To the links:
• More reports from the CBC’s personal time with Fidel Castro. Rep. Barbara Lee found that the US could do some business with the Cubans on supplying medical technology. Rep. Laura Richardson talked about the ports in her district and Fidel responded with a comment on the threat of climate change to those ports. Oh, that Fidel!
• Richardson is also teaming up with Dana Rohrabacher (R-Crazytown) to block the loss of 5,000 jobs in the Long Beach area from the proposed phase-out of the F-22 fighter plan. The fact that the F-22 has suppliers in 44 states shows you the near-impossible task of breaking through the military-industrial complex.
• My morning LA Times featured a not-so-cleverly disguised ad for “Southland” on the front page. I think Sam Zell’s big idea is to eventually get the news out of the newspaper and fill it entirely with advertorials.
• Sen. Boxer has hired long-term Chronicle reporter Zachary Coile to be her new press secretary. Meg Whitman has also hired a former scribe, Mary Anne Ostrom of the San Jose Mercury News, as a policy and online outreach advisor. See above.
• CalBuzz thinks Jack O’Connell, the State Superintendent of Public Instruction, might be heading back into the Governor’s race. He’s actually exploring a run, seeing if he could get the money to compete with Jerry Brown and the gang. Interestingly, Reed Hastings, the CEO of Netflix and a longtime O’Connell supporter, has dumped almost a million dollars into an IE for his candidacy. That makes things a lot more interesting, especially if there’s more where that came from. Reed Hastings is very wealthy, and unlike most others, his fortune is still growing in the downturn.
• OC Progressive points out that state Controller John Chiang has endorsed incumbent Eric Bradley for the controller spot at the CDP.
• This isn’t a sports blog, but some stories transcend sports and just remind us of the human condition and just how frail we all really are. The death of Nick Adenhart, a 22 year old starting pitcher for the Angels, is really just a tragedy. After pitching Wednesday, he was killed by a hit and run driver in Fullerton. Our best wishes to his friends and family.
…is looking more and more lopsided.
First off, John Chiang endorsed Bradley quite a while back. Most of the electeds have, no question about that. He’s a professional fundraiser in his day job and the incumbent. It would be undiplomatic to not endorse Eric. Doesn’t mean which way they’ll personally vote. (Nor which way their appointeds will go.) The newsworthiness herein is that Eric had John write an email today.
Trotting your allied elected officials out for robocalls and mass emails is Eric’s apparent campaign strategy. Is that what the CDP needs right now? Really?
The simple fact is that Hilary Crosby is getting the grassroots delegates in spades. (But those are only 2/3rds of the votes cast anyway…)
Eric got endorsed by his home Central Committee (by one vote), and dual endorsed by Sonoma in a contingent fluke scenario (those who were there know why.)
How many Central Committees have endorsed Hilary? There’s a good possibility that she’ll hit 30 County Central Committees before the convention, many of these down in the southern part of the state. OC Progressive failed to mention that Hilary received 55 percent of the vote in Orange County’s DCC endorsement vote. Riverside and San Diego endorsed Hilary, etc. (As it starts to look more and more lopsided, divisions and strife within DCCs are forcing “no endorsement” votes, rather than doing the undiplomatic thing and giving Hilary yet another win.)
You want grassroots bona fides? In addition to her work for Take Back Red California, that little national organization called Democracy For America just endorsed her yesterday. Maybe Rick Jacobs (of the Courage Campaign) was onto something when he endorsed her a while back.
How does Bradley propose working with John Burton again?
There’s an endorsement (or lack of) for the CDP Controller that might impress me. Hilary has spoken often how she’ll work great with him, how they’ve communicated several times on how he sees the chair / controller relationship, and are on the same page. He’ll be the fundraiser, she’ll be the finance professional and voice for the grassroots. Eric Bradley will still be doing plenty of fundraising for great Democratic candidates, and advancing the interests of our party – just not as CDP Controller.