[This morning’s commentary is brought to you by FR Managing Editor Nicholas Romero.]

Some might think it odd that the top stories I’ve linked to are the eulogies for former Congressman and Olympian Bob Mathias. There isn’t going to be a political fallout in the wake of Mathias’s death. He left Congress thirty years ago as one of the many Congressional Republicans defeated by Watergate. I put Bob Mathias, the youngest US Olympic track and field team member and gold medal winner of his time, up top for a couple of reasons. (Hint: It’s certainly not for his support for Ford, a fellow collegiate football player, in 1976.)

I love the Olympic Games. Setting aside the logistical aspects (and the annoying Bob Costas telecasts), the Olympic Games are great quadrennial contests of nations. They are contests that celebrate nations. They reinvigorate our national pride, our patriotism, our focus. There is both an individual and national significance to winning medals. They have this great temporal aspect about them.

I’ve always had this attraction to the… Read More

Jerry Brown has had a very frustrating summer. First, his disingenuous efforts to portray Oakland crime as down when it’s actually been exploding on his watch (homicides up 57% from 1999-2005) were overwhelmed by daily headlines of carnage in the city streets. Yesterday, the Oakland Tribune reported the city now has had more murders this year than all of last year. The aggressive campaign of Senator Chuck Poochigian has been relentlessly pounding on Brown’s (typical) neglect of Oakland as he campaigns full-time for AG while the city is in the grips of what can only be called a public safety crisis. Come to think of it, a public safety crisis is exactly what the Poochigian has accurately labeled the ever-worsening situation in Oakland. Now, Wednesday’s LA Times reports that a new book by an experienced investigative reporter is again raising questions about… Read More

Jerry Brown has had a very frustrating summer. First, his disingenuous efforts to portray Oakland crime as down when it’s actually been exploding on his watch (homicides up 57% from 1999-2005) were overwhelmed by daily headlines of carnage in the city streets. Yesterday, the Oakland Tribune reported the city now has had more murders this year than all of last year. The aggressive campaign of Senator Chuck Poochigian has been relentlessly pounding on Brown’s (typical) neglect of Oakland as he campaigns full-time for AG while the city is in the grips of what can only be called a public safety crisis. Come to think of it, a public safety crisis is exactly what the Poochigian has accurately labeled the ever-worsening situation in Oakland. Now, Wednesday’s LA Times reports that a new book by an experienced investigative reporter is again raising questions about… Read More

Sometimes we forget that there really are huge differences between Democrats and Republicans. I was reminded of that a couple weeks ago when I went to an Angels Baseball in the fine city of Anaheim (mentioned only because there is very little else in this entry that relates to CA government or politics) game with a group of friends, mostly Democrats.

Cuba became a topic of discussion. I had explained that I wanted to visit the communist country before Castro dies and things change. However, I expressed that I would have a certain sadness in enjoying the wonders of the tropic island nation while the locals lived without freedom. My Democrat friends were quick to downplay the lack of freedom in Cuba saying. "Freedom is relative." "Do you call waiting in line at the airport for 2 hours freedom?"

As a matter of fact I have come to really dislike the commercial air travel experience, but it does not have anything to do with freedom. And I failed to convince my Democratic friends that freedom is not at all relative but a static experience that is not pliable. Either you have it or you do not.

The very fact that we have an ongoing… Read More

After I do a radio program, I get hate mail from Republicans who want me to swallow the Kool Aid of Republican mediocrity. I won’t do it. The basic principles of this Party are etched in stone in my mind and they aren’t going to be compromised to elect someone that it taking me for granted, paying more attention to my political adversaries than is necessary, and thumbing his nose at his own caucus (see Keith Richmond’s comments)

Yesterday I hosted the Ray Appleton program on Newstalk 580 KMJ. I had Republican Assemblyman Mike Villines on for the first hour discussing the end of session legislation as well as the Governor and his actions in signing several pieces of legislation offensive to mainstream and right of center voters – further depressing the GOP base and creating despair in the ranks.

I had invited the Governor’s campaign to defend itself in the second hour – no response until 1:45 pm – too late to have anything meaningful. The callers I had in the second hour were in a very foul mood over SB 1441 – the gay and transvestite civil rights bill, and greenhouse gas bill, and several other pieces of… Read More

Garry South, formerly one of Steve Westly’s top advisers, in a plea to Bill Bradley to lay off Carrick and Fowler, continues to lay into the Angelides campaign.

Here’s his comment:

Hey, ya’ll, lighten up with my friends Carrick and Fowler; they’re a couple of the most savvy operators in this business. It’s hardly the first time two (or more) folks working the same campaign spoke from the same talking points. I feel for them because they’re in an unwinnable situation with no spin that really works or rings true with the Democratic nominee for governor. I’ve been in that situation a few times in my career, and it’s massively frustrating and uncomfortable. Still, we spinsters shouldn’t make exertions to insist that stop signs… Read More

In catching up with some reading, I found this recent op- ed in the Wall Street Journal. I note that no rebuttal has been submitted by the Governor’s campaign.

Read the Op Ed here.… Read More

High marks go to Bill Bradley, creator and sole proprietor of the New West Notes, for catching CMR "reporter" and Angelides campaign aide Bill Carrick and Huffington Post contributor Donnie Fowler spewing the exact same spin under their own names on different websites.

Here’s are some of the opening lines of Carrick’s missive:

Exhibition season is over. Next week marks the start of the real post-Labor Day campaign.

And here’s Fowler’s opening salvo:

Exhibition season is over in the California gubernatorial race. Next week marks the start of the real post Labor Day Campaign between Arnold Schwarzenegger and State Treasurer Phil Angelides.

Hmmm.

Neither Carrick nor… Read More