I usually leave the SacBee editorial bashing to jsw. but I feel I must point out the complete biased garbage that Mr. Weintraub is spewing.  Now first, it’s obvious that Wientraub prefers Westly to Angelides.  Fine, I can handle that, but the following excerpt is pretty much garbage:

Angelides is the angry one, the “anti-Arnold” who has opposed almost everything the governor has tried to do since he was elected in October 2003.
***
Westly is the earnest one. He worked with Schwarzenegger briefly during the governor’s first year in office before pronouncing himself disappointed in Schwarzenegger and turning against him. A former government bureaucrat and college professor who struck it rich as an early employee of e-Bay, Westly’s top priority is going after the underground economy to collect taxes that are owed but haven’t been paid. (Sac Bee

Not particularly glowing reviews of either candidate.  Frankly, I’m quite sick of the media waiting for some other candidate to enter the race (Reiner, Beatty,…).  Both of these candidates are good candidates.  They are both far more qualified than Governor Schwarzenegger.  They both have more experience than he had, more ideas than he has, and better visions for the State. 

And, no, the Democratic Party does not suffer from a lack of ideas.  It’s the media, in this case Weintraub, that suffers from a desire to see a consistent story borne out: Poor pathetic Dems who can’t win the big one.  That story won’t play this time Mr. Weintraub.

(Forgot to promote – promoted by SFBrianCL)

UPDATE: No deal yet, but the recent stories say that it’s getting close.

“We’re very close to coming to an agreement,” Schwarzenegger said Thursday afternoon, just before settling into one of a string of meetings he has conducted in his office the past four days with Democratic and Republican leaders.

“We have some hurdles to overcome and some obstacles to overcome,” Schwarzenegger said, “but I have great hopes.”

The Senate and Assembly had scheduled late sessions Thursday but adjourned so the governor and legislative leaders could continue talks on a compromise package to build highways, schools and levees.

The Assembly adjourned until Monday, but told members to be on call through the weekend. The Senate was to return today.State Senate President Pro Tem Don Perata, D-Oakland, promised a vote by midnight tonight.(Sac Bee 3/10/06)

It looks like a deal for the bond package is getting close.  If it happens soon, it will be able to get on the June primary ballot (typically a better time to pass these sorts of things.)  The deadline for the June ballot is tomorrow (3/10/06), but it looks like legislative leaders and the Governor are going to be able to come to an agreement. 

Hat tip to Julia Rosen, especially for the visual of somebody walking around in a duck suit.  That made  me laugh, mostly because it really describes the craziness of the current atmosphere in Sacramento. The Bee provides more details of the proposed deal:

The elements most discussed seem to be these: education (state funds to match local funds to build schools); water and flood control (regional water projects, levee rapairs, etc.); transportation (a balance between transit and roadway projects); housing (projects targeting low-income residents); and natural resources (funds for coastal preservation and state conservancies).

There are other bond ideas that may not make this package – funds for state prisons, county jails, courthouses and seismic retrofit fixes for hospitals. If those items don’t make it into the package, the governor and Legislature are likely doing the state a considerable service. There are some serious questions about making such investments with state funds that could go to other needs. Beware of last-minute desires to end a debate on, say, water needs, by simply throwing more money at it.(SacBee 3/9/06)

Well, obviously this plan isn’t quite the grand dream Ahnold had in mind, but I actually think this could be a good thing.  We desperately need infrastructure improvements.  The levees need more attention, and affordable housing is a laudable goal.  And the costs are pegged at a more  reasonable figure…always an important feature when it comes to my analysis.

On the down side, high speed rail keeps raising its head.  Personally, I think the costs would outweigh the benefits on this one.  We have a very functional air service between the major regions of California, do we need the high speed rail?  Would enough people ride it to make it worthwhile?  I’m not so sure.

And then there’s the political aspect.  A success in the bond deal would give Arnold a big boost in the general election.  That is why he really wants this on the June ballot.  But for Dems, it can’t be seen as a good thing to hold up infrastructure improvement.  It be like insulting Mom’s apple pie.

As for what was left out, I’m ok with not building more prisons.  We need to get rid of 3 strikes and other BS like that which is filling them up.  However, we do need more courts.  The court system is working on a fraction of the budget they should be getting.  Also, water storage is one of those big concerns that eventually we will have to deal with.  Southern California’s water needs aren’t just going to go away.  Someday we are going to have to deal with water concerns in a more meaningful way.  Apparently today is not that day.  But, that’s ok, they did what was possible, for now.

A poll on Prop 82 has come out showing some strength going into March:

With about 90 days until the June election, 55 percent of likely voters support the Preschool for All measure, compared with 34 percent against and 11 percent undecided. Oakland Tribune 3/8/06

So, support is running pretty high, but not quite high enough to call this a slam dunk.  As I’ve said before, I am very uncomfortable with the way that this Proposition isolates funding from legislative control, creating another sector of the state government that is not truly accountable.  That being said, I think preschool in general is a good idea. 

However, Prop 82 is now having some other problems as well.  Check the flip…

Sen. Tom Torlakson, D-Antioch, has withdrawn his support.  Coming after Perata’s withdrawal of support last week, this is not a good sign.  Prop 82 has more than its share of supporters, but if they keep falling away as election day draws closer, it faces a difficult run.

But the luke-warm support isn’t the only problem that Prop 82 faces.  AG Lockyer has publicly suggested that there might be a probe into funding from Reiner’s Prop 10 funds.  SUch a crossover in funds would be against the law and could create a possibility of invalidating the election or taking it off the ballot. 

Prop 10 is a really good (or bad, depending on how you look at it) example of the domains of no-legislative oversight.  The legislature has very little control over the spending decisions made by the board headed by Reiner.  It has come under much fire recently for some of these spending decisions. This is the result of some really bad policy-making by ballot box in the form of Prop 13, which handcuffed the hands of the legislature from raising any new revenues for the state.  Boy do we ever need another proposition to get rid of Prop 13’s more draconian provisions.

Phil Angelides’ campaign invited a few bloggers to a conference call this afternoon.  As a starting point, I must point out that I am impressed that Angelides is reaching out to the blogging community.  The conference call was an excellent opportunity to ask him a few questions and get a sense of the man behind the candidate.  Considering that he is running against a former Ebay executive, he has done an excellent job of using technology to his benefit.  For that alone I am impressed.

Details of the call on the flip…

So, Phil began by discussing the goals of his campaign and why he wants to be governor.  Going through his backstory (which can be found at his website) and strolling through his beginnings in community organizing.  He of course highlighted his time as chairman of the California Democratic Party and his support of Sens. Boxer and Feinstein.  They are now supporting him.  I suppose it helps to have friends and a history.

He pounced on Arnold, attacking him for reducing support for higher education and the Healthy Families insurance program.  The thing he really pushed is how different he is from Arnold.  This is his strongest selling point for the primary: Phil Angelides never signed on with Arnold’s bizarre agenda.  And for that one has to give him credit.

Another point of interest: Frank Russo, an attorney in the East Bay who is working on establishing a blog, asked about the nature of the campaign.  Phil promised to run a principled campaign, “a campaign that will make California proud.”

Finally, the state’s infrastructure came up.  Jonathon Singer of mydd.com asked a general question about the bonding package.  He gave a standard political answer about Arnold’s focus not being in the right place.  Too much highways, not enough mass transit, etc.  I followed up with a question about the delta flood plain issue.  While he did not address my point blank question, of whether he supported a moratorium on construction in selected flood plains, he did address the long term flood control issue.  Phil highlighted the fact that we need more federal dollars for the levees as well as the possibility of stakeholders paying for some of these programs.

All in all,  I think it was a good process of feeling out Angelides a little bit.

I just wanted to get some stuff from Francine Busby’s campaign on the front page.  We’ve had lots of stuff about the Rs in the campaign, and I thought it would be great to hear about Busby’s campaign straight from her.  So, in addition to the audio that BigDog04 posted, this is her Democratic Radio Address to the Nation (mp3).  She also has a whole bunch of articles about her campaign on her website, her press page has most of them.  Check it out.

Don Perata, Senate President Pro Tempore, has mad some very loud grumblings against Rob Reiner’s preschool initiative.  And good for him.  It’s about time somebody stood up to some of these good sounding propositions which slice money off from the control of the Legislature and the traditional Budget Process.  This program is expensive and there is no reason to spend this money. Perata said the following in an interview:

And I think there are some flaws there that are I think fatal. … There’s no means test, and so it looks to me like it would be really a boon for middle-to upper-middle-class families, though it would not serve equally – it would not provide equal access. There’s no mandate in there for county superintendents to use anything other than school districts, and if you come from a community like mine, where community-based organizations – or what economists call NGOs – they provide a huge swath of social and health care services. … So that’s another flaw. Spending $8,000 for three hours is more than some school districts’ K-12 can spend for an entire day. And, I mean, the list kind of goes on, unfortunately. Sac  Bee 3/1/06

Well, now that somebody said it, does anybody want to convince me that Prop 82 is a good idea.  And if it is a good idea, why shouldn’t it go through the traditional legislative process?