“Never has so much resulted in so little change.” Paul Pfingst, the former D.A. and now a local KUSI-TV news analyst, said it about the San Diego mayoral election, in which Democrat Donna Frye could barely muster a higher percentage (46%) than she did in the primary. Yet, the comment would about hit the mark for the statewide special election as well. Over $200 million spent, significantly more when everything is analyzed, and status quo has been achieved.

If someone is looking for the bright side, while grasping at straws, they could say that the statewide unions were forced to spend a third of that money to get exactly what they have now, nothing more. But, of course, nothing more is pretty much political control of the state.

It’s not over until it’s over, a great baseball philosopher once said. This one was over the day the election was called. Plenty of other pundits will get into an in-depth analysis of all the “whys”. Aside from money spent, low turnout, voter fatigue, mixed messages, another special election, yadda, yadda, yadda … lastly, Republicans had no… Read More

I hate to lose, but I’ve always used defeat to my advantage by learning something through the pain. So I say… let those who decided that not answering the attacks that lead to the Governor’s plummeting favorables feel the pain. Let those who lived this thing daily for the past few months go through the self reflection needed to learn. But for the rest of us we need to just let it be.

My recent posts about sticking to the fundamentals, recognizing the lousy political environment the big spenders and cronies in DC have given us, and admitting that perhaps the Set Stage Theory produced the outcome months ago the day the Governor declared WWII on the liberals and decided to attack Switzerland (those nurses and firefighters) as well have all been precursors to my post election FRBlog analysis.

Who knows. Smarter, more important folks, are going to be whispering words of wisdom and examinging their navels on this one. Not me. I’m not sure there’s a lot… Read More

Dan Schnur does mention illegal immigration in his analysis of why the Governor won the recall and what enable him to reach out to more voters.

What he doesn’t mention is that the Governor had a chance to help get an initiative on the ballot that would have dealt with this issue. The Save Our License Initiativepromoted by CRA was in circulationuntil Feb. of this year.

It would have stopped licenses and other public benefits from going to illegal aliensexcept emergency medical and K-12 education.Despite great grassroots support, there wasn’t the money to qualify it.

The Governor’s consultants were all approached about this issue. They wouldn’t listen.Why? Because the Governor still talks of giving licenses to illegals under the "right" conditions.

Last month I saw a focus group of Democrats that voted for Arnold. In this key group they had turned on the Governor and his propositions. But, they were with us on illegal immigration.

HadArnold supported this on the ballot, the talk wouldn’t have been about Arnold destroying teachers and nurses , it would have been about… Read More

For what it’s worth, here’s my take on last night’s proceedings. It’s a column now appearing on The Weekly Standard’s website . . .… Read More

Next week I will be penning an entire column for the Capitol Weekly on where Republicans go from here, in light of the tragic results of yesterday’s election. Fortunately, this gives me a little time to contemplate the results, and what it all means. I’ll have the benefit of reading a lot of different points of view on this in the coming days – as a matter of fact, I’ve already read a lot of great stuff this morning (including from the FR bloggers).

One thing I will say is that when you get close to an effort — and I got very involved in trying my hardest to see these much-needed reforms get the approval of voters — you really built up a high level of respect for the people you work with — as months, becomes weeks, becomes days, and then the election is here. So I want to salute all of those hard working grassroots activists who walked precincts, emailed friends, made advocacy phone calls and who, like me, engaged in public speaking on behalf of these measures. Also a big thank you to all of the donors, big and small, that gave from the heart for these important measures.

In e-mailing… Read More

Orange County did as it always does, came through on the right side of just about every contest. See a .pdf run-down of the OC numbers here.

Chairman Scott Baugh is a clear winner tonight, having overseen an impressive county party run precinct operation. The OC GOP won each of the measures it endorsed, plus Steve Knoblock for San Clemente City Council (consultants Janice and Paul Glaab utilized well the county party endorsement there).

Measure D, a move by the firefighters to re-allocate some of the Prop. 172 monies from OC Sheriff and the DA to the OC Fire Authority lost big. The was a lot of wound licking and cheering in the respective two camps, this fight was the OC Sheriff’s Deputies Union with help from Sheriff Mike Carona and DA Rackauckas vs. the Firefighters Union with help from various local electeds who sit on the Fire Authority Board. The bottom-line analysis shows that if there is a pot of money, someone is… Read More

I want to be wrong. I want to be wrong! But my gut feeling about 2006 is very, very negative. And its not just an emotional reaction about tonight’s election results.

First, I have to disagree with my colleague Dan Schnur about the Governor’s re-election chances for next year. Having been swept tonight by California’s voters, an already uphill fight next year, in my mind, is essentially decided. I mean, how can a political team that took him from a 73% approval rating to 37% be trusted to reverse course next year in the face of the same intense opposition? Unless there is a total housecleaning in the political shop, there is minimal chance of re-election. How much money will it take to buy Arnold’s approval rating back up to 50%, drive unknown quantities Westly or Angelides negatives to over 50%, and talk about issues? Me thinks more than Arnold can raise. I want to be wrong, but its probably not a stretch to say that his fundraising capabilities have just taken a beating for next year along with the initiatives tonight.

Second, I think a case can be made, in a cruel way, that the Governor’s early successes hurt him in… Read More

When I was eleven years old and my baseball team was playing for the Little League city championship. My team lost. Losing sucks, but as the coach pointed out to a bunch of disappointed kids, not making it to the championship games sucks more.

Because we, the active members of the State GOP, banded together two years ago to rid ourselves of a failed Governor, we had the opportunity to make this election happen. If the Gray Davis machine was still in charge, today would have just been another overcast day in Southern California. We lost in the vote count, but many have won where it really counts, in the union’s bank account.

The unions are financially crippled because the Governor made this election happen. I want to be at the next CTA convention where it is announced that yet another special dues assessment is going to be added to pay for this election. When SEIU workers are told that the cost of their purple tee-shirts have doubled, there is going to be hell to pay. When IBEW members have an extra $50 bucks taken out of their checks- watch out- because beer money is beer money. Even the unions have a limit of what they… Read More