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

The lead story on the FlashReport today is penned by Shane Goldmacher in the Capitol Weekly. Goldmacher, in going through campaign reports, found that the Governor’s new campaign manager, Steve Schmidt, has already received three paychecks of $26,250 in six weeks. I guess that would be an eye-popping number in a paycheck, except for two factors…the first being that the numbers reflect a signing bonus. The other factor is Schmidt himself… (Let me add here that while many, many FR readers know me, thousands of you do not. I am not into gratuitous flattery or heaping praise where it is not due. As a matter of fact, if you’ve been a reader of this page, you know that I have no trouble be brutally honest with my praise or criticism, no matter the political party or ideology of my subject. That said…) Let’s remember that Schmidt, who is fresh off of major victories in Washington, D.C., for the administration where Schmidt was most recently the point man for the successful confirmations of Chief Justice John Roberts and Associate Justice Sam Alito to the Supreme Court. This role came as a part of… Read More

The lead story on the FlashReport today is penned by Shane Goldmacher in the Capitol Weekly. Goldmacher, in going through campaign reports, found that the Governor’s new campaign manager, Steve Schmidt, has already received three paychecks of $26,250 in six weeks. I guess that would be an eye-popping number in a paycheck, except for two factors…the first being that the numbers reflect a signing bonus. The other factor is Schmidt himself… (Let me add here that while many, many FR readers know me, thousands of you do not. I am not into gratuitous flattery or heaping praise where it is not due. As a matter of fact, if you’ve been a reader of this page, you know that I have no trouble be brutally honest with my praise or criticism, no matter the political party or ideology of my subject. That said…) Let’s remember that Schmidt, who is fresh off of major victories in Washington, D.C., for the administration where Schmidt was most recently the point man for the successful confirmations of Chief Justice John Roberts and Associate Justice Sam Alito to the Supreme Court. This role came as a part of… Read More

The Pistols were singing to me when Johnny sang "we’re so pretty..oh so pretty"…but when I read about the spat between two oh so pretty vacant (as in vacant mentally) liberals….Ariana Huffington and George Clooney arguing over whether Clooney wrote a blog post on that wack job Huffington’s blog site….it brought a smile to my face…sorry folks…not much substance to my post here folks (as if there ever is) …but with all the infighting amongst ourselves…we all need a good laugh.

Two really vacant liberals …..oh so pretty indeed.… Read More

The special election in San Diego’s 50th Congressional District is coming down to the home stretch, with the election just weeks away. There are a half-dozen viable GOP candidates all trying to get the biggest piece of the pie.

By most accounts, the candidate who is leading the pack if former Congressman Brian Bilbray, who has been working as a federal lobbyist (for an immigration reform group, and other clients) since he lost his house seat years ago.

Anyways, the conventional wisdom is that Bilbray will win unless he is the subject of negative campaign mail hitting him on his vulnerabilities as a lobbyist, and potentially as a former Member of Congress in a district where the Duke Cunningham calamity might leave voters looking for a fresh face.

The California Republican Assembly Federal PAC has a negative piece on Bilbray hitting wide and deep throughout the 50th District tomorrow. The CRA folks sent over a copy of the piece — it is attached below.

Oh yes, an interesting point – the CRA… Read More