Today the campaign of conservative State Senator Sam Aanestad will announce their endorsement by the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association PAC — a major and significant endorsement in any race for public office in California, but an especially powerful one in a Republican primary.

This imminent endorsement should not come to a surprise to anyone who even remotely follows California politics because there are only two candidates running for the GOP nomination — conservative Republican Sam Aanestad and liberal Republican Abel Maldonado.

There is no need for us to lay out the case for why HJTA is backing Aanestad in this race, because HJTA’s President, as always, is quite articulate himself.

“Abel Maldonado received a generous “D” on our 2009 scorecard for his consistent anti-taxpayer votes and back room political deal he cut to increase… Read More

OK, tales of the bizarre. So I linked to a website of conservative activist Aaron Park who had posted up documents about a 1990 case where Abel Maldonado had a judgment against him in the Santa Barbara County Superior Court over not making child support payments. But then 30 minutes later Park pulled down his post (pressure from..???). So I have pulled my blog post on it, as I am not comfortable leaving a dead link active on my site. Had to delete a tweet as well. Sigh.… Read More

Earlier this week, I penned a commentary where I pretty well laid out California Supreme Court Justice Ron George for making a number of contributions to the Hillary Clinton for President Campaign in 2008, aggregating to $2300. I drew the conclusion that George had made these contributions based solely on information taken off of the Federal Election Commission website, where a search of Ron George produced a listing of these donations to Clinton, identifying the giver as Ronald George, with an employer and occupation of State of California/Chief Justice (the graphic is a clip straight from the FEC website).

As it turns out, Chief Justice George did not make any contributions to the Presidential campaign of Hillary Clinton, and that the information that is presented on the Federal Elections Commission website is not accurate. To be more specific, the FEC relies on campaigns to file specific donor information, which they then upload to their site,… Read More

Although I might put it a tad more tactfully then "Criticus" did on San Diego Rostra this morning (see Campaign Money in Assembly 77 Race), the overall message is similar forthose vying in the open Joel Anderson State Assembly seat:

Uhhhh, you’d better step it up. That is, if you want to be taken seriously.

Liking and trusting more than one of them,Istated several months ago that my support for any particular candidate may be dependenton how they are doing financially at the end of the 2009.

First sign that none may be doing very well? Easy. No press releases or early touting of financial disclosures. I had to wait all of January.

The jury is still out. Plus, getting hungry and irritable. The reports speak very…ummm…quietly:

Santee Councilman Brian Jones Raised – $22,625.00 Cash on Hand – $20,878.96

Christine Rubin Raised – $26,891.00 Cash on Hand – $7,112.34

El Cajon Councilman Bill Wells Raised –… Read More

Brett Henry leaving the race opened up the San Bernardino area of the seat for another candidate. Ken Hunter is already running from that side of the district. Hesperia Unified School Board Member Anthony Riley is getting in the race. Anthony worked for Supervisor Gary Ovitt until recently and hung out a shingle for a PR firm.

Riley has had an interesting journey. While part of his resume is staffer, he was also principal of the now defunct charter school.

But even more importantly Anthony Riley was on Melrose Place. Yes in a small role he was back when Heather Locklear, no relation to the State Treasurer, was hot. Okay she is still hot.

A couple of issues may be in a GOP primary are the fact the local teachers union supported his election and the charter school officials up above him are in criminal trials (not him, but mail pieces may say it.).

More importantly can he raise the money? The machine in San Bernardino County that was there when Adams was elected is not there. Although, Riley has shown he can compete in many difficult environments.

This race will be a barnburner.… Read More

Hey, someone has to little out for the little guy. In this instance, I would be the "someone" — and the "little guy" is my friend Bill Whalen. Bill as many of you may know with Hoover over in Palo Alto, and has been a frequent commenter on things political. Bill is a former speechwriter for Governor Pete Wilson, and one of the more insightful people I know in politics.

When the FlashReport launched, Bill lent his talent and credibility to our site as a blogger, and he still contributes occasionally. Last December, Bill launched his own online blog, Poli-Cal, which you can find (and should bookmark) here. We do link his pieces on our main page — two of them are there today.

The reason I bring all of this up is that this morning I hopped over to the great new blog on California politics that is a joint venture of the Los Angeles Times and Capitol Weekly. Up until now it ran under an online masthead that simply read, "California Politics" — but today it has a new name – PolitCal."

I… Read More

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

This is a "must watch" video to see a Congressman who is completely out of touch with the major drought effecting his district. Liberal Democrat Jim Costa campaigned as a so-called "Blue Dog" (moderate) Democrat, but he votes virtually ALL OF THE TIME with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi of San Francisco.

Someone should perhaps remind the Congressman that unemployment in the San Joaquin Valley is nearly 20 percent and as high as 40 percent in some cities and that according to a recent University of California at Davis study, based on the water reductions outlined in the Delta outlined in the Delta smelt Biological Opinion, revenue losses in the San Joaquin Valley of California for 2009 will be $2.2 billion and job losses at… Read More