Yesterday I wrote about Steve Schmidt, who is now closing in on two months as the campaign manager for Governor Schwarzenegger’s re-election. There was a story in the Capitol Weekly that was focused on Schmidt’s first three paychecks, which were pretty large. As I said in my piece, Schmidt not only got a hiring bonus (remember, he relocated his family to California from a pretty sweet-gig in the Administration in D.C.) but also may be the best investment that the campaign makes for the discipline and organizational skills he will bring to the campaign. This will pay off the most dividends if Schmidt can introduce some ‘consulting reform’ to the statewide campaign. A look back at traditional statewide campaigns and ballot measure efforts, most definately including the Governor’s past campaigns in both regards, show that a small group of consultants walk away with… Read More

Robin Lowe has been allowed onto the June Primary ballot for the 65th Assembly District, a campaign spokesman has confirmed. The Republican Mayor of Hemetprevailed in Sacramento Superior Court today after having been disqualified from the ballot by the Riverside County Registrar of Voters for insufficient signatures. Read previous coverage here.

According to Lowe consultant Jim Nygren, four voters who had been deemed ineligible to sign nomination papers by the Riverside registrar were technically still legally registered to vote in the district even though they signed the papers using a new address. "They could have voted in their old precincts," said Nygren, adding, "I’ve been through a similar drill before."

The candidate was in court for today’s proceedings. Nygren said while the fight to get on the ballot was admittedly a distraction, Lowe never stopped campaigning. "Wealways thought she’d end up on the ballot," Nygren said.… Read More

Long Beach is huge city and like many large cities it has an elected auditor. This year incumbent Gary Burroughs has an opponent in Water Repleshiment District Controller Laura Wilson Doud. Burroughs has been Auditor since 1992. Doud worked in the office until 1996. Hell hath no fury like an employee scorned. All gloves are off in this one, including Doud attacking Burroughs for his Amway business. She says she was asked to join, but didn’t. If shehad only joined and been in his downline? A little residual income could have made this all go away. See the story here.… Read More

When you have a moment, make sure you check out today’s piece in the SF Chronicle on Mayor Newsom’s email exchanges with the folks at Google.

Here’s the article.

Personally, I love this sort of journalism, and not just because it shows enterprise, as opposed to the usual her mentality. Emails can be an insight not so much into a politician’s soul as it is a political operation. All California newspapers should be filing similar freedom of information requests.

My favorite part of the article: this little nugget, about a plane ride that Newsom took to back to the Bay Area:

"In addition to Google’s founders, Larry Page and Sergey Brin, the jet’s passengers included former Vice President Al Gore, who serves as an advisor to the company, and actor Chris Tucker, who starred in the "Rush Hour" series of films with Jackie Chan. They flew nonstop from Zurich to San Jose, an 11-1/2 hour trip . . ."

Stuck on a plane with Al Gore for nearly half-a-day? Suddenly, center-seat economy class… Read More

Some of thoughts about the Cap Weekly piece on Steve Schmidt’s earnings:

1) I read the rival consultants’ criticisms with considerable amusement. I’ve yet to meet a consultant who, after flying his client’s campaign into a mountainside, offered a refund for services that, while rendered, obviously failed. Dan Schnur said it best when Kathleen Brown’s gubernatorial effort went broke right before Election Day 1994 — it being the only campaign where the consultant had more money than the campaign.

2) Has there ever been a campaign where consulting fees were primarily performance-based and results-driven? In other words, instead of offering fat/flat monthly fees up front, a candidate instead would offer lead consultants a minimal monthly fee, but load it up with incentives — such as surpassing pre-defined levels for party turnout and votes received. It’s not unlike a baseball contract where a pitcher gets a smaller base contract, plus incentive bonuses for number of quality starts, innings pitched, etc. For the Schwarzenegger campaign, bonuses could be awarded if Arnold receives, say, more… Read More

The CRA continues to pound on Brian Bilbray in the 50th CD Special, unveiling a new website. Below is a screen-capture from the main page of www.bilbraytheliberallobbyist.com.

Welcome to the world of politics. You can see why Bilbray faught hard to NOT be a ‘lobbyist’ on the ballot, even though that is what he does. By no means do I think that Bilbray is any way the scoundrel that Jack Abramoff turned out to be. But Abmamoff has made ‘lobbyist’ a bad word, and in the 50th district where ethics is a key issue, it is no surprise that attempts are being made to connect dots between Bilbray and Ambramoff, who were in the same business.… Read More

President Bush has been taking heat from all sides on his effort to shepherd immigration reform legislation through Congress. Conservatives are upset with his guest worker proposals, while liberals are always going to rail against any efforts toward border security and interdiction. On the latter front, the Los Angeles Daily News reports this morning that a rally to defeat congressional efforts to tighten border security is expected to draw tens of thousands of protestors to the streets on downtown LA tomorrow. (The story is in the Daily News here)

Protests like these generally tend to have the opposite effect of their intent, causing a backlask that strengthenss support for most border security measures among most voters without intense feelings on either side of the issue. Language like this from the rally’s organizers indicates that the level of rhetoric at tomorrow’s event may have the same impact:

"This is going to be the mother… Read More

It is always so much fun to watch Democratic candidates’ efforts earn their party’s nomination. Take, for example, the story in this week’s Bay Area Reporter, a newspaper covering issues in the Bay Area’s gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender community, reporting how Los Angeles City Attorney Rocky Delgadillo is on record for strongly supporting gay marriage while Oakland Mayor Jerry Brown is refusing to take a position on the issue. Gay and lesbian advocates are critical of Brown for signing a 1977 bill which changed the legal definition of marriage as being between two people to being between a man and a woman. While refusing to say if Brown today supports gay marriage, Brown’s campaign spokesman instead pointed to a 1975 law Brown signed that legalized adultery, oral sex and sodomy between consenting… Read More