(Cross-posted from Working Californians)

Today seemed like an appropriate time to release the second half of our presidential poll on the Republicans, given that all of them are attending the debate here.  It is split into two polling memos from Mellman, our pollster.  The first is on the horserace, post to come later on the issues.  The summary says:

Our recent statewide poll shows Rudolph Giuliani currently sporting a 15-point lead in the California Republican primary. Despite Giuliani’s lead, however, the race is far from over. His advantage is based importantly, though not completely, on a malleable factor: the belief that he would be the strongest general election candidate. At present, John McCain, a popular second choice candidate, provides the only serious competition. Furthermore, if McCain were no longer running, his supporters would be more likely to move towards Giuliani, while Giuliani supporters are less likely to identify McCain as their second choice. While Giuliani is in a strong position, there is opportunity for other candidates to break through to California Republicans between now and February 5, 2008; the race is very much still up-for-grabs.

There is talk that unless McCain raises $20 million in the second quarter he will drop out.  Our polling makes clear that Giuliani would benefit the most from that development.  Considering the manner in which the Republicans allocate their delegates, even those who have lower numbers have an opportunity pick up a few in California.

Giuliani is nearly as well known as McCain and far better liked.

Giuliani not only has the highest overall favorables, but is also well liked by those who know him; his average favorability rating (a figure which takes into account both the direction and intensity of feeling) is 3.03, so that among those who know him, his average rating is just over “somewhat favorable.” Although Romney is less well known than McCain, he is better liked by those who know him (mean favorability of 2.75, compared to 2.70 for McCain). Neither candidate, however, is as popular as Giuliani among those who know them.

For now, Giuliani holds a strong lead, with McCain in second and Romney trailing.  The Thompson in this case is Tommy.  Obviously, if Fred gets into the race, it will shake these numbers up a bit.

Giuliani’s lead is greater (40%) among those paying very close attention to the primary, while Romney (11%) is actually slightly ahead of McCain (10%) in that attentive segment. Among those paying only somewhat close attention, Giuliani maintains a strong lead with 38% of the vote, while McCain’s support increases to 26%; Romney maintains his third place position at 12%. However, among voters who are not following the election closely, Giuliani’s support declines to 33%, McCain is at 21%, and Romney has just 5% of the vote. Nearly 3 in 10 (29%) voters not paying close attention are undecided.

The race shifts among voters who are familiar with all three top-tier candidates. Among these voters, Giuliani’s support holds steady at 36%, while McCain’s total drops to 15% and Romney’s support jumps to second place with 17%; just 14% of these most knowledgeable voters are undecided. This suggests that part of Senator McCain’s support is based on his higher name recognition, an advantage that could disappear as primary day approaches.

Other highlights from the poll: Giuliani’s support is strongest among Californians highly concerned about national security and iraq.  McCain does relatively well among voters concerned about health care.  Republican primary voters now believe Giuliani has the best chance to win the general.  Giuliani and McCain are equally popular second choice candidates.

Much, much more in the full pollster memo on the .

Did you have any idea that just within the last few years, glass noodles — the tasty, high-protein, transluscent noodles made from mung bean flour, which you can pick up in the international foods section of most groceries, or at a local ethnic market like Ranch 99 — were twice implicated in scandals of the type that has roiled the pet food market?

Neither did I, until I decided to go looking for info on the quality of such imports.  I found a whole slew of stories on the topic — but none in US news sources.

In a 2004 case, a company was producing noodles made from a cheaper, lower-protein substitute (corn starch), and then making them translucent through application of a lead-based whitening chemical.  In a 2006 case, another company used an industrial bleach to make their noodles more shelf stable.

Given the Bushies’ neutering of our regulatory agencies (see: MSHA’s complicity in the string of mine fires), what assurances do we have that products like this aren’t on our shelves, either from China or from companies here at home?  Remember Food Lion’s bleached meat?

Furthermore, given that glass noodles are on our shelves, and have been for years, why hasn’t the US media talked, at all, about these ’04 and ’06 cases?  Where’s Lou Dobbs, chief reporter on the trade-paranoia beat, when you need him?

In the Sacramento News and Review, Ralph Brave has a must-read on Congressman John Doolittle where he asks:

The interesting question, though, is whether, after more than a quarter-century as a rising, and then prominent, political figure on the Sacramento and national scenes, the downfall of Doolittle means something more than the latest corruption of a politician.

Just like the all nationalized races before this, the internet attention this race will receive will make some new national stars from the local press corps. Ralph Brave has a great audition. So check out the story — maybe even email it around. After the jump are some of my favorite parts.

First, the personal qualities and character of Doolittle must openly and frankly be dealt with, for there is no figure currently on the California political stage who has consistently engendered as much overt loathing and disgust as Doolittle–as much from members of his own party as from his ideological counterparts. When he was fined by the Fair Political Practices Commission for laundering money to swing his 1984 election, his defeated opponent, former Senate Republican colleague Ray Johnson, foresaw that it would not be an adequate penalty to stop future misbehavior. “Oh God,” Johnson lamented in 1987 in the California Journal, “can’t we just drown him and get it over with?” A year after that comment, on the verge of Doolittle winning re-election based on another vicious campaign, Sacramento Bee columnist Pete Dexter couldn’t constrain his contempt. In print he pronounced Doolittle “a lying, unprincipled, crooked piece of human garbage.” Even for Dexter, this was strong stuff.

What evoked these and other expressions of outrage was the combination of characteristics that arises with regularity in American political life: the religious hypocrite, the sanctimonious scumbag. In Doolittle’s case, it is the devout Mormon with a highly selective ethical compass, which since the very beginning of his career consistently has drawn out such a continuous avalanche of animus toward him.

From Doolittle’s perspective, there must have been some considerable measure of spite and vengeful malice that motivated him and bridged the contradiction in his character. While many of the 1960s youth were struggling for political and cultural and personal liberation, the teen-aged Johnny Doolittle was dreaming of Richard Nixon. When he graduated as a history major from UC Santa Cruz in 1972, the town of Santa Cruz voted 96 percent for George McGovern. In the 1970s, while South America was in the throes of overcoming a century of colonialism and imperialism, Doolittle landed in Argentina as a Mormon missionary.

Some in the district used to ignore this because he was a rising star, but more and more voters are realizing that he stopped being able to deliver much of anything but interesting newspaper articles since he stepped down from appropriations. But judging by his electoral past, we can expect him to go down guns a blazing:

Revenge was sought. The establishment reapportioned Doolittle into a district that made him run against an incumbent Democrat, Leroy Greene, whom he could not and did not defeat. But because Doolittle had been elected to a four-year term in 1980, he continued to serve as a senator without a district. By 1984, he had landed in a newly redrawn district that was more favorable–but he faced a three-way race, with former Republican Johnson running against him as an Independent. Doolittle stooped to the gutter, funneling money to the Democratic candidate, who had no other support, in order to draw votes away from the popular Johnson. Doolittle survived by the margin of votes received by the Democrat. “Never has so little money done so much good,” pronounced Doolittle’s master, H.L. Richardson.

The FPPC fine that Doolittle would receive for these campaign violations would be the first, but not the last. Doolittle established a record and a hard-earned reputation as the zealously principled right-wing politician who zealously would do whatever it took to hold onto and expand his power. Perhaps the ultimate example of his principled unprincipled-ness occurred in the November 1994 general election for U.S. Congress. Facing a Democratic woman with a background as a software-company executive who had garnered the support of Hewlett-Packard, one of his district’s largest employers, Doolittle was taking no chances. The week of the election, voters received a letter with an endorsement of Doolittle by James Roosevelt, a founder of the National Committee to Preserve Social Security and a son of former President Franklin D. Roosevelt, who had signed the original Social Security Act into law in 1933. The mailer was significant because Doolittle had received extremely low ratings for his congressional record from all the major senior-citizen groups. Even more significant was the fact that, by then, Roosevelt had been dead for two years.

Doolittle again last year ran a gratuitously slimy campaign and I think we can expect the same. But his game is over.

Yet his legacy will remain. Almost every single one of Doolittle’s buddies seeking to replace him was party of his machine and only got where they are by doing what Doolittle demanded.

I need to get all of these videos up. I still have Hillary’s Presser and Lori Hancock on Clean Money. But today, here’s Edwards Presser. If you listen closely, you will hear the first question came from Tim Redmond of the SFBG. And it’s a great question. If you can’t hear the question, basically he asked if Edwards would consider some sorts of tax on the uber-wealthy, you know like people making $25 mil/year. Edwards wasn’t immediately opposed to the concept. I guess that’s a start.

For videos broken up by topic, check out Working Californians. Well, we both posted at the same time. So…here’s juls’ videos over the flip

Like Todd, I shot video of the Edwards press conference.  I have edited it down into three clips. Unfortunately, the media focused more on politics than substance, but Edwards still had the opportunity to address some of Working Californian’s issues, plus a bonus talk on what it takes to be a great leader.  Three videos below the fold.

All the clips are up on Working Californian’s YouTube page.

In this clip, Edwards takes a series of three questions on taxes.  He broke new ground in the press conference refusing to rule out excess profit taxes.

The question on leadership was posed not by the mainstream media, but a credentialed online journalist.  The reporters groaned, but it was a refreshing change from questions about his hair.

The last clips is the same as Todd’s but a little steadier since I had tripod. Edwards talks about California leading on energy, minimum wage and health care.

Like Todd, I shot video of the Edwards press conference.  I have edited it down into three clips. Unfortunately, the media focused more on politics than substance, but Edwards still had the opportunity to address some of Working Californian’s issues, plus a bonus talk on what it takes to be a great leader.  Three videos below the fold.

All the clips are up on Working Californian’s YouTube page.

In this clip, Edwards takes a series of three questions on taxes.  He broke new ground in the press conference refusing to rule out excess profit taxes.

The question on leadership was posed not by the mainstream media, but a credentialed online journalist.  The reporters groaned, but it was a refreshing change from questions about his hair.

The last clips is the same as Todd’s but a little steadier since I had tripod. Edwards talks about California leading on energy, minimum wage and health care.

(Whoa! Wild stuff. – promoted by atdleft)

I wrote this for today’s Beyond Chron, San Francisco’s Alternative Online Daily

As the State Senate plans to vote next week on SB 464 to prevent real estate speculators from abusing the Ellis Act, the San Francisco Association of Realtors recently sent a mass e-mail to its members stressing the need to “aggressively oppose any change” to the Ellis Act whatsoever.  The Realtors also claimed in the same e-mail that State Senate President Don Perata had “convened a meeting” with other legislators about SB 464 and was leading a “tag team” with Senator Sheila Kuehl (the bill’s sponsor) to get it passed.  But Perata has not taken a position on SB 464, and Beyond Chron has learned from Perata’s staff (later confirmed by Perata himself) that there was no such meeting.  In an effort to whip up a hysterical frenzy to defeat SB 464, why would the San Francisco Association of Realtors blatantly lie to their own members about a basic fact?

The Ellis Act is a state law that allows property owners to evict an entire building of tenants when they want to “go out of business.”  SB 464 is a modest but necessary reform that would limit the Ellis Act to landlords who have owned the building for more than five years.  In San Francisco and Los Angeles, real estate speculators who never intended to become landlords have bought rental properties, used the Ellis Act to evict tenants within days, and then re-sold them at a massive profit.  Average landlords who want to “go out of business” after years of renting out property would be unaffected by SB 464.

Several weeks ago, the sponsors of SB 464 amended it in committee so that it would not cover property owners who bought a building before March 27th of this year.  Therefore, SB 464 will not affect anyone who already owns property but will discourage real estate speculators who want to buy a building to evict tenants.  In the e-mail to its members, the Realtors acknowledged that this change “softens the effect” of SB 464, but argued that it was “critically important” to “aggressively oppose any change to the Ellis Act.” 

That’s right.  The Realtors oppose “any change” to the Ellis Act at all.  In other words, the Ellis Act is a sacred cow – and they will always oppose any reforms, no matter how modest, reasonable or measured.  The Ellis Act was supposed to be an exit for property owners who were sick of being landlords, not real estate speculators who buy up the property to then evict tenants.  But for the Realtors, any reform at all is anathema.

It is precisely this kind of knee-jerk extremism that Senator Leland Yee (who is currently undecided on SB 464) says he abhors.  Yee told the San Francisco Tenants Union last year that he was a “moderate” on tenants’ rights, and agreed during the endorsement interview that something needs to be done about the Ellis Act.  With the Realtors now saying that they will oppose any change to the Ellis Act whatsoever, Yee now has the opportunity to prove that he’s a moderate by supporting SB 464.

As the late U.S. Senator Patrick Moynihan once said, “you can have your own opinions, but you can’t have your own facts.”  The San Francisco Association of Realtors are entitled to have a knee-jerk opposition to Ellis Act reform, but one would hope that they wouldn’t completely make up facts when peddling their agenda.

But in the e-mail to its members, the Association of Realtors lied about State Senate President Don Perata and his involvement with SB 464.  “The opposition efforts of realtors,” they said, “have Sheila Kuehl on the ropes.  But from the reports we have received, Kuehl is attempting to put a tag team together, led by Senate President pro Tem Don Perata of Oakland.”

If only that were true.  Perata has not taken a position on SB 464, and he certainly isn’t working with Sheila Kuehl as a “tag team” to pressure other Senators to support it as well.  His housing policy adviser says that she hasn’t even had a conversation with Perata about the bill.  The Realtors are nervous about SB 464’s passage because it will hurt real estate speculators – so they’ve resorted to exaggerating the extent of support that the bill has to whip up their members into a hysterical frenzy.

But the e-mail went even further by talking about a meeting of state legislators that never existed.  “Disturbingly,” it said, “Perata convened a meeting of leading Democrats in Sacramento yesterday to discuss SB 464.”  Because the e-mail was probably sent out on Saturday, April 28th (although some received it as late as Tuesday), that means the meeting would have been on Friday, April 27th – or possibly a few days later.

But the legislature was not in session on Friday, and most Senators were off to San Diego for the Democratic Convention.  Perata’s office confirmed to us that he was in Oakland on that day, was in a car accident later that evening, and has not left the Bay Area since.  A number of legislators (but not Perata) left for D.C. on a lobbying trip Sunday, so there’s no way that the meeting could have happened later.

Last night, Perata confirmed that there had been “no such meeting.”  This was not a case of merely exaggerating the facts.  The Association of Realtors flat-out lied to their own members about a meeting that did not exist.  If that’s how they communicate with their own members, how do they communicate with the media?  The public?  Legislators?

Hopefully, the State Senate will pass the SB 464 to help save tenants from speculative evictions – not to mention knee-jerk extremists who lie about basic facts to peddle their insidious agenda.

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