Daily Archives: June 16, 2006

Arnold Schwarzenegger

CA-Gov: The Campaign Teams: What’s wrong with this picture

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The Merc offers a look behind the scenes of the two campaigns.  It offers an idea of where the race is going and the candidates’ respective power bases.

One is essentially a homegrown operation, with long ties to its candidate, Phil Angelides. The other is a White House Dream Team, assembled by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger to keep him in power.The brain trusts behind the two men who want to win November’s governor’s race come to their jobs with different experiences, strengths and reputations.

Angelides has put his campaign in the hands of California Democratic warhorses: campaign manager Cathy Calfo, the Santa Cruz liberal who cut her teeth in local races; chief strategist Bob Mulholland, a Vietnam War veteran known for playing hardball; and media consultant Bill Carrick, who gives the campaign a bit of national heft.

Schwarzenegger, for all his efforts to distance himself from the Bush White House, has tapped three men who have played central roles in President Bush’s victories: campaign manager Steve Schmidt, whose reputation for rapid responses on the campaign trail is legendary; Matthew Dowd, the pollster and strategist known for his famously droll and realistic takes on Bush’s races; and Alex Castellanos, the media consultant who has been called one of the fathers of the modern-day attack ad.(SJ Mercury News 6/16/06)

Yeah, I’m going to admit that they are both heavy on the strategists that have brought California politics to the money-obsessed condition and negative opinions that resulted in a 28% turnout in the primary.  But, why does Arnold feel the need to bring in a bunch of DC folk to run his campaign?  It belies his true role in all of this.  he ran as an “outsider” during the recall, giving flourishing speeches about how he would kick the special interest’s butt and he would take no money.  Now he rakes in the corporate dollar like it’s going out of style and has the insider “dream team.” Schwarzenegger misled the people of California that he was a “moderate”.  I think the people of California can see through that.

Arnold Schwarzenegger

Arnold’s Bush Team

(cross-posted on BetterCA and DailyKos)

Arnold wants to win re-election and will do just about anything to do so.  Just look at who he hired to run his campaign, the Bush/Cheney team who managed turn a war hero into a flip-flopper and an draft dodger into a tough leader.  The Merc does a great job profiling these imports and their hardball tactics.

Steve Schmidt, campaign manager: [snip]

Schmidt ran Bush’s re-election war room and rapid response team — which provides immediate responses to opponents’ assertions — during the Democratic National Convention, has served as Vice President Dick Cheney’s spokesman, and was a member of Karl Rove’s inner circle.

As the rapid response guy for Supreme Court nominee Samuel Alito, he was responsible for creating sympathy for Alito by pounding home the image of his sobbing wife during tough grilling.

The man is getting paid an amazing $52,000 a month.  In contrast. Cathy Calfo, Angelides campaign manager is earning $15,000.  I guess bullets are expensive.

Matthew Dowd, chief strategist: The man who plotted strategy for Bush’s 2004 re-election, Dowd is close to Rove — the two once taught a class together on campaigning as political opponents, before Dowd joined Rove’s Texas shop in 1998.

Dowd is known for his successful microtargeting strategy and advertising on cable TV.

Alex Castellanos, political advertising: Considered the Republican Party’s ultimate political hit man, Castellanos is best known for producing searing negative ads. His 1990 “White Hands” ad is considered one of the most racially divisive in campaign history. It featured an angry white worker crumpling up a job-rejection notice after losing it “because they had to give it to a minority.”

Castellanos is also the guy responsible for the subliminal “rats” ad in 2000.  The GOP had an ad up attacking Gore’s prescription drug campaign and for 1/30th of a second the word “rats” flashed across the screen.  At the time Castellanos denied that he put it in there.  However, even after it was brought to his attention, he continued to run the ad as is for another two weeks, before finally yanking it.

The governor has tried to stay away from the unpopular president as much as possible.  Instead, he has hired Bush’s brain trust.  These are the guys who worked for one of the most divisive administrations in history.  Their record of lowest common denominator politics is deplorable.

Salon writes:

Over the years Castellanos has produced a trail of caustic ads either pulled off the air, like the Bush spot in Florida, or judged by his own Republican clients to be too misleading or biting for public consumption. Yet today, because of his expertise at the negative, he has been given a central role in the Bush campaign.

Steve Schmit, learned from one of the most successful campaign operatives, Karl Rove.  Rove was not successful because he runs positive campaigns.  Rove’s strategy usually consists “of taking your own weakness and turning it into your opponent’s weakness instead, through relentless misrepresentation of facts.”  Do not be surprised to see this strategy crop up at some point in the race.

Schmidt seems to have adapted a Castellanos strategy: it is true because I say so.  Evidently accoriding to Castellanos, false advertising is “freedom and democracy on display”.

“You know, ultimately all this messy stuff we have in politics, all this conflict, all this chaos — by another name, it’s freedom. And I think that a country that has fought so hard to earn its freedom and keep its freedom shouldn’t give an ounce of it away,” he once said on a 1998 documentary broadcast on PBS. “If you take all the negative aspects out of politics, if you take all the divisiveness out of politics, what you’re left with is, is very bland, unimaginative oatmeal.”

I guess you can twist the flag into just about anything.  Personally, I would much rather have a debate over the issues and a vibrant Democracy, rather than discourage participation with false advertising.

This is the stellar team that Arnold has put together.  This cycle is not going to be pretty.  They will stop at nothing to get Arnold re-elected and that is just the way he wants it.  This is the Bush legacy in all its glory.

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Inside the Courtroom of Dzintra Janavs

An interesting story from the LA Times about Dzintra Janavs’ courtroom.  You might remember that Janavs was the woman who lost to the Bagel lady.  It’s a pretty interesting story of the day to day goings on of our courts:

To get an idea of what life is like in Superior Court Judge Dzintra Janavs’ courtroom, imagine several soap operas playing at once. Plots include the outcome of contested elections and labor struggles, the distribution of millions of dollars and the fate of historic buildings. Some days bring cameos from gang members; others, a battle over control of a local Little League or the goings on in a topless bar.

The stories unfold with the rat-a-tat rhythm of an action drama.

The tiny Latvian-born judge with the sharp, flashing eyes burst into the public eye last week when she was unseated by a Manhattan Beach bagel shop owner with limited legal experience, then reappointed three days later by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger.(LA Times 6/16/06)

It’s an interesting take on the story…

Arnold Schwarzenegger

Arnold can’t make a decision on child insurance

As you may have heard, one of the big holdups in the budget deal is the move to insure more California children, including children who aren’t in the state legally.  Now Arnold Schwarzenegger has come out in support of providing insurance regardless of the child’s immigration status:

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger disagreed with his fellow Republicans in the Legislature over the issue of health care for undocumented children Thursday, saying the state should provide insurance for all children regardless of whether they are in the country legally.
***
“For me, we should not politicize the children and drag them into this,” Schwarzenegger said. “Children need to get all the attention if they are here legally or illegally. Every child should have the right to some health care and the schooling and so on.” [(SacBee 6/15/06)]

Now, I happen to agree with that statement.  However, Arnold continued on to say that the children just weren’t worth it at this point.  I guess there are more important things to the GOP legislators than the health of our children.  But that point aside, I think the Governator is trying to have his cake and eat it too.  He gets to oppose the Dems move to include support for these programs, which helps him with the Right, and he gets to support them in principle to curry favor with the moderates.  Does anybody really buy it?  Hell if I know, but I guess the only downside is that he might be perceived as a weak decision maker.

And on that note, Steve Maviglio, Fabian Nunez’s deputy Chief of staff, wrote an interesting article today (H-T: to Julia at ABC) detailing how Angelides can beat Arnold.  The relevant point:

Distribute flip-flops at the governor’s campaign events. If there’s one thing that voters abhor, it’s a politician who changes his positions in an election year more than a chameleon changes colors. Schwarzenegger 3.0 has done an about-face on every major issue. Angelides can exploit Schwarzenegger’s weathervane governing by comparing it to his own core values and vision. Remember John Kerry’s “I-was-for-it-before-I-was- against-it” moments? It’s x 10 with Schwarzenegger on immigration, greenhouse gases, health care and the minimum wage.(Capitol Weekly 6/15/06)

This is just one more form of Ahnold’s flip-flopping.  You either support providing insurance or you don’t.  It’s $22million, if you believe in the program you fund it.  Schwarzenegger can’t keep playing this game of trying to play moderate in public, but giving the conservatives a wink and whatever they want in the backrooms.  Angelides would do well to reinforce the notion of “Ahnold: Strong muscles, weak decisionmaker.”  I’m thinking there’s a better slogan than that, maybe I’ll tweak that a bit. 😉

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June 6 Primary, Voter Intent Unknown

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(There’s no reason we can’t do some sort of ranked voting. – promoted by SFBrianCL)

In the June 6 California primary election, 26 races finished without majority endorsement. There will be no runoff election. A winner has been chosen, but the true intent of the voters may never be known. Not having rankings or ratings ballots is hurting us, all the time, every election cycle, in many races. These failures are not rare.

Ten races in the June primary chose a winner with less than 40% of the vote. One of those ‘winners’ got less than 30%. These close elections cut across party lines and affect Republicans and Democrats roughly equally.

In cases where the top two are very close, or where 2nd and 3rd are very close, or simply when the first place ‘winner’ has a low enough percentage of the votes, the election could have easily gone another way. I think it’s reasonable to call into doubt whether the desires of the voters have accurately been recorded and whether they are getting good representation.

If the first place finisher didn’t get 50% of the votes cast, it would have been possible to beat them if the voters who had split between other choices unified on one challenger.By considering the difference in votes between the first and second place candidate and the number of votes for candidates who came in 3rd or below, it’s possible to calculate the probability that the 2nd place candidate could win if the remaining voted randomly for the first or second place candidate. I’m going with random voting because it makes the statistics work out well to use a normal distribution and I don’t know all of these races so it makes bulk analysis of them possible.

Below are 26 races which finished with less than 50% support for the winner:

Race Vote Percentages 1st place votes minus 2nd place votes Sum of votes for 3rd and below % of remaining votes 2nd place candidate would need to win Probability that 2nd place candidate can win
BOE District 4 – Republican 43.4 – 42.7 – 13.9 1040 22847 52.28% 48.18%
CA Asm District 77 – Republican 31.8 – 29.8 – 18.2 – 11.1 – 9.1 671 13272 52.53% 47.98%
CA Asm District 6 – Democratic 31.7 – 28.2 – 18.6 – 12.4 – 7.5 – 1.6 1922 21905 54.39% 46.50%
CA Asm District 38 – Democratic 33.3 – 28.9 – 23.9 – 13.9 818 7076 55.78% 45.40%
BOE District 3 – Republican 37.3 – 33.6 – 16.5 – 7.2 – 5.4 15986 129786 56.16% 45.10%
Controllor Republican 40.2 – 37.1 – 12.6 – 5.5 – 4.6 42987 313356 56.86% 44.54%
CA Asm District 65 – Republican 29.7 – 22.6 – 21.8 – 21.1 – 4.8 2105 14291 57.36% 44.14%
CA Asm District 41 – Democratic 35.0 – 26.8 – 20.3 – 14.8 – 3.1 2860 13254 60.79% 41.46%
CA Asm District 59 – Republican 32.5 – 22.9 – 17.5 – 16.5 – 10.6 3129 14483 60.80% 41.45%
Lt. Gov. Democratic 43.4 – 38.6 – 18.0 97028 362508 63.38% 39.45%
CA Asm District 32 – Republican 41.9 – 35.9 – 22.2 3089 11537 63.39% 39.44%
CA Sen District 10 – Democratic 39.2 – 31.0 – 29.8 5241 19337 63.55% 39.32%
US Rep District 12 – Republican 42.6 – 36.5 – 20.9 847 2985 64.19% 38.83%
CA Asm District 57 – Democratic 41.4 – 33.7 – 16.9 – 8.0 1561 5099 65.31% 37.97%
CA Asm District 16 – Democratic 42.8 – 35.4 – 12.4 – 9.4 4062 12057 66.84% 36.81%
CA Asm District 58 – Democratic 37.3 – 21.9 – 21.1 – 19.7 3502 9285 68.86% 35.30%
CA Asm District 74 – Republican 42.9 – 32.1 – 25.0 4175 9780 71.34% 33.47%
US Rep District 52 – Democratic 38.9 – 19.7 – 15.7 – 14.8 – 10.9 4867 10490 73.20% 32.13%
CA Asm District 67 – Republican 44.9 – 34.5 – 20.6 3701 7391 75.04% 30.83%
Governor Democratic 47.9 – 43.4 – 2.7 – 1.7 – 1.3 – 1.2 – 1.0 – 0.8 90898 180697 75.15% 30.75%
CA Asm District 44 – Democratic 42.8 – 26.2 – 23.6 – 7.4 4925 9217 76.72% 29.66%
US Rep District 26 – Democratic 47.0 – 37.8 – 15.2 2528 4172 80.30% 27.23%
US Rep District 4 – Democratic 46.5 – 33.1 – 20.4 6343 9674 82.78% 25.60%
CA Asm District 45 – Democratic 45.3 – 26.4 – 18.0 – 8.2 – 2.1 4380 6607 83.15% 25.37%
CA Asm District 56 – Democratic 46.1 – 29.2 – 24.7 3592 5267 84.10% 24.76%
CA Asm District 66 – Republican 48.0 – 19.8 – 19.7 – 12.5 6785 7790 93.55% 19.19%

This is just my way of saying again, change the election laws so that we can express ourselves on rankings or ratings ballots and we’ll get more representative elected officials and everyone will be happier.

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Sources:
http://vote.ss.ca.gov/Returns/gov/00.htm
http://vote.ss.ca.gov/Returns/ltg/00.htm
http://vote.ss.ca.gov/Returns/ctl/00.htm
http://vote.ss.ca.gov/Returns/usrep/all.htm
http://vote.ss.ca.gov/Returns/boe/all.htm
http://vote.ss.ca.gov/Returns/stsen/all.htm
http://vote.ss.ca.gov/Returns/stasm/all.htm