(Note: cross-posted here and at RedCounty)

"So Messy." Those words are weapons hurled in a moment of Delta-house bravado turned around to be the political epitath of their author. The sad situation with Assemblyman Mike Duvall, while still developing, offers a prime opportunity to illustrate some crisis communications maxims that are as true now as ever, and apparently bear repeating:

1. Saying nothing is stupid and never, ever, ever, helps. Ditto running from cameras. Ibid for smugly sitting on the Assembly floor while cameras photograph you and journalists attempt to speak with you.

2. Avoiding the truth or delaying acknowledgement of it never, ever, ever helps. In this case it probably makes it worse.

3. No amount of legal advice or political counsel can change video/audio recordings. It’s as indelible as you-know-what on a blue dress.

Given this, why the delay?

I don’t know Assemblyman Duvall, beyond his reputation, but I do believe there was a narrow moment yesterday when Duvall might have been able to capture control of the situation, attempt to regain direction, say something, and then move on. But… Read More

Duvall scandal makes Drudge Report… This means MILLIONS of readers… Drudge Report has had 24, 448, 564 hits in the last 24 hours…

… Read More

Granting prisoners early release credits for “continuous incarceration” is a win-win policy according to proponents of SB18XXX who claim the proposal will save money while improving the morale of lazy inmates. The idea of rewarding prisoners for doing nothing is not new and has long been advocated by the same legislators who support social promotion for public school students with failing grades. In fact the failing student population and the prison inmate population substantially overlap.

In fact, SB 18XXX, strikes the following words from the existing law: “Worktime credits shall apply for performance in work assignments and performance in elementary, Under current law, a convicted felon can earn early release credits as follows: “For every six months of full-time performance in a credit qualifying program, as designated by the director, a prisoner shall be awarded work time credit reductions from his or her term of confinement of six months.”

Accordingly, a felon newly convicted of carrying a loaded… Read More

[Publisher’s Note: This post went up a 9:09 on 9/9/9!] The Capitol Resource Institute, one of the state’s leading pro-family organizations, just released a very strong statement from their President, Karen England, concerning the revelations surrounding Assemblyman Mike Duvall. The CRI’s "100%" rating of Duvall was highlighted in the KCBS story exposing the Assemblyman bragging about multiple affairs near a legislative microphone that he was unaware was turned on…

***BREAKING NEWS*** (UPDATED – WE WILL ADD LINKS AS MORE ARE AVAILABLE)

KCAL/KCBS television just ran a story live on the 10pm news that 2nd term Assemblyman Mike Duvall (pictured) a Republican from Orange County, has been having extra-marital affairs with two women, one of them a lobbyist for a major utility — Duvall is the Vice Chairman of the influential Assembly Utilities and Commerce Committee. The report appears on KCBS/KCAL, and also featured on the Orange County Weekly website contains a startling video and audio that appears to be from a legislative committee room, where the Assemblyman was caught on a live microphone that he was not aware was on…

Here is the link to the KCBS/KCAL story… Here is the … Read More

My husband and I kept our second grader home today.Not because we thought that President Obama’s speech was going to be filled with partisan vitriol—we knew that it wouldn’t be.But when our son’s teacher sent us an email that she would be showing the “historic speech” I decided to have a conversation with the school principal (the teacher was out for the day) to learn what the motivation was for taking learning time out for this speech. Here’s the upshot of our chat:after a back-and-forth about the importance of telling kids that education is important and how the principal is happy to have anyone tell the kids to stay in school, especially the President of the United States, I asked him if he’d stop class to show a “stay in school and learn” speech by Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger.His response?“Why he’s no friend of education.”With that response, he made my point.You see, the education establishment’s participation in this Obama PR effort was not about the message, it was about the messenger.And that was why we decided to … Read More

A few weeks ago, the organization California Forward sent a letter to the Governor and members of the State Legislature outlining what they believe to be a series of reforms that, if passed, would improve the condition of government here in California. You can see that letter here (h/t KQED).

Many of the reforms have merit, a few are more questionable — all deserve closer examination.

But for the purposes of this commentary, I am focused on what would be, for me, a "deal killer" when it comes to "reforms" — and that is a proposal to severely weaken California’s legislative term limits, placed into the State Constitution back in 1990. Three times now, most recently with Proposition 93, the political-class have sought to undo in some part what the voters put into place — and all three times their efforts have been rejected.

Under the "reform" proposed by California Forward, while an individual currently is limited, in their lifetime, to serving three terms in the State Assembly and two terms in the State Senate,… Read More

[Cross-posted from RedCounty.com]

The Poizner for Governor campaign has taken advantage of the Van Jones controversy by circulating a video clip of GOPrival Meg Whitman saying she’s a "huge fan" of the controversial green, extremist lefty.

In the battle for the hearts and minds of GOPactivists and regulars, this is good hit by the Poizner campaign that’s received a lot of play. Campaigns aren’t tiddly-winks: Whitman said those words on video, and the Poizner campaign took advantage of that. If the situation were reversed, I’ve no doubt the Whitman campaign would have done the same thing.

Here’s what Whitman said in the clip (recorded in May of this year):

"There’s a guy over in Oakland, I think his name is Van Jones. And he and I were on a cruise last summer in the Arctic, on climate change. And I got to know him very well. And… Read More