Although local polling by Datamar shows a tightening in the San Diego mayoral election, most bets are still on former SD police chief and Republican Jerry Sanders to win it on Tuesday, not the least of which is because of the GOP machine Ron Nehring has built in the county. (See just one of the recent news stories.) Fellow FR blogger Duane Dichiara, in the heat of the SD action,will be doing further analysis of the mayoral contest in the days ahead.

Whether the ultimate winner is Sanders or Democrat Donna Frye, the new mayorwill have to deal with volatile San Diego City Attorney Michael Aguirre.

Mike Aguirre

Democrat Aguirre, love him or hate him, has single-handedly changed the usual thinking of whether an elected… Read More

Executives with Nissan Corporation here in the United States may soon be turning in their posh luxury suite seats for Lakers games at Staples Center, and instead be on the hunt for season tickets to Tennesee Volunteer games.

It is reported in the news today that officials with Nissan have (pretty much) said they are going to be moving their offices out California and across the lower-48 to Tennessee.

According to the article:

Perhaps at some point, the State Legislature will think about trying to help the California Chamber… Read More

Congressman Dana Rohrabacher from the Long Beach/ Orange County area find himself under scrutiny over his ties to an accused swindler/ producer who gave him a $23,000 option on the rights to his script called “Baja.” Rohrbacher then helped the accused swindler/producer meet various government officials. Read the story here.

I want to be clear about a couple things.

Rohrabacher generally has been a good conservative congressman. Great on immigration. Awesome in fighting Communism during the cold war. Less so on things like homosexual marriage and stem cell research.

I don’t believe Rohrabacher broke any laws. This isn’t a replay of the problems facing Congressman Cunningham in San Diego.

I hope “Baja” gets made. Not so sure a show about Homeland Security Department though. You can imagine the shows. “How Banning Nail Clippers Prevented High Jacking”,”The Ins and… Read More

There are some very interesting stories amidst the collection of pre-election headlines that have mutiplied as the big day draws near.

DEMOCRAT DEAN FLOREZ CRITICIZES JESSICA’S LAW One of our first blog posts, from Brad Mitzelfelt, was on Jessica’s Law. Yesterday, Florez was critical of the measure that seeks to ratchet up the state posture on repeat sexual predators. Why? Well, apparently there are some new restrictions in this measure about how close these predators can come to certain places (like schools). Flores believes that due to the urban nature of big cities (like Los Angeles) where things are close together in proximity, that this will cause "predator flight" (my words) to areas of less density, where things are planned with more open space. An interesting… Read More

There are only two types of candidates for legislative and local offices that print their names on things other than direct mail and donor envelopes. 1) losers who get some sense of satisfaction from handing out a campaign-logo imprinted key chain to a neighbor who isn’t even registered to vote and 2) candidates that are so far ahead in the race and have so much money to spend that their consultants are reaching for ways to spend it, even though the race is all but decided.

The later is the case with the "Note Pad Mailer of 2005", the brain child of Sacramento based and OC legislative/Congressional/supervisorial consultant of choice Dave Gilliard. The note pad was sent in a regular #10 envelope with a letter I didn’t read because I was so excited to see the note pad. It was only the third one I had gotten on Monday (the other two were from Realtors who had dropped them on my front porch).

The note pad expressly reminds Republicans to vote for John Campbell in the Dec. 6 Special Election to replace Rep. Cox. A generally good idea since it will be the THIRD Special Election in as many months. But the note pad… Read More

Tucked away at the very bottom of the latest FIELD POLL was a section testing the re-election numbers for Senator Dianne Feinstein. Needless to say, Feinstein is currently sitting on a commanding lead, bolstered by the fact that nearly one in four REPUBLICANS is inclined to support her re-election. Feinstein continues to enjoy a ‘perception’ out there that she is significantly more centrist than her colleague, Barbara Boxer. The reality is that their differences are must more stylistic than ideological. The two of them agree on just about everything. But I think it would be fair to characterize Boxer as being more ‘strident’ and ‘flambouyant’. Feinstein’s measured demeaner belays her extremely liberal positions on virtually all issues.

I would add that this perception of Feinstein was advanced in the last election cycle when GOP officials would go on the stump, attacking Boxer, and claiming that she is ‘far more liberal’ than Feinstein. Shame on them.… Read More

Steve Frank has the following report in his e-mail newsletter:

The U.C. Berkeley Californian newspaper today is carrying a story on the visit, yesterday, by State GOP Chairman Duf Sundheim to a Political Science class on campus:

In his remarks, Sundheim talked about the importance of passing Propostion 75, the Paycheck Protection measure. He compared the power of employee unions to the power of another interest back in the early 1900’s, "They have the same degree of power in Sacramento that the railroad’s had in 1911."

Duf gets props for going into the heart of liberalism. A glance at the front page of the very same Daily Californian shows what ELSE was going on the same day he was there: