Over in Capitol Weekly newspaper, FR friend Anthony York has penned a quick piece looking at Governor Schwarzenegger’s new media team. I’ve reprinted an excerpt below, but you can read the whole piece here.

The real question is whether of not, in bringing together this team, the Governor has used his gravitas to corral these media consultant into flat-rate contracts where they are making a reasonable amount of money, but not so much that the precious money donated to help the Governor get reelected is instead diverted to vacation homes and lavish trips. For example, I’ve been told that media buyers might take as much as 15% of the buy as a "commission" for booking the airtime. I guess this would mean that for every million dollars of airtime purchase, $150,000 is going to a consultant. In the world of politics, that is an outrage.

Anyways, my editorial whim now being satisfied, here is the excerpt:… Read More

This morning’s Sacramento Bee "Buzz" column notes that the latest ad from the Angelides gubernatorial campaign plays up the fact that one of the candidate’s three daughters attends UC-Davis. The campaign believes that little nugget of information is vital, the paper speculates, to sell Angelides’ public education proposals.

My reaction: Steve Westly’s stock just went up a few points.

Here’s why Angelides’ ploy doesn’t work:

1) As the Bee points out, all three of the Angelides girls attended a private school in Sacramento before heading off to college. One wonders how the CTA feels about that.

2) Do voters really care about a "taught in California" label? The last California governor to attend a UC school was Jerry Brown (Berkeley). George Deumejian attended college back east. Pete Wilson went to Yale. Gray Davis did his undergraduate work at Stanford.

3) Which do you think makes for a more compelling pitch to voters? The candidate whose daughter goes to a UC school, or the… Read More

The 50th Congressional District Two weeks from tomorrow, there will be Congressional special election taking place in California. Actually, with absentee voting being such a large percentage of votes cast in special election, it would almost be more accurate to say that is a special election "underway" right now. The race has captured the national political spotlight because it is the race to fill out the unexpired term of former GOP Congressman Randy "Duke" Cunningham who is now one of the most infamous criminals in the annals of Congress. The millions of dollars that he took in exchange for directing government contracts into the hands of his ‘benefactors’ has sent Duke to jail for many years, and now voters on San Diego’s "Gold Coast" need to choose a new representative. There are a ton of Republicans running for the seat — thus making the amount of votes necessary to clintch the GOP nomination… Read More

The 50th Congressional District Two weeks from tomorrow, there will be Congressional special election taking place in California. Actually, with absentee voting being such a large percentage of votes cast in special election, it would almost be more accurate to say that is a special election "underway" right now. The race has captured the national political spotlight because it is the race to fill out the unexpired term of former GOP Congressman Randy "Duke" Cunningham who is now one of the most infamous criminals in the annals of Congress. The millions of dollars that he took in exchange for directing government contracts into the hands of his ‘benefactors’ has sent Duke to jail for many years, and now voters on San Diego’s "Gold Coast" need to choose a new representative. There are a ton of Republicans running for the seat — thus making the amount of votes necessary to clintch the GOP nomination… Read More

Just received this from Datamar:

Democrat Busby Tops 18-Candidates List, But Sum Of Next Four Candidates Exceeds Her Total

Bilbray, Kaloogian, Roach Lead Republican Candidates

San Diego – A poll was released today by Datamar Inc. regarding candidates from all political parties in the 50th Congressional Special Election to be held April 11th. This survey questioned 50th Congressional District high-propensity registered voters — voters who voted in the 2004 Presidential primary and general elections and in the 2002 gubernatorial primary and general elections.Unlike the survey I noted this morning (see post below), Datamar does ask the obvious question, "If the election were held today, for whom would you vote?":

Busby 36%

Bilbray 11.7%

Roach 11.2%

Kaloogian 10.6%

Orren 5%

Morrow 4.8%

Uke 3%

I’ll stop at that point in the list. See the entire survey results here.… Read More

RALLIES ON IMMIGRATION REFORM Tens of thousands of protesters, in what was clearly a coordinated statewide effort, held rallies to protest what they consider to be unacceptable solutions to the country’s illegal immigation problem. This is a national debate, and while the FR is a California-centered publication, there is probably no other state that is as negatively impacted by the failure of the federal government to address this problem than ours. Mike Der Manouel has a commentary on the main page on this issue — but it seems to me that you can divide the issue into two parts. The first part — the easy part — is border control. Congress needs to put up a security barrier between Mexico and the United States, and take seriously the role of tracking who is coming into this country. Pursuant to this is an obligation to exclude from entry anyone… Read More

RALLIES ON IMMIGRATION REFORM Tens of thousands of protesters, in what was clearly a coordinated statewide effort, held rallies to protest what they consider to be unacceptable solutions to the country’s illegal immigation problem. This is a national debate, and while the FR is a California-centered publication, there is probably no other state that is as negatively impacted by the failure of the federal government to address this problem than ours. Mike Der Manouel has a commentary on the main page on this issue — but it seems to me that you can divide the issue into two parts. The first part — the easy part — is border control. Congress needs to put up a security barrier between Mexico and the United States, and take seriously the role of tracking who is coming into this country. Pursuant to this is an obligation to exclude from entry anyone… Read More

50th Polling … KGTV Channel 10 released a "favorable/unfavorable" SurveyUSA poll, which you can see here. Not sure how useful this is with out detailed info. If you’re gonna ask only one question, why not ask how the respondent will vote … but, what do I know? Here’s the toplines … for the frontrunners:

Name/Favorable/Unfavorable/Unfamiliar Busby / 38% / 26% / 20%

Bilbray /23% / 20% / 29%

Kaloogian / 20% / 18% / 40%

Morrow / 19% / 20% / 35%

Roach / 20% / 24% / 32%

Uke / 15% / 22% / 39%

If you buy these numbers, Eric Roach’s advertising has definitely impacted the race, with a higher familiarity than Morrow and Kaloogian, but it has also increased his negatives.

Weekend Events … One of the premier annual political functions in San Diego County, certainly the best put together for/by an East County politico, isn’t even a dinner… Read More