Margie L. Handley, Willits Iris Cochlan, El Macero Marleia Sire, Napa 2nd Congressional District: Gary Freeman, Orland Margaret Dominici, Redding Susan F. Gibbs, Colusa 3rd Congressional District: Pauline June Downum, Glencoe Kenneth Lunde, Antelope… Read More

The Romney for President Campaign has released the following list of of folks as potential National Convention delegates. The statewide delegates are awared to the candidate who obtains a plurality of the statewide GOP vote, and the local Congressional District delegates are awarded on a district-by-district basis, again, to the candidate who gets the most votes (they will get all three delegates seated in that CD).

We have the Giuliani list as well, which I we’ll post next.

CALIFORNIAROMNEY FOR PRESIDENT DELEGATE LIST

Congressional District 1: *William Pauli *Mark Pruner *David Reade Congressional District 2: *Brenda Haynes *Walter Dean Herger *Doug LaMalfa Congressional District 3: *Rob Stutzman *Kathleen Wood *Michael Wood Congressional District 4: *Margaret Favero *Leslie Dean Forman *Pam Peterson Congressional District 5: *Jose Luis Angeles *Duane Dichiara *Paul… Read More

I meant to blog right after the debates on Saturday night…then again last night…but I got so enthralled in the Facebook discussions on the debates that I just couldn’t shake myself loose. I must admit, it was pretty shocking for me at first to dive right into the deep end of some of the discussion boards, because some of the people I talked to were very comfortable shedding the niceties of a face-to-face discussion, like: respect for others, good manners, logic, etc. But once I got my sea legs, and got just as comfortable being a mom in the online world as I am in real life, I managed to temper some of the discussions and I actually learned a great deal about what my young Facebook friends think about the Presidential candidates.

I’d like to report that they unanimously support and adore my favorite candidate, John McCain, but the truth is that only 98.9% of them feel that way.

:) Kidding…but seriously, many of them became converts after I endured hours of carpel tunnel pain to teach them online history lessons that Ron Paul’s website didn’t teach them. They had never been previously versed in the parallels between today’s… Read More

I’m certainly not a "classicist," but like some other political junkies I have enjoyed reading Colleen McCullough’s series of historical novels about politics, military history, culture, and life in ancient Rome. The parallels of and constants of life 2,000 years ago to today are quite evident in McCullough’s writings. But of course, she is a writer of historical fiction! So after reading all her stuff on ancient Rome, years ago I advanced from her writings to the real thing: Cicero, Julius Caesar, and the writings of a true contemporary classicist, Michael Grant, a British historian and academic.

One of the main things I learned in all this reading was believe it or not, about campaign finance reform! As an election attorney, I was quite interested to learn about the election procedures and rules in the Roman Republic; what inspired them, and how they worked. I was also interested to see that campaign finance reform is nothing new, it has been around for at least 2,000 years! It has its roots in laws that restricted politicians in ancient Rome from investing in anything other than real property as a pre-condition to… Read More

Assembly session is at 2 PM today. Just a few bills on the file today on our floor. The other big doings coming soon are the State of the State speech tomorrow at precisely 2:45PM in our chamber. [The story for the odd and early start time is that the New Hampshire primary would overshadow the speech or vise versa.] Then comes theGuv’s budget proposal on Jan. 10. The mother of all budget fights is probable this year. The drumbeat for tax increases and the phony excuses for increased fees for service will be steady. And about 1000-1500 more bills will be introduced this first couple months, as well as the 2-year bills that are still lurking. All this coupled with the hyper activity around Prop 93’s term limits extension, that decision by voters that will affect the future of leadership and policy here after Feb 5 will make this a fascinating 2nd year of this session. Hold on to your hat, and wallet. Happy New Year!… Read More

I don’t have much time, so I am going to make this quick. I just wanted to say it before New Hampshire.

The California primary will be irrelevant–again. The nominees, whoever they happen to be, will have sown up their respective nominations before the Presidential primary election. The desparate hopes of the politicians of this state to be relevant will once again be dashed, and the California primary election, except for the propositions, will once again be a meaningless exercise.

So, this is my plea to the California Legislature. Please, Please, Please change the Presidential primary back to June. Let’s help restore sanity, deliberation, and reflection to this process by stopping the race to be first, or even relevant, and accept that the only real way for California to be relevant is to extend out the process, so that all candidates have a chance to win, and it takes longer for any one candidate to get the nomination. That might even make it so that no candidate has a majority of the delegates until the primary in California, and everyone will campaign here for two or three weeks before the first Tuesday in June.

Just a… Read More

The No on Prop. 93 campaign has starting their television advertising campaign, exposing “The Big Lie” initiative for what it is… Check out the spots below – they are VERY hard hitting…

… Read More