Well come on down, because the Department of Mental Health is desperate for a few good professionals.  The state built a fancy, state-of-the-art mental health hospital, but they forgot one thing…where are they going to get staff? You see, this brand-spanking new hospital is in Coalinga.  Coalinga you ask?  Yes, it’s in Fresno County, about 70 miles outside of the city of Fresno and right smack dab between SF and LA.  Approximatel 3.5 hours from both, and a couple hours from Bakersfield.  It seems, for some reason, mental health professionals aren’t flocking to come live in Coalinga.

Jackie Speier, one of my favorite state senators (perhaps b/c she is my senator…), wasn’t so impressed with the planning on this one:

“Talk about wasteful spending,” said Sen. Jackie Speier, D-Hillsborough, who is closely involved in overseeing prison issues. She called the hospital a fiasco that, in her view, is a perfect symbol of the state’s poor planning and poor use of resources. “It is just irresponsible not to use this facility,” Speier said.(SF Chron 9/18/06)

You know, I understand the temptation to put these facilities out in the middle of the Central Valley.  But you have to consider staffing it!  As Rob Cordry would say, “I mean Come On!”. Sacramento Geniuses…right Arnold?

Now, as some of you know, I go to Berkeley’s Public Policy school.  However, I have no problem congratulating UCLA for picking up an occasional guest lecturer with an excellent history, Wesley Clark.  The former (and future?) presidential candidate will give occasional lectures and spend a lot of time in our fair Golden State.

Wesley K. Clark, a former NATO commander and 2004 Democratic presidential candidate, will join UCLA this fall as a senior fellow, university officials plan to announce today.

Clark, who is expected to arrive on campus about Oct. 1, will teach occasional seminars, publish policy papers and organize and hold an annual conference on national security, officials said.(LA Times 9/18/06)

Datamar has released a survey(PDF) on the statewide races.  First, I’m not a big fan of Datamar.  It tends to skew to the right.  It’s traditionally a San Diego firm, with only a few scattered statewide polls.

So, to the polls:

Schwarzenegger, Feinstein Enjoy Comfortable Lead
Propositions 1A, 1B, 1E Passing, 1C, And 1D Failing
Propositions 83, 84, 85, 86, 90 Passing, 88, And 89 Failing 
Proposition 87 Too Close To Call

Check out the link for the full details.  But, as I said there are some serious problems with the poll.  I’m not against robo-polls, but here’s the poll for Prop 90:

Q30. Proposition 90 is the Government Acquisition, Regulation of Private Property Initiative . It will prohibit state and local governments from condemning private property for other private uses. If the election were held today, would you vote yes or no on Proposition 90?

That’s the whole question.  It gives a favorable response for over 61%. First, I know that we need to do more to define Prop 90.  I know that there will be the typical shift towards no.  But I just don’t think that’s all the information most voters will have heard about Prop 90 by the time the vote happens.

Oh, yeah, and by the way, that’s where we come in.  tell all ov your friends to vote against Prop 90.  By the way, if you don’t believe me about the questionable validity of this poll: Feinstein has only a 11 point lead in this poll.  In fact, Arnold’s lead is bigger at 12.5 points.  Crazy…

There are a few people I disdain in California politics: Susan Kennedy, Garry South, Randy Thomasson.  I’m typically pretty reserved about casting my vitriol on the ignorant.  This is one story of the ignorant:

Some of Hollywood’s most influential Democrats are throwing their support behind Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s reelection bid, following the lead of Steven Spielberg, Jeffrey Katzenberg and media mogul Haim Saban.

Schwarzenegger’s campaign sent out hundreds of invitations this week to an event — hosted by Sherry Lansing, Casey Wasserman, Danny DeVito and wife Rhea Perlman, director James Cameron and more than two dozen others — asking the Hollywood glitterati to donate up to $22,300 each to attend a fundraiser for the Republican governor at Saban’s Beverly Hills estate on Sept. 30. (LA Times 9/15/06)

You see, it’s not that the Hollywood types really support Arnold’s agenda.  Rather it’s a matter of ignorance and starf$%*ing.  Most of the Hollywood types that are coming out to support Arnold a) don’t really know what Arnold’s true agenda really is b) know Arnold as a friend. 

Part of the blame must lie at our own feet.  We have not given many liberals a reason to support us.  I met Gary Hart yesterday, the former Senator and presidential candidate.  He recenty wrote a a book entitled Courage of Our Convictions, that lays out the importance of a pole.  If Dems aim for the middle and the GOP aims for the right, where does the true political center move?  To the right of course.  We need to annunciate a national vision that gives voters and donors our values.  When we consistenly give voters a reason to support the party, we will consistently get voters to support our candidates. 

( – promoted by SFBrianCL)

PPIC came out with an interesting study of the electorate yesterday.  It’s really rather interesting, and somewhat depressing for progressives in this state. A quick summary: whites are rapidly becoming a reducing minority in the population as a whole, but will maintain their voting majority for some years to come.  Why? Because minorities have been negligent in exercising their voting priviliges.  Frank has a great post at CPR:

The Public Policy Institute of California (PPIC) has released a report today based on interviews with thousands of our state’s residents—voting and nonvoting adults—which shows that if nonvoters made their voices heard at the ballot box, political realities that are taken for given and policies that appear to be set in stone would change by 180 degrees.

California would provide more services and pay higher taxes. Nonvoters prefer higher taxes with more services to lower taxes and fewer services 66% to 26%, but likely voters are in favor only 49 to 44%.

Even Proposition 13, limiting property taxes, might be changed—or at least a dialogue started. Nonvoters think this has been a bad policy by 47 to 29%, but likely voters think it has been good by 56 to 33%. CPR 9/13/06

Now, these are all interesting remarks.  Robert Salladay, at the LA Times Blog Political Muscle posted about it too.  However, Bob got a little sloppy with his wording:

Some good news for pessimists today: California is headed toward a political system dominated by a white minority which votes and sets public policy at the ballot box, while Latinos and other ethnic groups that make up the majority of California’s population sit on the sidelines.(Political Muscle 9/14/06)

You see, that’s some sloppy blogging right there. And Kos called him out on it  in one of his famous fly-by one liners. That’s some language that would have gotten filtered out in your typical LA Times editorial process.  But he left all that behind.  Now, he’s just blogging, and he’s learning that it’s not so easy after all.  If you read the sentence a couple of times, it’s not really racist.  Rather, he’s saying it’s really a bad thing.  I.e., good news for pessimists: you got some bad news.

So, no I don’t think Bob Salladay was trying to be racist, but he’ll learn that he’ll have to be his own editor now.