Capitol Alert is alerting, as it does that after a budget meeting yesterday that may have gotten a little dicey, Don Perata stripped Dem Sen. Joe Simitian (Palo Alto) of his chairmanship in the Environmental Quality Committee.  Simitian apparently had some dissenting notions on how education money should be apportioned.  Rising Senate Pro Tem Steinberg told the tale:

“We ran into a little bit of a controversy, if you will, with the Prop 98 issue and one of our members had a very legitimate, Joe Simitian had a very legitimate point of view about whether or not we rebench Prop 98,” said Steinberg. “You know Senator Perata and Senator (Denise) Ducheny (the chair of the budget committee) did not want to rebench Prop 98 down as a result of one of the cuts we were making.”

Of course this is more or less par for the course with Perata and handing down time-outs to misbehaving legislators.  He locked Dems out of their offices last year for wavering a bit too much on party loyalty and booted Rep. Sen. Jeff Denham (now being recalled thanks to Perata) from the Senate Governmental Organization Committee for not passing a budget.

I’m not gonna venture a guess as to what went on exactly in the meeting, but one wonders if/when these maneuvers will come with a stool in the corner and a dunce cap.  And whether, long-term, the party/Perata loyalty is improved or not.

In October I wrote an article for San Diego CityBeat called Down PERA-Scope which discussed the bumpy road being encountered by state GOP Chair Ron Nehring relative to the Dirty Tricks Initiative.  In part, the article said

…many GOP activists, strategists and observers expressed concern over the impact of Nehring’s two high-profile personnel problems on party fundraising. Later in the summer, these concerns were seemingly validated when Schwarzenegger was forced to help retire the state party’s debt after rumors surfaced that it could barely cover operating costs.

Well, PERA is super-duper dead now and it looks like Nehring’s tenure is continuing to be a problem for the donor base.  Big time GOP donor Larry Dodge has called out Nehring

Among his complaints, Dodge says the party has not had an effective finance chairman-the key fundraiser-in place for more than a year. He suggests that party officers are squandering money without accountability. Major donors, he said, were promised a hand in the party’s operations committee but “nothing has happened.”

“The party needs professional management,” he writes.

The whole article is like that, and it’s pretty neat.  Dodge is aligned with the Schwarzenegger/McCain outlook on things more than he gets down with the theocon vibe, but nevertheless it’s time to bust out the popcorn if the donor base is rebelling against Nehring’s stewardship of the state party.  Nehring of course goes back like crack to to the 80s with Grover Norquist and used San Diego as the launching pad to his current state-level exploits.  He literally administered the GOP playbook on how to turn an urban area Republican, so with any luck his failures mirror the fundamental failing of GOP urban strategy (such as it is).

Is it just me, or does “Nehring Republican” sound like an enticing electoral slur? Maybe it’s just me. Unless McCain is the GOP nominee. Oh wait…

Several developing developments to close out your week today.

The Dump Denham folks are turning in 50,000 signatures in support of the effort.  Just over 31,000 valid signatures are required to qualify.  Seems that we should start getting geared up for this one.

Rep. Waxman is continuing the agitation on the California EPA waiver, dropping subpoenas for documents reviewed by the EPA before rejecting California emission regulations.

Sacramento Bee’s Ed Board weighs in on the double bubble trouble and is none too pleased with Los Angeles County’s screwy ballots or acting Registrar Dean Logan. (full disclosure: I work for the Courage Campaign)

55 people were indicted over welfare fraud that snagged millions in a scheme centered around fake child care facilities in and around Los Angeles.

Speaking of Los Angeles, I’ll be there tomorrow for no particular reason and with nothing particular to do.  Or as Bran Van 3000 says

But we did nothing, absolutely nothing that day, and I say:

What the hell am I doing drinking in L.A. at 26?

I got the fever for the flavor, the payback will be later, still I need a fix.

So I just got back from a McCain rally here in San Diego and aside from feeling dirty, he’s definitely a bit worried about California.  He brought out every gun he’s got, big, little, whatever.  He was introduced by Mayor Jerry Sanders, former CA SoS Bill Jones and Governor Schwarzenegger (McCain “will say ‘Hasta la vista’ to wasteful spending in Washington.”).  On stage but silent were locals such as my councilman Kevin Faulconer and County Supervisor Ron Roberts.  Along for the ride on the plane and the photo ops were wife Cindy, mother Roberta, and his murderers row of pseudo-moderates: Governor Crist from Florida and Senators Richard Burr, Lindsay Graham and Joe Lieberman.  They didn’t say anything but they stood there very moderately.

And then Senator McCain went ON AND ON about the evils of radical Islamic extremism (radical extremism? Is it also exceptionally unique? Largely big?).  He told people that it’s a titanic struggle against people who want to destroy everything and that there is nothing more evil than what we’re up against.  He gave “my friends” plenty of “straight talk” about…evil.  Troops aren’t coming home because that would be surrender (does that mean that we can’t win if the troops come home?).  He said that he was the only one who knew Rumsfeld’s plan would fail and the Petraeus plan was necessary (presumably not even Petraeus knew).  Spent about two seconds on making tax cuts permanent and saying that it’s bad when Congress spends money (just like the Constitution says. Oh wait…).  

Closed things off trying to roll around in the filth of the Reagan legacy and then noting that $35 billion in earmarks could have gone towards $1000 for every child in the country.  How much would the $2 trillion in Iraq money have translated into for the kids? McCain was mum on this point (the answer because I like math is…a whole lot more).

Point is, McCain is desperate to make everyone scared because he’s scared of Romney.  Rally in San Diego seven hours before the polls close to talk about fear? Hm.

OK, I’m up and ready to rock. Not entirely sure what sort of trouble I’m gonna kick up today, but at least some of it should be interesting.  I’ll be cruising parts of North County with CA-50 candidate Nick Leibham and I’ll be watching at least some of the results at Drinking Liberally San Diego.  There’s another results party hosted by the San Diego Dems in Hillcrest and the Young Dems will be following along in PB at The Shore Club.  So if I can stick to tonic for a while, I might just hop a bit.

In the meantime, snapshots (literal and rhetorical) from polling places around town, any interesting media reports, probably at least one stop at Hillcrest Mardi Gras which has its own results tent (“Cast your vote before you come to the party, then watch the Primary Voting Results in the Mardi Gras Election Tent.”> and…hell I don’t know what else.  Feel free to make suggestions.  But while you’re at it, check in with your own experiences. We’ll try to keep things updated regularly all day and night.

Update 6:58am: Governor Schwarzenegger and McCain will be at a San Diego rally at 1pm. Hangar at Jim’s Air Aviation 2904 Pacific Highway.  Governor at 1pm, McCain newsconference at 1:50pm. Obama‘s campaign will watch results starting at 8pm at East Village Tavern and Bowl (which I love).  Romney folks will be at the Westgate Hotel starting at 8pm in tandem with the official SDGOP party.  And finally, Insurance Commissioner Steve Poizner will be at SDGOP headquarters today and “available” as president of the No on 93 Campaign. (h/t Capitol Morning Report).

Update 7:33am: Arrived at the polling place around 7:10.  Light turnout, about 5 people ahead of me in line, same number arrived while I was voting.  Precinct head said that something like half the precinct had already voted by mail. I assume that was exaggerated, but given the turnout, who knows.  If there’s more (relatively) early voting, that would likely benefit Clinton.  Or my experience could be entirely anecdotal.  Or I might have been lied to.  And check out the bad picture of Ron Paul signs across the street from the polling place.  Pretty slick. yeah.

Update 8:58am: I’m cribbing some wifi from the UTC Apple Store.  Touring North County polling places with Leibham is at least temporarily on hold as they’ve discovered the realities involved in trying to meet and greet in a congressional district with a ton of permanent absentees and over 1000 polling places- the people aren’t exactly congregating.  Other stuff may come up still, and if nothing else I’ll swing by the McCain event and the parties later.

Update 10:39am: MSNBC just reported that hundreds of people are trying to vote in Virginia only to discover that, surprise, the Virginia primary is next week.  Can I renounce my home state now?