Again, I question the value of newspaper endorsements, but the LAT has chosen for the first time in a very, very long time.  And they “strongly endorsed” Barack Obama.

With two candidates so closely aligned on the issues, we look to their abilities and potential as leaders, and their record of action in service of their stated ideals. Clinton is an accomplished public servant whose election would provide familiarity and, most important, competence in the White House, when for seven years it has been lacking. But experience has value only if it is accompanied by courage and leads to judgment.

Nowhere was that judgment more needed than in 2003, when Congress was called upon to accept or reject the disastrous Iraq invasion. Clinton faced a test and failed, joining the stampede as Congress voted to authorize war. At last week’s debate and in previous such sessions, Clinton blamed Bush for abusing the authority she helped to give him, and she has made much of the fact that Obama was not yet in the Senate and didn’t face the same test. But Obama was in public life, saw the danger of the invasion and the consequences of occupation, and he said so. He was right.

Obama demonstrates as well that he is open-eyed about the terrorist threat posed to the nation, and would not shrink from military action where it is warranted. He does not oppose all wars, he has famously stated, but rather “dumb wars.” He also has the edge in economic policy, less because of particular planks in his platform than because of his understanding that some liberal orthodoxies developed during the last 40 years have been overtaken by history. He offers leadership on education, technology policy and environmental protection unfettered by the positions of previous administrations.

Go read the whole thing.  It should be noted that, due to budget cuts, the LA Times Sunday Opinion section is kind of hidden.  It’s in tabloid format and tacked on to half of the Book Review section.  Because of the significance, it’s possible they will put it in a more prominent place.

UPDATE: Obama has left the state (for good, apparently) while Hillary continues to hold events here until Sunday, I believe.  On Sunday Oprah Winfrey will come back out on the campaign trail, rallying in LA with Michelle Obama.  

UPDATE II: The Oakland Tribune follows suit.

I’ve been a really, really bad blogger and have stopped my Congressional House Roundup.  So here’s a mini-one.  I’ve dug up the totals for 2007 fundraising in the top races in the state, and they’re a little interesting.  Here are the numbers from the key races.

CA-11:

Jerry McNerney raised $1.065 million in 2007, has $760,000 cash on hand

Dean Andal raised $535,000, has $471,000 CoH

CA-04:

Charlie Brown raised $506,000, has $383,000 CoH I was looking at Q3 numbers.  Brown has raised $692,000, and has $483,000 CoH.  Big numbers for a non-incumbent.

Eric Egland raised $141,000, has $79,000 CoH

There are no fundraising numbers yet for the new challengers who have entered the race on the Republican side, including former State Sen. Rico Oller and former US Rep. Doug Ose.  By the way, Ose has donated to Doolittle’s legal defense fund, along with Minority Leader John Boehner.  Reformers, all of them!

CA-26:

David Dreier raised $599,000, has $1.96 million CoH

Russ Warner raised $380,000, has $240,000 CoH

Hoyt Hilsman raised $114,000, has $10,550 CoH

Obviously, Dreier is sitting on a goldmine.  

CA-50:

Brian Bilbray raised $419,000, has $262,000 CoH

Nick Leibham raised $211,000, has $188,000 CoH

Very encouraging.

Others to note:

Mary Bono (CA-45) only has a paltry $219,000 CoH.  Her potential opponents Julie Bornstein, David Hunsicker and Paul Clay got in too late to register any money in this quarter (sometimes the FEC shows residual candidates who have run in previous years, so I’m not certain they’re running.)

Mike Lumpkin, the Democrat in CA-52 trying to take Duncan Hunter’s open seat, raised $78,000 in 2007 and has $43,000 CoH.

There’s not much else to write home about here.

Word is getting out that the State Council of SEIU has indeed endorsed Barack Obama.  Given the fact that the election is four days away, we’ll see how much of a difference those 650,000 members are able to make on Tuesday.

UPDATE: by Brian. I wrote about this earlier, but it is big, and I wanted to at least provide one link. So, here’s a story in the Chronicle Politics blog. Flip it for where I grab a chunk of the press release from the SEIU state council, who apparently does not have Calitics on its press list. C’mon SEIU state council, get with the wayz of the Interwebz.

Said Annelle Grajeda, President, SEIU California State Council:

“In light of Sen. John Edwards’ decision to end his bid for the presidency, SEIU in California supports Senator Barack Obama for the Democratic presidential nomination.

“The more than 650,000 SEIU members in California are excited by all the candidates and the energy surrounding this election, but believe Senator Obama best advances our vision for a new America united in hope. Obama’s pledge to ensure working families have a strong voice, that health care is not a luxury and that our children are given the tools to succeed best represents the values that our members care about. SEIU represents 650,000 workers in California, including nurses, janitors, librarians, homecare workers, security officers, technicians, social workers and others.

La Opinion is the major Spanish-language weekly daily in Los Angeles.  And they’re talking about endorsing in the Democratic primary for the first time ever.  Obama has done well in Spanish media (like El Cucuy), and there’s enough to suggest that this could be the direction they’re leaning in:

Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama’s differing tones on immigration policy are said to be key to the editorial board’s decision, which I’d guess bodes well for Obama. Clinton has earned more support from the Latino political class, and Bill Clinton’s administration was known for promoting Latino leadership. But in recent weeks Obama has reached out to grassroots immigrants-rights organizations, speaking about his record of using progressive economic politics to bring Chicago’s African American and Latino communities together.

I honestly don’t know what newspaper endorsements really do anymore (and the Los Angeles Times is still out, so a split between the two is possible), but if Obama were to get the La Opinion endorsement, it could move enough votes in Latino-heavy Congressional districts in Southern California to have a legitimate impact, due to the peculiar math of the delegate selection process.

Of the remaining 370 delegates that will be allocated by voters, 241 will be divided among the state’s 53 congressional districts and allocated to candidates based on the vote they receive.

But not all congressional districts are equal. Some will have as few as three delegates, some as many as six. The number depends on how heavily Democrats have turned out in the past.

In one peculiarity of the process, a candidate who wins by a big margin in one district could end up with fewer delegates than a candidate who wins by a narrow margin in another.

For example, in a district with four delegates, a candidate who wins 62% of the vote would get two delegates — so would a candidate who wins 38% of the vote.

Obama could keep close and basically split those high-turnout districts (and I’m guessing that the heavily Latino districts are among them) and try for a majority and a win in the 3-delegate districts.  They’re already thinking along those lines:

Mitchell Schwartz, California campaign director for Obama, said he has a map on his wall of the state’s 53 districts and has selected about 20 where he thinks the Illinois senator could pick up an extra delegate.

Schwartz said the campaign has “shifted resources in the field” to try to capitalize on the quirks in the rules. “It’s different from winner take all,” he said. “You can lose a state and still pick up a bunch of delegates.”

I’d love to see a list of delegates by district if anyone could dig that up.

UPDATE: OK, Bob was nice enough to respond to my bleg and dig up a delegate list.  The LA Times article is a little off.  There are only two districts with 3 delegates, CA-20 (Costa) and CA-47 (Loretta Sanchez).  Thanks so much for being such stalwart Democrats and getting people out to vote, you wonderful Bush Dogs!

The target should really be those districts with 5 delegates, as well as playing for a draw in the 4-delegate districts.  The heavily Latino SoCal districts run down this way:

CA-31 (Becerra): 4

CA-32 (Solis): 4

CA-34 (Roybal-Allard): 4

CA-38 (Napolitano): 4

CA-39 (Linda Sanchez): 4

Obama should be able to play for a draw there.  

The 5-delegate seats are all over the map (a lot in the SF Valley, where I’m guessing Clinton could be strong; Harman and Laura Richardson’s seats in the South Bay; CA-50 and CA-53 in the San Diego area, Maxine Waters’ and Diane Watson’s seats in South LA;  CA-23 and CA-24 in the Santa Barbara region; Sam Farr’s seat, CA-17, in Monterey; a smattering of seats in the Bay Area (Stark, Tauscher, Miller, Matsui, Honda), and even John Doolittle and Mike Thompson’s seats.

Very interesting.

Call it a half-truth, call it an estimated guess, but just don’t call it a certainty. Which $9 Billion? Well, the promised $9 Billion from the gaming compacts, of course.

In our endorsements, we expressed skepticism that all this money will arrive soon, or at all.  Today, the LA Times takes a look at those figures. There is a $3 Billion floor that the three tribes must provide the state within the 22 years of the life of the contract, and a minimum guarantee of $123 million/year. But that is the only guarantee. There is no guarantee of when the casinos get built out, when they begin to give the state any of that money, of how much money we get next year, or the year after (other than the $123mil). So, the connection to the $14.5 Billion?  Minimal. But that doesn’t mean the tribes won’t trumpet the connection:

“Whether it’s $100 million or $500 million,” said Roger Salazar, spokesman for the tribes’ campaign, “it’s all money that can help stave off at least a few of the potential [state budget] cuts that are being considered.”

$100 million. It’s a lot of money, but the statement presupposes that we can’t get more money from the tribes. There are arguments to oppose building additional casinos, in general. They are extensive, and I’ve put them forward myself on occasion. You know, they are regressive taxes, a drain on society, yada yada. But, putting that aside, and the argument about labor rights, and dealing with the reality of the casinos, it’s just not clear that there is enough on the table here for the state.

Now, in a comment to the endorsements, Major Danby argues that perhaps we should have tested this with one smaller expansion and then gone ahead if that was successful, and vote yes on one of the compacts and no on the rest. But this is 15,000 slot machines, without state control of where and when they go in. Is the thought of $100-$500m of manna from the heavens enough for us? It might arrive in spades, it might trickle down. But let’s be honest, California needn’t just settle for these compacts.  

One thing was abundantly clear at this debate: Democrats all love each other. Yay! Somebody told the two Senators that they should be nice to each other.

I think some of the best exchanges came on the subject of immigration, where there is relatively little difference between the candidates. Earlier today I wrote that I thought that the best way to deal with the drivers licenses issues was to reject the framing of the question. Well, that’s what happened, only Senator Obama went one step further and pointed out what Sen. Cedillo has been saying for years: it’s just good policy.

On healthcare, the issue of mandates was once again central, as it has been in California. Obama did a decent, but not great, job of describing why  mandates are problematic, but as Robert pointed out, he could be more concise. A few magic words, something akin to you can’t be forced to buy that which you cannot afford.  Of course, groups like the California Nurses Association would argue that the best argument is that why should we empower a failing system (ie the argument for single payer). However, Clinton’s sound bites do sound good: if there are people who don’t have health insurance then it’s not universal health care. It sounds good, but even under the mandated plan, you still couldn’t get to 100% coverage. There are drivers in California that are still uninsured despite the mandate, right? Well, the same will be true of health insurance, doubly so b/c there is no option of not owning a body like there is the option of not owning a car. 😉

I guess I’d call this one a wash, no real winners, no real winners. But, for Obama, I think he succeeded in looking presidential, which must have been one of his goals coming in. And for Clinton, she looked less snipey and more conciliatory, also likely a goal.  I’m not sure that this debate will slingshot either of them to any victories, but perhaps the previous trends (in CA, Obama moving closer) will continue.

Your thoughts?

In the last few days, Prop 93 has gotten a bunch of surprising endorsements. In the past few weeks, besides the Governator, Prop 93 was endorsed by such varying personalities as Chris “Darth” Norby and Fred Keeley. You don’t get much different than those two. However, as I’m loath to link to something from the John and Ken Show, I’ll go with former Asm. Keeley:

By making this modification, voters would be re-establishing the balance of powers among and between the three branches of state government. It would also retain the best aspects of term limits, while improving the utility of this tool for problem solving. Of course, for our community it would permit our outstanding Assembly member John Laird to remain in the Assembly for a bit longer. (Santa Cruz Sentinel 1/20/08)

These endorsements are not isolated, as people are gradually able to separate distinct arguments and look at the details of Prop 93. Recently, the Desert Sun endorsed Prop 93 on fairly similar ground

Proposition 93 is needed because:

• The Legislature lacks experience. In our attempt to move away from powerful career politicians, we now have a Legislature where one-third of the members are termed out every two years.

• Voters should recognize that there is a learning curve when new lawmakers join the legislature. Lobbyists spend years in Sacramento. Our representatives come and go so quickly, they hardly have what it takes to stand up to such power.

• We want new, fresh ideas in the legislature, but we also need experienced leaders representing us on complex issues like water, healthcare, global warming, schools and the budget. (Desert Sun 1/20/08)

Proposition 93 strikes the balance the California Legislature needs. The Term Limits and Legislative Reform Act would reduce the number of years members serve in the Legislature from 14 to 12. But all the time can be served in one house or the other, or a combination of the two.

Conservative and progressive editorial boards are echoing a similar statement: Prop 93 is better than the status quo.