I couldn’t help but think of this Kenny Rogers song and fellow Flashreport contributor Joe Justin when I saw the overnight contributions to Assembly Speaker Fabian Nunez.

It seems the speaker was playing some poker yesterday with the card clubs and casinos and walked away with some sizeable contributions or should I say chips.

Normandie Club — $3,300 California Commerce Club — $3,300 Hollywood Park Casino — $5,000 Hustler Casino — $6,600 Oceans Eleven Casino — $5,000 The Bicycle Casino — $5,000

The Gambler is one of those songs that drives you crazy. Once you hear the lyrics, your stuck humming it the rest of the day:

"You got to know when to hold ’em, know when to fold ’em, Know when to walk away and know when to run. You never count your money… Read More

I’m in LA today and have seen the Governor’s first ads, all positive, and very well done.

It’s a good start.

These are easy ads to produce, and its an appropriate time of the year to run them.

The real test will be how to respond to the union onslaught.

We will then see how much political talent there is in the shop.… Read More

It’s pretty much a given among politicos that even though the average person says they hate negative campaigning — and actually do — they are also influenced by it.

Similar with surveys. Most of us say polls means very little, but go off the deep end when they don’t reflect our candidates in a good light, and — alternatively — immediately crank out a press release when they do.

Datamar’s latest survey in the 50th C.D. has been the target of much criticism and comments the last few days. I’ll leave it for you to decide the merits of both the survey methods and the resulting arguments.

The SDPolitics Blog has been awash with commentary. Check it out here.

Perhaps the most succinct criticism of the Datamar survey, I received from GOP activist Warene Wall (in support of Bill Morrow):

Those who have been in grassroots politics for a long time have learned that polls can… Read More

Another fun day at the office…and it ended even funnier. And before I spill…I want to offer a disclaimer that I refuse to post anything of true value about the inner machinations about the jungle primary in the 50th CD….To be sure I felt compelled to point out fatal flaws to an automated poll (push 5 for candidate x)…with a sample that was half 60+ of age, 4% undecided,… Read More

It seems to be a Howard Kaloogian kind o’ day, so I decided to pen my mini-memoir of my four-month stint with then-Assemblyman Howard Kaloogian during the summer of 1995 — the Summer of the Doris Allen Recall:

This post isn’t directly related to the Assembly Republican majority of 1996, but it does directly relate to that seminal event that made it possible: the recall of Doris Allen. It also relates to Howard Kaloogian.

Now, there are enough former Kaloogian staffers around that we probably could form Kaloogian Anonymous:

Hi, my name is Matt and I worked for Howard Kaloogian. [Hi Matt!]

This is my story.

Following my surreal stint on the Mike Huffington for U.S. Senate campaign, I bounced around professionally for a few months. Then-CRP Executive Director John Peschong had wanted to bring me aboard as CRP Communications Director, but my hiring was blackballed by Gov. Wilson’s political guy, Jeff Randle. The new CRP Chairman, John Herrington, had already had to fight Randle and the Wilson people for keep Peschong on board and just wasn’t ready for

Wow…i’m a posting fool today …let’s review: Kaloogian’s photo flap and this just in ….Jack Abramoff’s very light sentence…..his own jail break if you will….

Here’s the ap story.… Read More

The good news is Rob Reiner has finally done the right thing and resigned as chairman of the California Children and Families Commission, colloquially known as the First 5 Commission. It would have been nice if Reiner was resigning because he knows it is wrong to use tax dollars to promote his universal government pre-school ballot initative, but the world is an imperfect place. We’ll have to content ourselves with a resignation letter equal parts self-pity, self-congratulation and moral obliviousness (probably penned by Reiner’s new smashmouth PR guru, Mark Fabiani).

The bad news is our Governor has replaced Reiner with a political clone (of Reiner, not Schwarzenegger) named Hector Ramirez, head Para Los Ninos (Spanish for — what else? — For The… Read More

It isn’t on the Governor’s website yet, but Arnold appointed another judge to the Los Angeles County Superior Court.Richard Goul is a decline to stater and worse from USC. I was told to be glad it wasn’t another Democrat as the Governor’s appointments run two to one on the Dem side. Hooray.

Here is the release since it wasn’t up yet.