(Also see the Alliance’s post – promoted by SFBrianCL)

UPDATE: Arnold’s Campaign has launched a fact check on these ads.  Here’s my breakdown of their “fact-check”:

1. They argue that Arnold didn’t cut educational funding by saying that funding went up every year.  True enough, but Arnold did steal money to which the schools were entitled under Prop 98.  That is the real fact that they don’t mention.
2. They then argue that that ABC misstated the cost of the special.  They have a reasonable point, but a relatively minor one.  They don’t even dispute the fact that they wasted money, instead they quibble about the amount: “ABC Misstates Cost Of Special Election And Governor Schwarzenegger Plans To Sign Bill Reimbursing Counties $39 Million For Special Election.” And the fact that Arnold is signing a bill to reimburse the counties just moves the money cost from the counties to the state.  Does Arnold plan on personally reimbursing the state for that $39/70 million dollars, or however much it was? Signing a bill having the state pay isn’t a solution for the cost.
3. On “In his own words” they build a straw man to tear down. Damn you Straw man, why did you say that Arnold wouldn’t raise campaign funds. Oh, I assumed that was you, because ABC certainly never said that.  But that’s what Arnold is trying to tear down.  The point that ABC is making in that ad is that Arnold came to town saying that he doesn’t need special interest money, but then he took $100 million.  He’s no reformer, and no better than any other politician.
4. Their response to the fact that Arnold has taken more special interest money than any other California politician in history?  Well, none, they just say, “yeah, well Phil took some money too, kinda, well, just not as much as Arnold.  Phil is jealous of our cash!” Umm, well, Phil has to take money to keep up with the Governator’s massive cash machine.  And Phil also never went to the Railroad Museum to say how he was going to kick special interest butt.  He went there to support Prop 89 to really reform the way the state plays politics.

I present these ads from the Alliance for a Better California.  In my opinion, they are the best Dem-leaning ads of the cycle.  They make their point.  The first ad says that he’s against working people and that we can’t trust him.

I’ve moved the ads over the flip.

“In His Own Words”

“In the Eye

This second ad talks about his raid on education funding and the special.

The California Nurses Association has been fighting Arnold Schwarzenegger for as long as anybody else.  And they haven’t quit just because he’s changed his colors (to green!) for the election.

Yesterday, CNA members protested in San Francisco, at a $1,000 per plate fundraiser at the Fairmount Hotel, and in Los Angeles at the State’s Women’s Conference.  Apparently, he blessed the event with ten of his very precious moments.  From BeyondChron:

Approximately 30 activists from the California Nurses Association gathered in front of the Fairmont Hotel yesterday to protest a $25,000-a-plate fundraiser that Arnold Schwarzenegger was holding inside for his re-election campaign. Waving signs in support of Proposition 89 (the Clean Money Initiative that will provide public financing for California campaigns), the protesters vowed to challenge Arnold every step of the way as he shatters all campaign fundraising records. Over the next two weeks, the Nurses will target Schwarzenegger at ten sites throughout California (most in the Los Angeles area) as part of their “Hounding Arnold” tour.
{snip}
The Nurses hope to bring Arnold’s Extreme Make-Over to a grinding halt. “The month of October is the chance for [Schwarzenegger’s Democratic opponent] Phil Angelides to change the narrative, and he can do it,” said Shum Preston of the Nurses’ Association. “While Arnold has made some feints towards the center, it hasn’t altered his fundamental character – which is an insatiable fundraiser. Our goal is to create a tsunami of public opinion against Schwarzenegger.”

Arguably, these “hounding Arnold” could be more successful in driving votes from Arnold to Phil than the Alliance ad campaign or CDP’s ads.  dday’s GovernorPhil post expounds on the importance of these events:

But in my view, the ads are not what brought down Schwarzenegger in the special election last year. It was the tenacity of the various union organizations, who were at every public event, in Arnold’s face at every moment, not allowing him a moment in the limelight without them right there with him. They started in January and they didn’t give up. Arnold cracked under the pressure and said “the special interests don’t like me because I kick their butts,” picking a fight with the regular people who help Californians every day, police, firefighters, nurses, teachers. This was the key to victory last year.

I’ll try to cover as many of these events as possible in the upcoming six weeks.

The new CDP ads should be running.  I thought it was a lot better than the previous “Arnold Schwarzenegger is for George W. Bush, is he for you?” ad.  This one actually brings up some of the problems with Arnold Schwarzenegger, rather than just the fact that he’s a Bushite. It first draws parallels from privatization of Social Security with Arnold’s attacks on state pensions. It then moves on to NCLB and Arnold’s stealing money from schools, and concludes with a comparison of raising student loan fee hikes by W and tuition hikes by Arnold.  All in all, a pretty effective ad.

I uploaded it to YouTube as well and it should be up and running in a few minutes:

The union cooperative organization Alliance for a Better California, will begin running ads tomorrow. From Political Muscle:

Alliance for a Better California, the union-backed group that defeated Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s legislative agenda last year, starts a TV advertising blitz Tuesday for Phil Angelides.

The advertising buy is certainly multiple millions of dollars and could last through election day.

This is the big union buy Angelides has been waiting for. The ads say nothing about Angelides, however; they are all about Schwarzenegger. This is an independent expenditure, outside the control of the Angelides campaign.

Better late than never I suppose.  A big ad buy certainly would have been very helpful in July when Phil was being battered by the Schwarzenegger negative ads.  However, the unions have finally decided that Arnold really hasn’t changed.  It’s just to risky to gamble on who Arnold 17.0 will be.

You know, the contradictions in what Arnold Schwarzenegger says and what his aides say and what he actually does are simply staggering.  It’s really hard to peg him down for any real position.  First, Arnold says he will never favor raising taxes.

Governor Schwarzenegger Remains Committed To Passing Budgets And Solving California’s Fiscal Problems Without Raising Taxes. The Governor believes a state cannot tax its way to prosperity or financial health.(joinarnold.com)

However, over the weekend, the Governor said something that doesn’t really comport with all that to the SacBee editorial staff:

As for higher gas taxes, the governor said he opposes them because they hurt the poor more than anyone. Then he suggested he might not be opposed to higher gas taxes if there was a way to levy a steeper rate on wealthy drivers.

“So this is why I’m not for it, just because it’s unfair the way it is done,” Schwarzenegger said. “Ideally, if we had such a thing where those that have more money paid more and those that have no money paid less or nothing, if there could be such a thing. … But we don’t. There’s no computer when you walk up to the gas station, to the pump, that automatically when you put the (card) up says, ‘OK, you have $18,000 in income a year, so you pay only this.’ That doesn’t exist.”(SacBee 9/25/06)

So, you can’t do that huh?  Umm, those are called income tax credits.  It wouldn’t even been that hard.  Here’s my 3 step plan to increase gas taxes in a manner that “doesn’t exist” according to the Governor:

1. Increase statewide gas taxes by the desired percentage.
2. Add a line on the state income tax for how much you spent on gas in the tax year.
3. Give a refundable tax credit for the increased gas taxes to people at or below a certain income level.

See, that wasn’t even that hard.  I just revolutionized the tax code in three easy sentences.  And given the ease of the math, and the fact that we now have computers scanning the taxes, it wouldn’t even be that hard.  Of course, I could point out (and I will) that you could do some cool stuff with this gas tax by making it progressive in several steps.  How fun!!

Now, the thing is that Arnold doesn’t really want a solution for this.  Do you honestly believe that Arnold would really support an increase in the gas tax for the rich?  I doubt it.  My guess is that he just pulled this crap out of his ass in the editorial board meeting and wanted a way to seem smart, moderate, and eco-friendly all at the same time.  He figured this “you can’t put your income in at the pump” analogy would silence all critics.  Umm…not so much.

He’s not going to support an increase in the gas tax on the rich, or on large corporations, or on any other of his buddies. It’s just not going to happen, and that’s a shame.  California deserves better than a man who throws around these flippant remarks and then never bothers to elaborate.  We need a real leader who truly understands the issues of the state, and we definitely need a leader who has views that don’t change month to month or year to year.  Sure Arnold 2006 is all soft and cuddly, but do we really want another year of Arnold 2005?

Campaign Money Watch has released a report that points out Paid-for Pombo’s campaign fundraising from agro-business while all the while trying to gut food safety regulations:

Today the national watchdog group Campaign Money Watch released a report demonstrating how Rep. Richard Pombo (R-CA), who has collected $1.4 million in campaign contributions from agribusiness for his races for Congress, wants to gut California’s strong food safety rules at the same time the public is reeling from an e. coli crisis that has sickened more than 100 people nationwide.

Rep. Pombo is the cosponsor of legislation, H.R. 4167, which passed the House earlier this year without a hearing, which would preempt the right of states to enact stronger food safety regulations than those that are required by the federal government. An industry-led coalition called the National Uniformity for Food Coalition, whose members include top Pombo donors, is pushing for the bill. Among the California laws that would be affected are Proposition 65, which requires the state to annually publish a list of chemicals known to cause cancer or birth defects, as well as recent legislation that sets limits on lead in candy.

How many of these things do we have to hear about from Pombo?  Is there any limit at all to his corruption?  I personally doubt that there is.  By the way, the full report has a lot more details about Pombo’s recent swarminess.

Apparently Chuck Poochigian missed the notice on this one: calling someone a liberal in this state willl not hurrt their election chances.  It just won’t.  It will get the politically active conservatives, the ones who were already going to vote, to vote for you.  But, that will not be enough to even make a serious run at Jerry Brown.  But, Pooch still thinks he’s running in Fresno:

Democrat Jerry Brown is portraying his rival, state Sen. Chuck Poochigian, as a right-wing “extremist” linked to President Bush, while the Fresno Republican has hit back calling the Oakland mayor a “flaky liberal,”…

“The ads are an effort to remind voters who recall Jerry Brown’s disastrous record as governor and mayor of Oakland and of just how out of touch he is with the majority of Californians, Spillane said.(SF Chron 9/25/06)

Oh, you must mean back in the early 80s when California still had one of the best educational systems in the world.  Now, we’re 43rd.  And why is that? Oh yeah, Prop 13 took away revenues from the state and locals and left us with a budget mess.  The good people of the Golden State will see through Poochigian’s pandering to the right.