Kos let out one of his patented rants today.  This one regards the state of our Governor’s race:

So what do you do when your two gubernatorial aspirants, Steve Westley and Phil Angelides, let their primary battle degenerate into a disgusting, slimy pit of bullshit attack ads and surrogate whisper smear campaigns?

I quit. I hate them both. Someday, California Democrats will have the option to choose from candidates who inspire, not the Gray Davises, Cruz Bustamantes, and the two candidates currently stinking up the Democratic side of the ticket.

The sad thing is that we need a strong turnout for this race to help Francine Busby win in CA-50. But the way this is going, if I want to vomit and throw out my absentee ballot, I can’t imagine what it’s doing to less tuned-in and political Californians, especially in that district. (dKos 5/30/06)

So, first of all, one thing that you can say is that Kos is completely independent of his advertisers.  Steve Westly has been running ads on Kos for a while now.  In fact if you go the page I linked to you will find an ad for Westly right next to the rant about how he sucks.  So, well, good for you Kos.  On the other hand, I think his frustration is somewhat misplaced.  I posted a comment, but well, you know those get lost.  So, I thought I would talk about it a little here.  Here are snippets of my comment:

The lack of funds (caused mostly by the ridiculous concept of homeowners paying a far larger share of property taxes than businesses) is hampering how we do business.  The obvious result of the shortfalls on cash and the fact that a minority has a veto power leaves us with an ALMOST ungovernable state.  Toss the initiative process in there and then you have a hulablaoo.

That being said, I have to disagree with Kos.  Yes the race has turned ugly.  I’ve been bitching about it for a while over at Calitics (mandatory plug here: We’re a scoop community blog focused solely on California politics).  The funny thing is that it started off really well.  They were both going after Arnold.  But then fricking “serpent-tongued” garry South had to start opening his mouth.  He started with that “Positive campaign pledge” that made Westly look foolish because South was attacking Angelides at every turn.  Angelides  responded and the race to the bottom was on.

But there are some good, exciting politicians in California.  Just look down the ballot: the Lt. Governor’s race is great.  Speier and Garamendi are both great candidates, and Figueroa…well she’s exciting.  Look past Governor Moonbeam and you’ll see a lot more interesting people running.  The Contorller’s race has been a very well run race.  Joe Dunn has run a great campaign focusing on his investigations of Enron, and John Chiang has run a fairly clean campaign as well.

Angelides and Westly are victims of the system that has developed in California.  They let their consultants convince them that they needed to go negative.  I don’t think it will make a huge difference in the general, but it certainly won’t help.

I think what I also need to include in that response is that these guys will be much better governors than Arnold.  Yes, they have run poor campaigns for the last 3 months or so, but is that a reason to just give up?  Hardly.  I mean, didn’t we all want to scream at Kerry sometimes in 2004 (say…the time when he didn’t bother to release his military records to end the Swift Boat crap).  Yet, we didn’t give up on him.  I think it’s easier for people to give up on state races, perhaps because they don’t feel like it’s quite as important as the presidency or a Senate seat or something like that.  But thinking that the states don’t matter contributed to our downfall on the federal level.  We are naive if we think that we can build a party without the states.

California is a leader in so many ways, and could be a leader in so many more ways.  Schwarzenegger has been impeding California’s leadership in the global community.  It is not the time to abdicate our leadership or throw our hands in the air and just give up.

(Pretty powerful stuff – promoted by SFBrianCL)

The organizers started putting up the crosses at 5 am Memorial Day. There were 2,465, one for each US soldier killed in Iraq since fighting began there, and each had the name of a soldier attached. Visitors found members of their families and friends who had been killed in action. More at montereycountydemocrats.org

(Updated for SacBee editorial – promoted by SFBrianCL)

UPDATE 6/4/06: The SacBee published an editorial today demanding to know the real reason for Doolittle’s involvement in the Homewood deal.  Here’s the money quote:
 

One can only hope Doolittle isn’t doing the work of Tahoe developers who want to buy Homewood. Possibly he is just sending a warning shot to Yurosek and his business partners. Based on a report by The Bee’s David Whitney, Yurosek didn’t fully involve Doolittle in negotiating key details of the transaction. His team was also slow to contribute money to the congressman’s re-election campaign.

See the flip for the full story…

From SacBee (via DumpDoolittle Blog)

The Homewood Mountain Resort’s ski area occupies the largest piece of developable property remaining in the Lake Tahoe basin. With elevations reaching 1,600 feet above the lake’s famed blue waters, the views from its slopes are spectacular. The property includes two lakes and crosses three watersheds.  And it’s for sale.

If owner Jeff Yurosek has his way, 1,086 acres will be sold to the U.S. Forest Service under a deal that will keep the struggling ski business open. The estimated $60 million to $65 million the property is likely to fetch will be used to build an expanded commercial center on land along Highway 89 that will remain privately held.  That plan was moving forward largely in secret until Rep. John Doolittle, R-Roseville, brought it to an abrupt halt this month.

Doolittle’s intervention is raising worries that instead of remaining open to public use, the property is edging closer to being carved into as many as 23 estate-sized lots for the superwealthy, and in the process opening new channels for pollution to reach the world-famous lake whose renowned clarity is a constant challenge.(SacBee 5/29/06)

You see, Doolittle doesn’t really much care about Lake Tahoe so much as he cares about seeing to it that our government is completely useless.  Well not entirely useless, because he still wants to be able to run for something and rake in his 15% cut of campaign donations.  And more importantly, ol’ 15% wants to make sure that nobody considers doing any deals in the Tahoe region without giving him credit.  The man needs to get some action for himself before he will allow anything, even anything beneficial, to happen.

Art Chapman, JMA Ventures president, said Yurosek had been contacted by Placer County Supervisor Bruce Kranz and told that a contribution to the congressman would be “appropriate.” But Chapman said he didn’t learn of the congressman’s opposition to the project until the morning of the fundraiser, which was several days after he and Yurosek had written their checks.

Doesn’t that just sicken you?  To me, those comments are beyond the pale and really head towards criminality.  But, you know, good luck on getting anything investigated in this Congress.  The only sure way that we are getting rid of ol’ 15% is a loss in November.

From U.S. News (via [RandyMI at dKos ]http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2006/5/29/162037/594]):

Staffers from the National Republican Congressional Committee are quietly telling GOP House members to prepare for a possible loss in the June 6 special election to fill the seat of Randy “Duke” Cunningham, now in prison for taking bribes. The Southern California district is heavily Republican, but some GOP insiders believe that Democrat Francine Busby will defeat former GOP Rep. Brian Bilbray and go on to win a full term in November. More alarming some worry that a Bilbray defeat could signal the GOP’s loss of control of the House. The NRCC has already pumped $3.1 million into the race. “It is becoming more and more likely,” says one GOP strategist, “that Bilbray will squeak out a victory.” But another longtime Republican operative isn’t so sure. “This is a district we should never lose,” he says. “It’s the stink of Cunningham, and the Bush problem.”(Usnews.com 6/5/2006 (sic))

As we’ve talked about here recently, Francine Busby has a slight cash lead.  However the NRCC is desparate to keep this seat in GOP hands.  Lobbyist Brian Bilbray is the benificiary of that program.  We need to make sure that Francine can respond to the NRCC attack ads and dishonesty that they are spewing.

This race is not only winnable, it’s a race that, at this point, is our ours to lose.  Complaceny is now our biggest enemy.  The NRCC will go to great lengths to ensure that the lobbyist wins this seat (and furthering the K Street Project).  Check out our ActBlue page to donate to Francine’s campaign.