La Mesa, California, which is east of San Diego, is on the radar screen of many statewide politicos because it has produced a couple of East San Diego County’s conservative leaders – FR blogger Barry Jantz and former Assemblyman Jay LaSuer, both of whom served for many years on the City Council there. It’s also the home town of current Assemblyman Joel Anderson.

Well, if you ever needed a sign that taxpayers are only safe when the guardians are at the gate, the current iteration of the La Mesa City Council voted by a 4-1 margin to place massive ¾ cent sales tax increase on the November ballot (kudos to Councilwoman Ruth Sterling for voting no).

Fortunately, advocates of the taxpayers in the community are rallying big-time against this dumb idea* of a tax hike. The La Mesa Taxpayers Association has dropped a large mailer citywide opposing the tax. Also, the San Diego County Republican Party has dropped a piece to La Mesa… Read More

In an election shocker, 52nd Congressional candidate Duncan D. Hunter’s lead in recent polling has dropped to a mere 21 percentage points, down from 23 only about three weeks ago!.

See the memo attached below.

I think I’ll take a nap now.… Read More

The California Republican Party has released a new web video: "Joe The Plumber And Millions Like Him" — See it below… … Read More

Early last summer, my husband and I moved the kids 10 miles east of Oakland, “through the tunnel” as they say around here, to the town of Lafayette. We decided to start to get a little benefit of our tax dollars and take advantage of Lafayette’s excellent public schools. (There was no way they were going to public schools in Oakland.)

While we knew that we would still be surrounded by blue state voters, we hoped that Contra Costa County would feel a little more balanced and normal than Oakland. We were thrilled to be leaving Ron Dellums and the mess that is the City of Oakland behind. But, alas, it is still a sea of Obama stickers and signs out here, although there are a few McCain/Palin signs and bumper stickers as well.

As soon as the national campaign started producing “McCain/Palin” signs, I took my children down to the local GOP office in Walnut Creek and got our sign and bumper stickers. On the way home, we talked about the importance of free speech and the responsibility of voting (today, my 13-year-old’s history class is holding a mock election on the presidential race and a handful of state propositions—results will be… Read More

I watched broadcast between 8:30 and 9:00am this morning, flipping to find commercials. Here is what I saw, with comments.

Goldsmith for City Attorney: 1 Aguirre for City Attorney: 1 (something was wrong with the color of the ad) Block for 78th AD: 3 McCann for 78th AD: 4 Bilbray for Congress: 3 Liebham for Congress: 1 Prop 2 No: 3 Prop 7 Yes: 3 (strong ads) Prop 7 No: 4 (strong ads) Prop 8 Yes: 1 Prop 8 No: 1 Prop 4 Yes: 1 (strange ad) Prop 4 No: 1 Prop 5 Yes: 2 No on B: 1 Yes on Prop S: 2 (strange ad)… Read More

It was about 5:30pm on a cool Tuesday evening, Election Night, 1980. I was managing the reelection campaign of a freshman GOP legislator and we were getting the headquarters ready for what we hoped would be a Victory Celebration (it was) later in the evening. The polls had just closed on the east coast, but California voters still had several hours to cast ballots. Many were headed to polling places from work. I had the television tuned to the local NBC news affiliate, when anchorman Tom Brokaw came on screen

“NBC News has just projected that Ronald Wilson Reagan from the state of California has been elected President of the United States.”

Wow. Reagan was my hero, a man I admired as much for his conservative stand on issues as for his extraordinary skill as a communicator. I also felt a personal connection to him. I was just 24, but many of my parents’ friends had known Reagan personally from his time as governor. And a woman on our campaign staff, 8 years my senior, had been Reagan’s secretary when he ran for president in 1976.

Soon after Brokaw’s announcement,… Read More

President Reagan’s eldest son, Michael Reagan, provided Congressional candidates and the McCain-Palin Victory Funds for Ohio and Pennsylvania $40,000 in contributions this week from his Federal PAC, The Legacy Committee. California candidates receiving late contributions include incumbents Dana Rohrabacher and Brian Bilbray.… Read More

I caught two interesting stories on NPR’s "Morning Edition" during my commute–one of which included an interview with California pol and consultant Jim Brulte.

The first story includes an interesting suggestion from one local Wisconsin government official about the impacts from the likely closing of General Motors Janesville plant. Noting that the plant property is appraised at about $40 million, generating $850,000 per year in property tax revenue, the city economic development director posited that a closing might halve the property tax assessment for the plant, and therefore cut tax revenue to the city.

The city’s likely response, he says: raise rates on the other (remaining) properties in town to backfill.

No mention of simply making due with less, or enacting cuts elsewhere. A link to the audio is here.

On to California, which according to yesterday’s Financial Times profile of the City of Angels, is the largest manufacturing center in the United States. (LA Observed linked to the piece,… Read More