Virtually every day, my friend Bill Bradley pens a column and then some on California politics. He does this over at his New West Notes Dot Com website. In the coming weeks, we’ll be talking more about Bradley.

That said, in his piece today, Bill inadvertently touched off a pet-peeve of mine. Today he glosses over the Field Poll results, to see how both candidates and ballot measures are fairing as we are about 100 days out from the election.

In his very brief descriptions of Dianne Feinstein and Dick Mountjoy in the US Senate race, he calls Feinstein a “centrist” and Mountjoy a “right winger.”

First and foremost, he is more or less correct about Mountjoy. Dick and I have know each other for nearly twenty years. He is a conservative’s conservative.

But how can ANYONE call Dianne Feinstein a centrist?? Give me a break. She is, in fact, one of the most liberal members of the United States Senate, regulalrly supporting increases in taxes, and expanding government programs — opposing any proposed reduction in federal spending with a passion. Her ratings by the various taxpayer groups that monitor votes in the… Read More

For the past several months, the City of Vernon has been embroiled in quite an election skirmish. It seems that the city did not want to let 8 people move in and register to vote. So, the thecity clerk decided to remove these 8 interlopers from theroll of registered voters in Vernon. Interestingly, 3 of these new voters had taken out papers to run for city council. Well, yesterday a Superior Court judge ruled that the city got it wrong and that the city clerk could not purge these voters of their right to participate in city elections. Read the LA Times article here.

So at least for now, the City of Vernon has more public participation in democracythat Cuba. Which, I suppose is a good thing, provided that the challengers are actually motivated by altruism as opposed to lining their own pockets (which seems to be the modus operandi of public officials in Vernon).

Things are very interesting in Vernon. Vernon, population 91 (does this even qualify as a city?), has been run by the same group of councilmembers for decades. In fact, the last contested election was… Read More

The California Republican Party issued the following statement today from Chairman Duf Sundheim regarding Senator Don Perata referring to those who (gasp) oppose illegal immigration as "crackers."

"Senator Perata’s comments on the driver’s license bill underscores the very clear choice voters have in November between the Governor, who put National Guard troops on the border and will veto Cedillo’s bill to give driver’s licenses to illegal immigrants, and Phil Angelides, who has vowed to weaken our border by removing the National Guard and to sign the driver’s license bill for illegal immigrants within his first 30 days in office."

Translation:

Governor Schwarzenegger = National Guard on border to help keep illegal immigrants out of the United States + Vetoing drivers licenses for illegal immigrants.

Phil Angelides = NO National Guard on the US/Mexico border + Rewarding illegal immigrants with drivers licenses.… Read More

Here’s an amusing article from the Bakersfield Californian you may have missed. Sprint/Nextel is camouflaging their cell phone towers in super-sized crosses built on church property, giving a whole new meaning to the idea of talking to God.

Churches camouflage cell towers as crosses By JAMES BURGER, Californian staff writer

The cross is neither old nor rugged. It is new, white and very, very tall.

And, when it’s finally turned on, it will put out one mean cell phone signal.

The mammoth Christian holy symbol dwarfs every building at Higher Ground Church on New Stine Road and all but the tallest of the church’s pine trees.

And its shape serves as perfect camouflage for its true purpose in life — broadcasting and receiving cellular phone signals for the Sprint/Nextel network.

Hiding a cell phone tower in a huge cross is a perfect win-win for both the church and the cell phone company, said Higher Ground member Karen… Read More

Yesterday, I alerted FR readers to Attorney General’s Bill Lockyer’s joining a suit against Wal-Mart in Rosemead, because it posed a public health risk. See here.

Now a self proclaimed citizens group is suing Pico Rivera over the Wal-Mart there. (Ironically, this is the Wal-Mart Rosemead citzens go to.)

Why?

Not public Health, but because people like to shop Wal-Mart compared to other businesses in the area and might want to go there instead. Really. See the article here.… Read More

For those paying close attention to the race for California Governor, there has been a lot of criticism heaped on the candidacy of Treasurer Phil Angelides for failing to have any consistency message or theme throughout his campaign. Actually, all along, one of the reasons why the Schwarzenegger campaign has been so successful in defining Angelides’ campaign is because they have, in fact, discover the single consistent theme of the Governor’s Democrat opponent: Phil Angelides cannot help but support tax increases. Not some of them – ALL of them. So it really isn’t that surprising or newsworthy that yesterday, the Democrat nominee for Governor endorsed Proposition 89, which imposes yet another tax on Californians — this time he is embracing a corporate tax increase (of course, FR readers understand that a tax on companies simply means that the products and/or services provided by that company will increase costs to we, the consumers). Of course, every one of Phil’s calls for a tax increase comes with support for yet another program to increase the size and scope of California government. In this case,… Read More

For those paying close attention to the race for California Governor, there has been a lot of criticism heaped on the candidacy of Treasurer Phil Angelides for failing to have any consistency message or theme throughout his campaign. Actually, all along, one of the reasons why the Schwarzenegger campaign has been so successful in defining Angelides’ campaign is because they have, in fact, discover the single consistent theme of the Governor’s Democrat opponent: Phil Angelides cannot help but support tax increases. Not some of them – ALL of them. So it really isn’t that surprising or newsworthy that yesterday, the Democrat nominee for Governor endorsed Proposition 89, which imposes yet another tax on Californians — this time he is embracing a corporate tax increase (of course, FR readers understand that a tax on companies simply means that the products and/or services provided by that company will increase costs to we, the consumers). Of course, every one of Phil’s calls for a tax increase comes with support for yet another program to increase the size and scope of California government. In this case,… Read More

Now that I see Don Perata is in the mix, re-stating the media’s oft-reported but incorrect contention that there were "several" strident opponents of illegal immigration "angrily confronting" the governor at his La Mesa Town Hall stop last week (in the SDUT this morning, for one),I thought I should weigh in.

As I have noted before, here, I was there. Although there were a relatively few folks (like two, as I remember) who "angrily" questioned the Gov on some serious issues — after he clearly indicated that any line of questioning was acceptable — this was not a hostile crowd, not by a longshot.

Further, my guess is that although many in the crowd did not agree completely or at all with Arnold’s position on illegal immigration, they listened to his answers completely and politely,applauding throughout. The media have now created a fact about the hostility ofthe crowd… Read More