Today, in what was a widely anticipated announcement, conservative Assemblyman Ted Gaines official entered the special election race for the First State Senate District. Last month, after a lengthy battle with cancer, State Senator Dave Cox passed away. Governor Schwarzenegger quickly called a special election in this very Republican district. The "primary" for the special election will take place Tuesday, November 2nd (consolidated with the General Election) with the runoff (if no candidate get’s over half of the total vote) to take place in January.

There is no doubt that Gaines is the instant front-runner in the race to succeed Cox. By all of the standard measures, Gaines is a very strong candidate. His 4th Assembly District has around 34% of the State Senate District’s likey voters within it (Assemblywoman Alyson Huber’s district comes in a distant second with around 20% of her district overlapping). Gaines has been a strong fundraiser, already posting big bucks in his account for a strong GOTV program. Finally, and perhaps most significantly in this district, Gaines has a solid voting record on… Read More

We are pleased to offer this guest commentary from longtime FR friend Rob Stutzman, who is a senior advisor to Gubernatorial candidate Meg Whitman…

Surprise! Liberals Oppose Whitman’s Plans for Job Creation, Tax Cuts By Rob Stutzman The liberal Center for American Progress (CAP) out of Washington DC released a “report” yesterday that unsurprisingly attacked Meg Whitman’s plan to create 2 million jobs in the next 5 years. Just who are the people behind CAP? Its main funding source is none other than billionaire liberal political activist George… Read More

Listening to the torturous half-hour in-studio interview of Meg Whitman on the John and Ken Show last week was not easy to do. At first blush it would seem difficult to imagine a candidate with so much money and so many consultants doesn’t understand the electorate or John and Ken.

Whitman supporter Ventura County Supervisor Peter Foy published a thoughtful column in the San Diego Union Tribune explaining some of the problems with her campaign’s strategy, which appeared on the same day of the John and Ken interview debacle. And he was on the mark. But there is more.

It amazes me that up in Sacramento, where many of the consultants live, they just don’t understand the phenomenon of the Los Angeles based-John and Ken. Before I became a “spokeshole” (A John and Ken term), I had several opportunities to be on the show and actually did on-site shows in various locations to gather petition signatures on the issue of illegal immigration.… Read More

Assembly Republican Leader Martin Garrick has been extremely forthright and straightforward in his weekly messaging during this budget crisis — we have an over-spending, over-regulating and over-taxing problem facing California government… This latest video message from Garrick continues to emphasize how the Democrats continue to want to punish taxpayers with higher taxes…

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From today’s Wall Street Journal Political Diary E-mail…… Read More

For more than a year a certain group of people have been making claims about the 5th Assembly District and Republican nominee Andy Pugno. We have heard that Andy would not win the primary. We have heard that Andy puts the seat in jeopardy of Democrat Dr. Richard Pan taking the seat. All of this is not true.

The most recent example is a poll being put out by normally responsible and respected Democrat pollster Ben Tulchin.

The memo (see it here) is titled “New Poll in CA AD 5 Shows Dr. Richard Pan Can Win." The memo goes on to describe a hypothetical matchup between Pugno and Pan where Pugno is ahead 44-40 on the first ballot. Why is this hypothetical you might ask. It is hypothetical because Tulchin clearly did not include all of the candidates on the ballot.

The reality is that Peace and Freedom College Student Elizabeth Martinez is also on the ballot. In Pugno’s polls that have been made public she gets about 10% of the vote. None of them coming form Pugno.

How Tulchin can put his name… Read More

One aspect of the Democrats’ most recent budget proposal that hasn’t gotten much attention is that they seem to be on the exact same page as Governor Schwarzenegger and Republicans when it comes to pension reform. Look at what Kevin Yamamura wrote yesterday on the Sacramento Bee’s website:

“ … in order to make their new budget balance, Democrats are counting on $822 million in savings that depend upon 15 bargaining units negotiating the same type of tentative agreements that six other units have reached with Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s administration. The savings is located on page 9 of Assembly Speaker John A. Perez’s budget outline. “If that were to occur, the remaining 15 bargaining units would agree to increase employee contributions to pensions and take one unpaid leave day each… Read More

Both houses have passed the bills to delay Prop 18 til 2012. After a fairly easy Senate vote for the delay bill, the Assembly fought it for a while and passed it out this evening, eventually gaining the 2/3 votes needed. Interestingly, the arguments for and against delaying ranged from "don’t delay it so we can kill an unpopular,bad bond sooner than maybe squeak it through later" to "we must save this important measure from a certain loss now in 2010 under these dire economic timesby delaying it for the voters to decide in 2012" At any rate, it’s now a 2012 question once the Guv signs the bill.… Read More