We are 56 days from the California Presidential primary on February 5, and just a few weeks from opening early and absentee voting, and I think it’s reasonable to assess how the facts of the race thus far have met with the expectations, and even if it isn’t reasonable, I’m about to do it.  The entire rationale for moving up the primary to February, from people as varied as the Governor, the Speaker of the Assembly, even our friends at the Courage Campaign, was that this would bring new attention to California in the Presidential race and would allow the state a say in the picking of a nominee.

How’s that goin’?

Monday was one of the first days in months and months where the two top contenders on the Democratic side, Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama, were in California at the same time.  They were both here for fundraisers, and both by accident – there was supposed to be a debate on CBS in Los Angeles that day, but a pending WGA action and the unwillingness for the candidates to cross the picket line forced cancellation.  Obama’s fundraiser, granted, was a low-dollar event at the Gibson Ampitheatre in Universal City – a combination rock concert/political rally.  In similar rallies in Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina, fans saw Oprah: in Hollywood, home of the stars, we got Nick Cannon and the Goo Goo Dolls.  Indeed, the last public, no-money-needed appearance by any viable candidate in California fades into the back of the memory.  There just haven’t been any.

Last night I sat in on a conference call with supporters of John Edwards and the national campaign.  It was billed as a dialogue about how Edwards supporters in Southern California can best help their preferred candidate.  The unequivocal message from the campaign was that these activists can best help them by “adopting Nevada,” home to one of the earlier caucuses, on January 19.  They touted road trips to Las Vegas for phone banking and canvassing.  This was extremely redolent of work I did with the Dean campaign in 2004 on their “Southwest Victory Tour” into Arizona and New Mexico.  Four years later, absolutely nothing has changed.

This is not a slam on the top three campaigns.  They are ignoring California, so to speak, because they are making the calculation that victories in the early states will lead to a momentum build that will be impossible to stop.  And this is precisely the dynamic of the race.  It’s clear to anyone that is paying attention that Iowa, and to a lesser extent New Hampshire, have been made MORE decisive as a result of the truncated primary.  There are dozens of examples I can cite.  Edwards supporter and California Assemblyman Anthony Portantino was on the conference call.  He wasn’t whipping up support in his district, he was calling in from Iowa.  Fabian Nuñez recently took a trip out to Iowa.  A few weeks ago we had the executive board meeting of the CDP – the largest gathering of activists you’re going to see until the primary.  That inviting target attracted – well, it attracted Dennis Kucinich.  There have been no TV ads run in California and exactly one mailer, by Clinton, in a small enough quantity to get the attention of the political press and nobody else.  The public polling on the California race, at least on the Democratic side, has mirrored the national polling to a T, because all we’re getting out here is the national race.    The national primary is fictional, and so is the California primary, for all intents and purposes.

People in this state that supported this move, and it was broadly popular, were simply sold a bill of goods.  It was blindingly obvious that the only way to change the primary system and allow it to have a diversity of voices was to actually change it, by removing the dominance of Iowa and New Hampshire.  I am hopeful that, as a result of this ridiculous front-loading, that will happen in 2012.  But clearly, California’s move, which was the first of the non-early states and essentially broke the dike, causing 20 or so other states to move up in order to keep pace, EXACERBATED the problem.

And in so doing, the move enabled not only the ballot initiatives that we see on February 5, but the potential for all sorts of Republican mischief in the low-turnout June primary.  Frankly, to suggest that a group of lawmakers who wished to change term limits just happened to pick a day before the deadline for filing in the June primary to hold an election which could have that on the ballot is beyond naive.  In so doing, the June election became initiative bait, susceptible to all sorts of right-wing ballot measures.  We may have dodged a bullet with the Dirty Tricks thing, but there will be others, as you all know (starting with the Hidden Agenda initiative about eminent domain “reform”).

In point of fact, the only time that California has ever been a factor in the Presidential primaries is… when they held them in June, in the 1968 and 1972 races (the tragic death of RFK changed what would have been a decisive election in ’68, obviously).  I’m certainly not saying that history would have repeated itself in 2008 if California only retained its position, but I am saying that absolutely nothing good could have come from moving up, and still potentially something pretty bad could happen as a consequence.

A big step forward in the opportunity to finally regulate the air we breathe and the emissions we create in California.  Today a US District Court judge threw out a lawsuit by the automakers that challenged the state’s ability to regulate greenhouse gases.

Automakers sued the state over the tailpipe standards it approved in 2004, which would force automakers to build cars and light trucks that produce about 30 percent fewer greenhouse gases by 2016 […]

In its lawsuit against the state, the auto industry argued that California did not have the authority to set its own standards because it would force manufacturers to produce vehicles using too many different fuel efficiency standards.

But Ishii rejected that claim, saying Congress gave California and the EPA the authority to regulate vehicle emissions, even if those rules are more strict than those imposed by the federal government.

This is a big victory.  However, the state still needs a waiver from the EPA to allow it to implement the tailpipe emissions law.  So far the EPA has dragged its feet, and the state sued them back in November.  There is now a voluminous amount of case law arguing in favor of the EPA granting the waiver, so they almost can’t deny the state at this point.  But the biggest impediment to this now is the Bush Administration trying to subvert their authority through changes in the latest federal energy bill.

The White House has raised last-minute concerns over regulation of automobile emissions and fuel economy that aides said could lead to a presidential veto of the energy bill now before Congress.

The bill, which passed the House and is now pending in the Senate, requires auto makers to meet a fleet average of 35 miles per gallon by 2020, but does not specify which government agency should enforce the new rule.

Primary regulation of mileage standards has historically fallen to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, an arm of the Transportation Department. But vehicle tailpipe emissions are regulated by the Environmental Protection Agency, and a Supreme Court ruling earlier this year affirmed the E.P.A.’s authority to regulate emissions of the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide from passenger vehicles, which basically would mean regulating their fuel use.

The White House, echoing a position taken by auto manufacturers and a coalition of industry groups, is asking that the energy legislation be changed to specify the highway safety administration as the primary enforcer of fuel efficiency standards, with the E.P.A. in only an advisory role. Democratic leaders in Congress rejected that position as a “nonstarter” and indicated their intent to move the bill with the current language intact.

If the EPA is stripped of their authority to enforce mileage standards and regulating emissions, California (and the other states who want to copy their law) would essentially have to restart the process, and may not be able to be granted the waiver.  I’m confident that Nancy Pelosi would do nothing to subvert the state’s ability to regulate emissions, but Congress must hold firm.  This is a dirty trick designed to undermine current law and forestall any meaningful action on climate change.

We need organizations who aren’t afraid of what is politically possible and talk about was is morally right.  Today the CNA placed a full-page ad in 10 Iowa papers arguing strongly for not-for-profit health care, Medicare for All, taking the example of Dick Cheney’s multiple heart problems, and noting that if he wasn’t receiving the finest in government-run health care, he’d be dead by now.

The patient’s history and prognosis were grim: four heart attacks, quadruple bypass surgery, angioplasty, an implanted defibrillator and now an emergency procedure to treat an irregular heartbeat.  For millions of Americans, this might be a death sentence. For the vice president, it was just another medical treatment. And it cost him very little.

Unlike the average American, the president, vice president and members of Congress all enjoy government-financed health care with few restrictions or prohibitive fees. They are never turned away for pre-existing conditions or denied care for what an insurance company labels “experimental treatments.”

The rest of us deserve no less.

We call on the presidential candidates to support HR 676, the National Health Insurance Act- an expanded and improved Medicare for all that:

• provides complete medical, dental, vision and long-term care

• eliminates deductibles, co-pays, hidden fees

• allows you to choose your doctor, lab, hospital, health care facility

• is completely portable and not tied to employment

• is free from interference or second-guessing by insurance companies.

We should have these conversations out in the open.  The vagaries of what it politically possible should never be the outer edges of the debate.  Let’s actually find out if America rejects a Medicare-for-all system; they certainly haven’t rejected Medicare.  It takes an organization like the CNA to jumpstart this debate.  Good for them.

Boy, if you managed to stumble upon pages M8 and M9 of Sunday’s LA Times yesterday, you sure picked up a great deal of information.  On M8 was our buddy Robert’s excellent critique of the Times’ coverage of tax policy.  And on M9 was a column by Anthony York of Capitol Weekly, which seeks to explain why legislative Democrats appear to be negotiating with themselves on health care reform.  We learn that the Governor is basically holding his endorsement of Prop. 93 hostage in exchange for getting his way on health care.

Nuñez is scheduled to be termed out of the Assembly in November. If Proposition 93 passes, however, he could serve in the Assembly — and presumably as speaker — for six more years. If the measure fails, Nuñez would immediately become a lame-duck speaker, and talk of a successor would begin Feb. 6.

That’s why he desperately needs Schwarzenegger’s endorsement of Proposition 93. Most observers believe that voters will defeat the measure if it lacks the governor’s seal of approval.

But Schwarzenegger’s support comes at a price. The governor has consistently used Nuñez’s desire to change the term-limits law as leverage in his negotiations with the speaker about healthcare reform, and it seems to be paying off.

over…

We all suspected this was the case, but this appears to be more informed than opinion.  So now we have a negotiation that’s going to affect millions of Californians being predicated on the political career of one man.  Nuñez is completely compromised, not only by needing to get a legislative victory to tout to the electorate, but by receiving the Schwarzenegger endorsement.  Personally, I’m unconvinced that his endorsement is such a slam-dunk; it sure wasn’t in 2005.

We see the direction that the negotiations have taken.  First the Democrats were fully opposed to an individual mandate.  Then they agreed to a mandate with cost controls (exemptions if coverage costs more than 6.5% of income).  Then they’ll drop that number.  First the plan was that businesses would pay 8% in fees; then it became a sliding scale up to 6%; then it’ll be down to 4, or 3, or really whatever the Governor wants.  This is no way to negotiate.  The Governor has absolutely no reason to budge off his numbers.

The Governor clearly cares about leaving a legacy on healthcare reform, and a smart negotiating strategy would tie that legacy to specifics that could not be compromised.  But that’s clearly not how it’s being waged.  And York even explains how a savvy negotiator could turn this right around.

If a (health care funding) plan ends up on the ballot, it would be a tough sell. All previous healthcare initiatives have been defeated. And with current budget forecasts for 2008 putting the revenue shortfall at $10 billion, an expensive reform plan — some estimates put the price tag at $12 billion — would face even more trouble. To win passage, Schwarzenegger will need help from unions and Nuñez. But if Proposition 93 fails in February, the lame-duck Nuñez could be ousted as speaker, losing his bully pulpit to campaign for reform.That would leave Republican Schwarzenegger as the face of a campaign relying heavily on unions and other Democratic-friendly groups while confronting stiff opposition from many business groups.

The Governor actually needs the Legislature as much as the Legislature needs the Governor.  But that’s not how the battle is being fought, because the Democrats have decided to put themselves in a position of weakness.

This could get very interesting.  The federal judge charged with ruling on the California prison crisis is asking for internal documents that may prove that Governor Schwarzenegger’s administration knew about inmate overcrowding and that their suggested remedies would not possibly work.

On Thursday, U.S. Magistrate Judge John F. Moulds gave the plaintiffs’ lawyers the go-ahead to start digging. Following an hourlong hearing in Sacramento, Moulds denied the state’s claims that the documents represented privileged information, and he gave the administration until noon today to turn them over to the plaintiffs.

“We think there are documents in there that they really don’t want to give us and that will really be at the heart of the case,” said Lori Rifkin, the San Francisco lawyer who successfully argued for the document release. “We think the documents will show that the overcrowding crisis is something the state can’t handle.”

Schwarzenegger spokesman Bill Maile said after Moulds’ decision that the administration would appeal the decision to the three-judge court that was empaneled last summer to consider whether to cap the state’s prison population. Such an order could result in early releases for tens of thousands of prisoners.

Wow.  This could be an absolute bombshell.  So far the three-judge panel impaneled to examine the prison crisis has been willing to approve plaintiff requests.  We all know that it’s impossible to build out of this crisis.  Mental health and drug treatment programs as well as sentencing reform, addressing the root causes of the problem, are the only way.  Now we could find out that the Governor believed the same thing.  It’s almost a referendum on the prison crisis itself.

(Not to mention the glee of seeing Schwarzenegger try to claim executive privilege.)

Looks like the same county poohbahs who under-invested in their own fire safety over-invested in soon-to-be-worthless structured investment vehicles, basically a bundling of subprime mortgage debt that is about to go bust.

Twenty percent, or $460 million, of the county’s $2.3 billion Extended Fund is invested in so-called SIVs that may face credit-rating cuts, said Treasurer Chriss Street. In all of its funds, the county holds a total of $837 million of SIV debt, including $152 million in its $3.5 billion of money-market funds that isn’t under ratings review, said his spokesman, Keith Rodenhuis.

It’s what Atrios has taken to calling “Big Shitpile,” sold to municipal governments as low-risk but soon to be a de facto bailout for mortgage brokers – and crushing to these same municipal governments, who won’t be able to provide services out of them.

Plus, we have a top Republican activist about to turn himself in on pedophilia charges:

Jeffrey Ray Nielsen-the well-connected Orange County conservative activist who claimed the so-called liberal media, specifically the Weekly, was out to get him by publishing a series of exposés on his pedophile activities-is expected to finally admit tomorrow that he used two boys for sex since 1994, according to law-enforcement sources.

A legal representative for Nielsen, who has extensive personal ties to Congressman Dana Rohrabacher and Orange County Republican Party boss Scott Baugh, told prosecutors early last week that Nielsen would plead guilty to two felony counts: committing lewd acts on a child under 15 years old and committing lewd acts on a child under 14 years old.

He’s getting off easy, he’ll probably serve 3 years instead of the 30 years he faced if convicted of all the counts in current trials.

PLUS, Hank Asher, a top business associate to Rudy Giuliani, was named in the bribery investigation of Sheriff Michael Carona.  He’s got the double-whammy, shady ties to America’s Mayor AND America’s Sheriff!

Asher, identified by the initials H.A. in Overt Act 59 of a federal grand jury indictment against Orange County sheriff Michael Carona, had handed the diamond-encrusted Cartier baubles to the wives of the sheriff and his deputy, and with that, assured himself a place in a federal indictment that was looming.

Asher is not charged with any crime in the indictment. But his expensive gifts are clearly part of the corruption investigation.

Someday somebody’s going to write a book about the dysfunctional conservative backwater that is the OC, and it’s not going to look anything like the TV show.