Confirming what many of us have expected, the Daily Kos/Research 2000 Poll of the California Senate and gubernatorial races shows that both races lean Democratic, but will be dogfights between now and November (numbers in parentheses are from DKos/R2K August 2009 poll of California):

Republican primary

Meg Whitman (R)   52 (24)

Steve Poizner (R) 19 (9)

(Tom Campbell, then in the governor’s race, got 19 percent in August 2009 poll)

General election

Meg Whitman (R)   41 (36)

Jerry Brown (D)   45 (42)

Steve Poizner (R) 33 (34)

Jerry Brown (D)   48 (43)

Favorable/Unfavorable

Brown (D)   52/40 (48/37)

Whitman (R) 51/35 (41/30)

Poizner (R) 37/40 (35/27)

No real surprises here. Whitman’s TV barrage has increased her numbers – but then again so has Jerry Brown, who sees a 3 point boost even though he hasn’t lifted a finger to campaign. Before we assume that validates his campaign strategy, Markos Moulitsas has some important thoughts on the crosstabs:

The biggest undecided block are African Americans, who break 66-6 for Brown, but with 28 percent undecided. Getting them out to vote will be key for Brown. Same with Latinos, who give Brown a 60-27 edge, with 13 percent undecided.

Brown may be 255 years old (give or take a decade), but voters over 60 go for Whitman 45-38. The Millennials remain the strongest Democratic age group — 49-37 for Brown. They are also the least likely to vote. Thus Brown’s early edge is one built on a shaky foundation — strong support from the demographics least likely to turn out and vote. Whitman has been running a gaffe prone campaign thus far. If she gets her act together, this could be a real dogfight.

This proves what I said back in January in my How Jerry Brown Can Win post – he needs to prioritize outreach to Millennial voters, Latinos and African-Americans. He cannot win this election without them.

As to the US Senate race:

Republican primary

Tom Campbell (R)  33

Carly Fiorina (R) 24

Chuck DeVore (R)   7

General election

Barbara Boxer (D)  47

Tom Campbell (R)   43

Barbara Boxer (D)  49 (52)

Carly Fiorina (R)  40 (31)

Barbara Boxer (D)  49 (53)

Chuck DeVore (R)   39 (29)

Favorable/Unfavorable

Boxer (D)    50/45 (49/43)

Campbell (R) 46/37 (38/29)

Fiorina (R)  35/43 (22/29)

DeVore (R)   34/42 (21/27)

36% are undecided in the GOP primary, so it’s anyone’s guess how that will turn out. Even Chuck DeVore has some hope, even though it’s fading every day he fails to get traction or money. Tom Campbell does seem to have the edge with his better favorables, which is probably why both Fiorina and DeVore have spent most of their time attacking Campbell.

The poll also suggests Campbell is the only one of the three GOP candidates who can give Boxer a real battle. Since Republicans cannot win a majority in the US Senate without beating Boxer, that is even more reason why Democrats here have to work our asses off to hold that firewall and ensure Barbara Boxer is re-elected.

Finally, one should note that both Brown’s and Boxer’s leads have been generally stable. They aren’t losing support, and may have bottomed out (Boxer in particular, as she’s been hurt by the overall weakness of the US Senate). As both begin to roll out their campaigns, they’ll be in good position to win what will be a hard-fought and close election.

Today Senate President Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg and Speaker John Pérez joined California Forward to announce a reform package that the Legislature will try and put before voters at the November election. The package closely resembles what California Forward had been proposing since last fall, including majority vote budget, allowing counties to ask voters to raise the sales tax (but no other tax) by a majority vote in support of a “Countywide Strategic Action Plan,” requiring a 2/3rds vote to create a fee to replace a tax, and creating some performance review processes. The full list of proposals can be found here.

The genesis behind this appears to have been California Forward’s own difficulty in getting the funds they need to put their initiatives directly to voters through signature gathering. This doesn’t mean it’s certain that the Legislature will put the proposals to the voters, since the constitutional amendments that form the meat of the reforms requires a 2/3rds vote from the Legislature to go on the ballot. Republicans don’t seem interested in giving up their only form of power in Sacramento by letting voters decide on majority vote budget.

If this does go before voters, it’s unclear how it would fare. The local majority vote tax proposal is intriguing, but the fact that it would only apply to sales tax increases is a big problem. Last November most local sales tax increases failed, whereas other taxes, such as parcel taxes, were generally approved. California has turned to the sales tax fairly often in recent years, a less progressive form of taxation than property taxes or income taxes.

It would have been better had the proposal followed the Oregon model, taxing the wealthy and large corporations (or at least including that as a possibility). With sales taxes approaching 10% in some localities, voters may not be in a mood to endorse this proposal.

On the other hand, even a 10% sales tax is more progressive than further cuts to schools and health care services. Democrats and progressives will have to closely and carefully assess this proposal and determine whether it’s the best method of achieving the changes this state so desperately needs.

Ted Costa is a longtime wingnut activist, and he’s pissed. He joined Republican Assemblymember Dan Logue and Republican Congressman Tom McClintock to draft the initiative to indefinitely suspend AB 32 that is likely to appear on the November ballot. And although you’d think Costa would be excited that Texas oil companies are apparently backing the initiative, Costa is instead throwing a fit:

Ted Costa, of People’s Advocate, said he continues to believe in the thrust of the initiative but that the signature-gathering campaign has been “stolen” by big-money interests that have not identified themselves publicly.

“You ruin the whole organization when you go through this kind of muck,” said Costa, who helped craft an early version of the initiative but was elbowed out of the drive in the jockeying to recruit backers….

Costa said the key issue to him is integrity — the initiative he filed was shelved in favor of a virtually identical one backed by undisclosed interests that are “hiding” their identities and their contributions, he said.

“At a time when Californians really need honesty and integrity, there will be none,” Costa said. (Capitol Alert 3/10/10)

Costa even said he’d sign a ballot argument against the initiative, showing the depth of his anger.

But should he really be all that surprised? The only people who would benefit from undoing AB 32 like this would be large corporations like Valero. Every other working Californian would be much worse off if the initiative passed, since their jobs and livelihoods would be in greater jeopardy thanks to unchecked global warming. And the state would lose the lead in innovating green jobs to places like China and Europe.

Maybe Costa was a true believer, but right-wingers should know how conservative politics works by now. Everything they do is bankrolled by the wealthy and large corporations, because that is who benefits from conservative politics. The notion that such politics are at all populist or benefit anyone not rich is a convenient lie, a smokescreen for the benefit of a credulous public.

Still, if Costa now wants to speak out against the initiative, I’m all in favor of it. The more the merrier!

Senate Republicans got the Legislative Analyst’s Office to deliver an assessment of AB 32’s impact on jobs that would, on the surface, seem to validate their claims that AB 32 will hurt jobs. The LAO hedged as much as they could, saying that much of the impact of AB 32 was uncertain, but did argue that some job losses would occur:

While CARB did not estimate job impacts for other time periods, it seems most likely to us that the implementation of AB 32 through the SP will result in the near term in California job losses, even after recognizing that many of the SP’s programs phase in over time.

We’ll almost certainly hear a lot about this analysis from the right and the global warming deniers. But is it accurate?

A closer look suggests it’s not. The LAO analysis fails to actually explain their projected job losses in any great detail. There’s no accounting of which industries might see near-term job losses or how many jobs might be lost, or which regulations would lead to these job losses. There is a rather vague and general discussion of possible impacts of things such as increased fuel economy standards, but overall there isn’t really anything in the report to justify the headline claim that AB 32 will cause near-term job losses.

Further, the LAO did not assess how many green jobs AB 32 has already created. The LAO did charge that the California Air Resources Board “overstated” the number of jobs AB 32 would have created by 2020, but their case is quite weak. The LAO argues that the economic modeling assumptions used by CARB have been questioned by some economists, and that the overall impact of the regulations aren’t yet well understood.

While that might be true, the LAO has merely asserted that the CARB projections could be in error – they have not conclusively demonstrated this to be the case. The LAO is raising some questions that would be good for the statisticians and economic modelers to debate, but that’s about as far as it goes.

More problematically, the LAO did not contextualize this discussion at all. There is no discussion or analysis whatsoever of the costs to the state’s economy of unchecked global warming, estimated by Next10 to be possibly as high as $4 billion per year for the rest of the century. Nor is there any discussion of the potential loss in green jobs if California suspends AB 32 indefinitely and other states and nations take the lead in creating those industries.

Instead the LAO’s analysis seems to assume that the status quo is just fine, and that there are no major economic threats that AB 32 might help address. We all know the status quo is not acceptable, and that doing nothing on global warming, as the AB 32 opponents would have us do, is a recipe for ruin.

The LAO analysis does not really bolster the opponents’ cause, though Republicans are already claiming it does. Still, the LAO would have been better off not delivering this flawed report, and waiting until they could provide more detailed evidence of their assertions about AB 32’s near-term job impact and CARB’s job estimates, as well as properly contextualized that discussion against the backdrop of a global race to innovate green jobs and the costs of the climate crisis.

Yesterday the California Department of Education released its list of “persistently lowest-achieving” schools – schools whose test scores have been low for several years and, unless improved, will be closed. The Tier I list makes it clear where these schools are concentrated – in California’s low-income communities and communities of color.

Let’s take two counties. First, my home county of Orange. You’ll note that Tustin Unified, where I spent all 13 years of my K-12 education, has no schools listed. The only schools listed in all of Orange County are three in Santa Ana Unified – Century High, Valley High, and Willard Intermediate. 80% of Santa Ana residents are Latino and the median family income is $41,000 (statewide the median family income is $76,000).

Here in Monterey County, where I currently live, ten schools are listed. 8 of them are in the Salinas Valley, another two in Seaside. The Salinas Valley is 70-80% Latino and has median incomes in the $35,000 range. But you won’t see Carmel or Pacific Grove schools listed here. In fact, Carmel schools rate among the best-performing in the entire state.

Santa Ana and the Salinas Valley are the type of communities whose schools are going to be closed under No Child Left Behind rules. Just as the entire teaching staff at a high school in Rhode Island’s poorest community was fired last month. And when this happens in California’s low-income communities of color, President Obama’s Education Secretary Arne Duncan will applaud it the way he applauded the firings in Rhode Island.

The impact on these communities could be devastating. In Chicago after one of Arne Duncan’s mass firings of teachers, described as “hitting the reset button,” the results were an increase in student crime and no discernible improvement in student achievement. As schools closed and experienced teachers were fired, one of the only stable institutions in a community that generally lacked such places was destroyed, and the community suffered.

Over the weekend at Open Left, Paul Rosenberg made a very good analogy regarding Arne Duncan’s slash-and-burn tactics. Applying the logic of Duncan’s reforms to crime, Rosenberg asked why not fire the entire Oakland Police Department? Unemployment is high in California; perhaps we should fire the entire Employment Development Department. We were just in a drought; perhaps we should fire all the state hydrologists and water district managers.

That doesn’t happen because those workers aren’t the target of a deliberate effort to destroy their careers, as Attorney at Arms has so brilliantly explained. But it does demonstrate the ridiculousness of the concept of closing a school because it isn’t performing well.

With the publication of the list of schools that could be closed in California in a few years, we can start to see just what kind of damage those ridiculous ideological dogmas are about to produce – and we can see exactly who will be hurt by it. It’s not going to be California’s prosperous population, and it’s not going to be the white suburbs. Yet again, the poor and communities of color are going to be the targets of right-wing policy.

We have time to stop this. But it requires repealing the “reforms” made in the service of right-wing doctrine. Let’s hope Sacramento is up to the task.

It was an idea so audacious that even the Bush Administration didn’t dare try it. Arne Duncan, President Obama’s radical Education Secretary, pushed for and received $4.35 billion in stimulus funds for K-12 education. But Duncan didn’t plan to just hand the money out to states desperately in need of federal funds just to keep the schools open and teachers in the classrooms. He linked the stimulus funds to a series of right-wing educational “reforms” designed to even further emphasize testing, link teacher pay and performance to those tests (regardless of the other qualifications and achievements of those teachers).

The most stunning piece of this program, which was called “Race To The Top,” was that states had to adopt these reforms without any guarantee they’d get a dime for their trouble. The Race to the Top grants were competitive in nature, so states were being asked to make fundamental changes in the way their schools operated merely for a chance at a sliver of federal funds.

Arnold Schwarzenegger enthusiastically embraced the reforms, and Sacramento Democrats went along, although they had deep reservations about doing so. And yet the Obama Administration rejected California’s grant application anyway.

The right response would be to repeal the reform bills passed in January in order to conform to the terms of the grant. California should set its own school policies based not on Arne Duncan’s effort to shove his unproven methods down our throats, but on our own assessments of what will help our schools.

It cannot be denied that the number one need of California schools is more money. As districts across the state prepare mass layoffs for the second year in a row, recent API scores indicate that the best predictor of how a district will score is the amount of money they spend on their students. If districts are cutting classes and firing teachers, they’re not going to be in any position to effectively implement any other reform. Students learn best in small classes, not in classrooms packed with 40 students because the district had to lay off teachers.

Other reforms are worth considering. I’m open to charter schools and giving parents more power, but too many people see these things as a sure salvation. More importantly, these types of reforms are often used to blunt arguments that more money is needed for schools, in order to prevent the fortunes of the wealthy and large corporations from being taxed to properly provide for our state’s educational needs.

That isn’t to say every education reformer is driven by anti-tax politics. Many are driven by a genuine desire to improve schools. But there needs to be an appreciation of the need to better fund education if any reforms are going to be successful.

Progressive education activists will also need to develop a new set of messages that can reframe this discussion. In the last week many of the discussions I’ve had on education, including here at Calitics and on various progressive talk radio stations (including KRXA 540 in Monterey) wind up drawing out people who want to change the discussion away from one of funding to either bash teachers unions, claim teachers are overpaid, complain about tenure rules, or make some other kind of attack on teachers and their defenders.

These right-wing frames have become deeply embedded in the public consciousness, and are there to both prevent the kind of progressive taxation we need to save our schools and to undermine one of the most successful, effective, and necessary examples of a strong public sector. If we are to repeal the changes made in order to chase the Race To The Top mirage, we’ll need to provide the kind of messaging that can show the value of progressive education and explain why market-based solutions won’t work for our schools.

That’s what the San Francisco Chronicle’s Matier and Ross are reporting this morning:

Despite his failure to win confirmation in the state Assembly, state Sen. Abel Maldonado is likely to become California’s interim lieutenant governor sometime in May.

In the weeks since the heavily Democratic Assembly refused to confirm him, Republican Maldonado has met repeatedly with new Democratic Assembly Speaker John Pérez.

Pérez told Maldonado to sit tight and wait, “until cooler heads prevail.”

Those in the know tell us the “cooler heads” will prevail around the end of April. If lawmakers wait that long, Maldonado’s Senate replacement would be chosen in the November general election, rather than in an earlier special election that would yield a lower turnout.

With a big turnout, Democrats believe they’d have a better shot of winning Maldonado’s district, which runs from just south of San Jose all the way to Santa Barbara County.

One of the main reasons we’d heard that the Assembly rejected the Maldonado nomination last month was concern about how John Laird, the likely Democratic candidate for SD-15, would fare in a special election that would coincide with the June primary. I am absolutely confident that Laird would have won anyway. But a November runoff (with an August/early September first round) would probably have an electorate that’s more favorable to Democrats.

SD-15 (where I live) went for Obama by 20 points in 2008 and our current registration numbers are 41% Dems, 34.5% Reps, and 23% DTS.

While nobody in California may get the same kind of turnout in November 2010 that we saw in November 2008, the registration numbers are favorable, as is the fact that nearly 60% of SD-15 lies north of the Monterey-San Luis Obispo County line. That’s Laird country, and is strongly Democratic. Sam Blakeslee, the likely Republican candidate, comes from the southern half of the district, representing San Luis Obispo. Laird can and will run a strong and competitive campaign there, and a November race gives him time to build that out.

As we’ve said before, confirming Maldonado would be the right move. I agree it’s distasteful to confirm one of the Legislature’s most frustrating members, who has made deals for himself at the expense of everyone else in the state. As one of Maldonado’s constituents, I have more cause to dislike him and his politics than almost anyone.

But the big picture remains: in November 2010, Monterey County and the rest of SD-12 and SD-15 can bring us a 2/3rds majority in the State Senate. That is a Holy Grail worth seeking.

In the wake of Charlie Rangel’s problems with the House Ethics Committee, Congressman Pete Stark (CA-13) was in line to temporarily head the House Ways and Means Committee. That won’t happen, unfortunately, but it was enough to get Daniel Weintraub, former columnist for the Sacramento Bee and now writer for the New York Times, to call Stark “his own worst enemy” in an article on the Congressman:

But 3,000 miles away, where his district is stacked with liberals who share his outrage, his words barely caused a ripple. A lack of respect for decorum when addressing Republicans is hardly the kind of thing to get a man in trouble in Hayward or Fremont.

And if Mr. Stark’s outbursts have made him less effective than he might otherwise be as a representative, his constituents have a hard time ever hearing about it. His district is in something of a news media vacuum, across the bay from San Francisco and squeezed between San Jose and Oakland. No major media outlet covers him closely.

Mr. Stark’s district is a mix of blue-collar workers and employees of the growing number of high-tech companies around Fremont. It is so heavily Democratic that Mr. Stark has never attracted a serious Republican opponent. For a Democrat to oppose him in a primary would take tremendous financial resources and, probably, greater sins by Mr. Stark than he has committed to date.

The problem is that Weintraub misses the point, almost entirely. Pete Stark represents his district quite well. CA-13 residents, like other Bay Area residents, aren’t interested in ridiculous DC concepts like “decorum.” They are left-of-center folks who expect their federal representatives to do the things Stark does: call out Republican bullshit when he sees it, and press strongly for progressive causes such as the public option.

CA-13 is not Marin County or the Berkeley hills. Cities like Hayward and San Leandro are working-class and very diverse, full of the kind of people who are the bedrock of Bay Area liberalism – working people who know that conservatism and Republicans are not on their side, despite the slick sales job the right puts on to convince working people that they are. Stark’s outspoken opposition to the right’s agenda is exactly what those residents want, and he delivers.

It’s also worth noting that House Democrats’ refusal to let Stark chair Ways and Means is more likely due to his own run-ins with the Ethics Committee than with any concern about his outbursts or his liberalism.

Weintraub’s trying to paint Stark as someone out of touch with his district and his fellow Democrats, but that just doesn’t hold water. But it is another example of the media treating left-of-center politicians who speak the truth as being somehow deviant or controversial. It’s a self-fulfilling prophecy, not an accurate reflection of reality.

We learned on Friday that California may be on the verge of jobs growth. 32,000 jobs were created in the state in January 2010, including in construction and manufacturing. However, the unemployment rate also went up to 12.5%, as more people sought work. It’s a sign that any economic recovery that might be under way is anemic at best, and that we still have a VERY long way to go to solve the problems of what may be persistent unemployment.

Unfortunately, this economic recovery is not only anemic, it may be transitory. And even if it were to continue to pick up steam and last for a while, it will not be a true “recovery” in the sense of creating broadly shared prosperity. Instead we appear to have experienced another dramatic ratcheting downward of economic opportunity for most Californians, while creating conditions that both ensure we will have another nasty crash and that many more people will suffer when it happens.

This phenomenon is not unfamiliar to California. Since 1980 we have experienced four recessions that have frayed the safety net, fueled anti-government sentiments, and created more inequality and economic vulnerability, all of which mean that the subsequent recession hits harder than the one that came before it. The recoveries from each recession have been largely driven by unsustainable asset bubbles that benefit the wealthy but create little if any actual wage growth for everyone else.

All indications are that we will experience the same here in 2010 – that is, if this halting recovery even lasts. Below are some thoughts on the ongoing economic problems California faces and what needs to be done to actually solve them, instead of ignore them in the face of another asset bubble.

• Any current economic recovery is driven by massive federal economic stimulus, and will collapse if and when it is withdrawn. Since California has done absolutely nothing to stimulate economic recovery, any job creation currently being experienced is due solely to the Obama Administration’s 2009 stimulus plan. Unfortunately, that doesn’t seem likely to be renewed, as both the White House and Senate Democrats are putting deficit reduction ahead of recovery. They’re afraid of teabaggers whining about deficits, so instead they’re going to repeat the error of 1937 and drive the state and nation deeper into recession by taking away government support. We need a second stimulus that is larger than the first if recovery is to happen, and it must be aimed at creating jobs, not at pointless tax cuts.

• Austerity budgets and policies designed to protect creditors leave debtors less able to participate in and fuel economic growth. Last week’s student protests were very similar to recent protests in Spain and Greece in that they shared a common enemy: austerity budget cuts made in the name of appeasing creditors. Just as economic commentator Simon Johnson believes Europe risks global depression with these austerity policies, so too does California risk another downward slide with its ongoing slashing of government spending and programs. As average Californians are being told to spend more money for health care, education, and transportation so that government doesn’t have to tax the rich and the large corporations to pay those costs, that makes it more difficult for those Californians to clear away their household debts, rebuild savings, and power the recovery through sensible spending choices.

• Policies that favor large corporations at the expense of small business leave the state more vulnerable to recession and fail to create good jobs. Small businesses in California need things like universal health care, affordable transportation, worker-friendly labor laws, and above all, a well-paid customer base that is able to sustain locally owned business. Instead California’s current policies all favor large businesses, who get the tax breaks and bailouts and are able to block reforms that could make it easier for people to start and maintain businesses. Small businesses drive a greater share of job creation, are far less likely to outsource or offshore work, and tend to keep profits in the community. They need to be emphasized, not screwed over by policies designed to keep costs low for the big businesses, who can then crowd out their smaller competitors.

• The state budget is still in permanent, long-term deficit, and austerity appears to be the solution for years to come. Just as more government spending is needed to sustain any nascent recovery that might be under way, more spending is also needed to sustain a fairer, more prosperous economy. If people can’t afford an education, can’t afford health care, can’t afford to get around the region for work, then they will be vulnerable to the next downturn, which will come much sooner than expected. California is projected to still have budget deficits for the next 3 years, of about $20 billion per year. If we cut another $60 billion in spending, California’s economy will be left in tatters, since the programs that help keep down the cost of living for Californians will no longer be there. Now is the time to raise taxes by a large amount on the wealthy and on large corporations, to close the deficit and make it possible to restore and grow government services to strengthen and lengthen any economic recovery.

I’m sure there is more that can be examined and that must be done, but these are some general principles to keep in mind. If there is any economic recovery over the next 12-18 months, however weak and uneven it is, Sacramento will be tempted to avoid tackling the deep problems and implementing the solutions we need to a 30-year long downward spiral.

That wouldn’t be good. Because if the status quo remains in place, most Californians will not see lasting benefits from this recovery. Sure, they might be able to find a job, but it won’t be enough to pay the bills, eliminate the debt, build up savings, and help build a more sustainable economy for the future.

Listen live to the radio debate between Republican candidates for US Senate Tom Campbell, Carly Fiorina and Chuck DeVore. So far Fiorina is hitting Campbell for being “anti-Israel,” DeVore calls these “unsubstantiated accusations.” However, DeVore continues to hit Campbell anyway on this, saying Campbell has pattern of being “pro-Islam.”

I’m eating Indian food while I listen, otherwise I’d pass you the popcorn.

…Fiorina and DeVore are playing “attack the front-runner.” Campbell is on the defensive, and though he sounds reasonable, I wonder if he is out of his depth in a GOP primary full of wackos and wingnuts who insist on insane radicalism in their preferred candidates.

…Campbell supports an Israeli attack on Iran, which most sensible observers would view as a truly reckless and dangerous act were it to occur.

…Eric Hogue asks Fiorina, who says “we should be very concerned about Iran,” about allegations that HP traded with Iran in violation of the embargo while Fiorina was CEO. Fiorina says “HP has been in compliance with all US law” – she did not deny HP sold printers to Iran, merely that HP broke any laws.

…so this debate so far is ALL about the Middle East. Do any of them realize that we are in the middle of the worst recession in 60 years? Do they even care, or is Islam-bashing more important than job creation? Hogue says he’ll “sneak in economics” before the hour is over. I’m sure the ranks of the jobless will appreciate the crumbs.

…apparently this debate was billed as a “foreign policy debate.” Further evidence of how deeply out of touch the GOP and wingnut talk radio is. Guantanamo Bay (which all the candidates are saying works just fine) is an important issue, but what really matters is their approach to the economic crisis. This is just a bunch of “I’m more of an anti-Islamic warmonger than you” nonsense, which is revealing but not surprising.

…now they’re talking about the status of Jerusalem. Obviously the most important issue on the minds of all Californians.

…finally they get to economics. Fiorina says “the tax burden is too high, must be cut.” Of course, the tax burden is actually way too low on the wealthy and on corporations. But this is going to be a “bash Tom Campbell” moment for his votes on taxes, where he has been open to higher gas taxes. Fiorina says Campbell will be “the Dems’ 60th vote in the Senate.” Unfortunately, I don’t think Dems will be anywhere near 60 after the November election.

…Campbell and Fiorina fighting over whether Fiorina endorses internet taxes. But all three agree that we need less federal spending, meaning less schools, less parks, less health care, in order to give wealthy investors a capital gains tax cut. Good to know.

…closing statements. DeVore says any Republican can beat Boxer, so pick the most wingnutty. Campbell says we need to cut federal spending to create jobs (because not having health care means more employment…somehow…). Fiorina calls for cutting taxes, cutting spending, say we need someone who can beat Barbara Boxer (which as the polls indicate, isn’t any one of you). And this debate is finally over.

Winner: Israel, which is now apparently the most important issue at home or abroad in the Senate campaign

Loser: Californians, who could be stuck with one of these morons as our Senator unless we work our ass off to reelect Barbara Boxer this fall.