OK, so we thought we knew how far to the left Phil Angelides is. We knew he was hanging out over there in the nosebleed seats high above left field with Mark Leno and Howard Dean. But now we see he’s barely in the ballpark at all.

Angelides has a bona fide, unabashed socialist working on his behalf. He’s making TV appearances on Angelides’ behalf and writing blog posts at a pro-Phil website.

And guess what else? He’s a union organizer, and he used to be a national official for the Young Democratic Socialists.

**There is more – click the link**

View Full Commentary… Read More

OK, so we thought we knew how far to the left Phil Angelides is. We knew he was hanging out over there in the nosebleed seats high above left field with Mark Leno and Howard Dean. But now we see he’s barely in the ballpark at all.

Angelides has a bona fide, unabashed socialist working on his behalf. He’s making TV appearances on Angelides’ behalf and writing blog posts at a pro-Phil website.

And guess what else? He’s a union organizer, and he used to be a national official for the Young Democratic Socialists.

His name is Daraka Larimore-Hall, and on Tuesday he appeared as a surrogate for Angelides on Santa Barbara TV, defending Angelides’ plan to dismantle Prop. 13.

Larimore-Hall, who says he’s a PhD student in sociology, is one of the principal writers at a new website that insists it is not affiliated with the Angelides campaign, but posts campaign material and helps get people to Angelides’ campaign events.

You should read what Larimore-Hall’s Young Democratic Socialists are all about, taken from its website:… Read More

Like my favorite HBO series Carnivale, I’m taking a brief hiatus. I’ll be back blogging for FlashReport sometime mid-September.

Going on a trip or looking for a short book to read over Labor Day? Check out Without Roots: The West, Relativism, Christianity, Islam by Joseph Ratzinger, now Pope Benedict XVI, forward by George Weigel, who wrote an interestingbook entitled, The Cube and the Cathedral.… Read More

Here are some thoughts, in no particular order, on the passing scene…

– At the CA Majority Report kickoff event, I was surprised how many Democrats I was meeting for the first time were quite candid in their expectation that Phil Angelides would lose. Some were senior Dem strategists.

– I know Ben Lopez. Ben Lopez is a friend of mine. Ben Lopez is not Lou Sheldon.

– I got irked that someone from the Governor’s Team tried to console me on the minimum wage increase by saying that at least we didn’t get stuck with indexing the minimum wage to inflation. Given that there zero GOP votes in the legislature to override a veto of ANY hike in the wage mandate, it wasn’t too much comfort.

– The most surreal moment of my week came when I saw the words “Flash Report” come out of the mouth of Gray Davis.

– The big education bond measure on the ballot should be called the “Blue County Bond” – a local school district has to put up matching funds to get the bond funds, but only liberal areas will pass local tax increases to create the matching funds.

– The OC Board… Read More

For a number of years now the San Diego Republicans and the Orange Republicans have argued good-naturedly which organization was most capable of doing the basic jobs of a county party: registering voters, recruiting candidates, turning out the vote, and raising money. The record has been back and forth, with surges in activity from either county that thinks it’s visibly slipping.

So as a San Diego partisan who lived and worked in Orange for a couple years in the Fuentes era, I was interested in an email that come through the pipes today describing what sounds like a little competition between the two counties. I like competition. Competition is usually pretty good in determining winners and losers. Looks like Orange County Young Republicans and San Diego Young Republicans have a little wager over which club can recruit the most volunteers for the Republican Party during the dog days of summer. I hear the winner gets bragging rights and BBQ – and that the losers are humiliated in a manner not befitting description for the gentle readers of this blog.

I also hear the Orange County Young Republicans are getting lapped like I did when I ran the Three… Read More

Over on the new Democrat site, two of the contributors are Gale Kaufman and Alan Arkatov. I probably would have been prepared to proclaim Kaufman to be the bigger union-hack of the two, just because she has a much higher profile, and has been so engaged on the front-side of pro-union causes. But I have now got some actual empirical evidence that officially gives the "Tip of the Cesar Chavez Grape Basket" to Kaufman…

Yesterday at the big lefty website kickoff event, I spoke with both Gale and Alan, and they both gave me their business cards… Only Gale’s was printed with the official union bug. Alan, does this mean you are ready to embrace paycheck protection? Maybe even become a GOPer?… Read More

Moxie is defined in the dictionary as, "Aggressive energy; initiative."

Moxie is a word that I would use to describe the Schwarzenegger Campaign. In their latest television advertisement, the Governor’s Campaign charges straight into the anemic gun-barrel of Phil Angelides.

You can see the ad here as long as it is on the front of the Join Arnold website. The Angelides Campaign, has completely failed to define their own candidate at all. After having their candidate defined by Team Arnold as the man who wants to tax anything that moves to the tune of $18 billion, Angelides has been trying to shrink Schwarzenegger’s popular support by trying him to the currently-unpopular President George W. Bush. "Where does Phil Angelides live? All he talks about is President Bush…" opens the ad. It goes on to talk about how the… Read More

If there was ever an argument for hiring a political consultant, the really sorry excuses for ballot statements that pop up every election is one of them.

I will hight light several glaring examples of how candidates do the unthinkable…feel free to send me your own examples.

In today’s example, my favorite so far this year, Mr. Che Hill, in the FIRST LINE of his ballot statement, proclaims: "My name is Che Hill. I was named after the Cuban Revolutionary Che Guevara." [See the full ballot statement attached below.]

I prefer Guevara’s Bolivian work myself but something tells me the people of Perris where Che was planning on running for city council would not have appreciated the distinction.

Luckily they won’t have to. You see Che did not qualify for the ballot. I am not sure why and I am unclear as to whether he paid for the ballot statement anyway, but I am too embarrassed for him to even ask.

More from the ballot statements of… Read More