Hat tip to Bill Bradley and Julia Rosen.

The Wall Street Journal has a poll on battleground races that has both Angelides and Westly leading:

Angelides v. Schwarzenegger:
Angelides:  45.5%
Schwarzenegger:  40.7%

Westly v. Schwazenegger:
Westly:  47.1%
Schwazenegger:  37.8%

Also see the Rasmussen poll, which has the race has a toss-up.

I know Angelides has gotten a lot of momentum recently from endorsements and such, but Westly’s poll numbers are generally better against Ahnold.  I’m a bit shy about using that as a voting rationale in the primary after the Kerry ’04 debacle, but it’s there and may affect the results of the primary.

California News Roundup is on the flip. It’s brief — quarter-end is a drag. Teasers: Shwarzenegger team campaign finance violations, blogs in CA-50, solar power, salmon, Filson interviewed, Pombo too extreme for other Republicans, anti-government group loses in court, research to be done on CA schools. There’s immigration news, but nothing all that new, so not in the roundup today.

• ABC spanks Arnold for campaign finance violations in the failed Special Election power grab.
• CQ Politics has coverage on the blogs’ effect on the CA-50 campaign, mostly around the Kaloogian photo fiasco.
• Lake Elsinore, in SoCal, goes live with big solar power project.
• CQ Politics interviews Steve Filson. One wonders if they’ll do Jerry McNerney next.
• Capitol Weekly has dueling environmental position pieces by the two main Democratic candidates for Governor: Angelides | Westly.
• A Santa Clara County Judge dismissed a case from an anti-government group trying to stop the voters from deciding on a sales tax adder in June.
• Richard Pombo’s intended gutting of the Endangered Species Act may be too radical for the Republicans in the Senate. They’re scared of even touching the subject because of what he’d do in conference committee.
• There’s gonna be a big ol’ pile of reports on the California school system sometime around the end of the year. One hopes that they will be both nonpartisan and informative.
• Klamath salmon get some help going home to spawn: fish ladders. Closure of the fishery still looms, though.
• San Jose is hosting a conference for Asian-American and Indo-American Democratic leaders. This is a good thing.

On the flip, one will find the Californa Blog Roundup for today, if one is so inclined. Teasers: Absolute disaster with McPherson voter registration database, Reiner resigns, CA-50 polling and Busby immmigration policy, Arnold’s new consultants and their classiness, lots of immigration, a little Doolittle, Some CA-2 and CA-11, Kid Oakland, and a good lawyer.

• State Senator (and candidate for Secretary of State) Debra Bowen responds to the godawful voter registration database problems in Bruce McPherson’s Election Division — 43% new voters rejected in LA County, 26% statewide. Simply unacceptable. Seems to me that this kind of thing is a good argument for a change in the Secretary of State. The Brad Blog has a good explanation of how it happened and exactly how insane it is.
• The California Observer breaks the news that Rob Reiner resigned from the California Children and Families Commission. Arnold still digs Reiner, though.
• Chris Bowers of the mighty MyDD has a look at the latest Survey USA poll in CA-50. Francine Busby seems to have a surprisingly large plurality. San Diego Politics reports that Move On is mobilizing for Busby. Also, they’ve got a report of Kaloogian’s weak weak response to the photo fiasco.
• Down With Tyranny points us to Francine Busby’s immigration proposal, which sounds, well, sane. That’s a nice change from the Republican House, at least.
• Alliance for a Better California has more on the Schwarzenegger consultants, who are clearly from the Bush-Rove school of campaigning. Unsurprisingly, Matthew Dowd sees no distinction between the Schwarzenegger campaign and the California government. This is a core insight of the Rove-driven Republican Party, which we are now seeing replicated in California.
• As Seen from Just Above Sunset excerpts a great piece from an author in New Mexico concerning what it is to be American and Latino.
• Leftcoast at Best of the Blogs argues for an official language as consistent with liberal values. Mark Kleiman makes a similar argument, and throws in some reference to the Know-Nothings and Mickey Kaus as a nice historical context. History may not repeat itself exactly, but it does tend to rhyme.
• Jeanne D’Arc from Body and Soul thinks that the official language idea is not so good. Beautifully written, as always.
• Marc Cooper continues his series on immigration, illegal and otherwise, with a personal story. The comments are fun too. Bill Bradley makes several appearances, as does Mark York.
• left i on the news: it’s funny because it’s true.
• Nite Swimming continues the series on John Doolittle’s money-laundering through his helpmeet. Is a shame lobotomy mandatory, or just recommended, in order to become a Republican House member?
• John Drzal of NorCal Progressive has a profile of the Democratic candidate for CA-2, running against Wally Herger.
• PomboWatch wants to know wny Richard Pombo, head of the House Resource Committee, never did anything for the piñeros.
• I was sure the CA-33 blog was dead, but its proprietor has reported on a Culver City Council race. Click through, and show him some love and encouragement.
• Bouphonia has the funniest response to the Kaloogian photo fiasco I’ve yet seen.
• Kid Oakland finds this century disappointing, at least so far.
• Lies.com has a great story in which some lawyers do some good. I’ve met the Fenwick partner who went to bat for the blogger in this story, and by all accounts he’s a good guy. I’m glad to see him using his skill set this way.

Sorry for the late blog roundup. Been nonstop on other projects today since I posted the News Roundup this morning. Teasers for the flip: More Immigration, Dumptruck of Doolittle, Deep Thoughts on CA-11, Arnolds Ads, Miscellany.

Immigration

• Apparently Arnold Schwarzenegger, or at least his staff, had some things to say about immigration in an LA Times Op-Ed. Frank Russo at California Progress Report puts Schwarzenegger’s remarks in context, which is, ah, unflattering to the Governor. Bill Bradley (occasional commenter here — Hi Mr. Bradley!) is more supportive of Schwarzenegger (Bradley’s pick for Governor in the recall), and he just can’t resist an old-old-old-school jab at people who don’t care for the term “illegal immigrant”.
• Marc Cooper has some good thoughts on immigration, including a note to the effect that the big marches around the country were driven by Spanish-language media, which went right under the radar of the English-speakers in traditional media. I think I speak for Calitics when I say that we would welcome a Spanish-language blogger to Calitics. My Spanish is good, but not good enough.
• Politics in the Zeros says we need to take it to the streets, and wonders why Kos (as a high-profile Latino immigrant) hasn’t been more active on the immigration front. I’ve wondered why Kos doesn’t have a Spanish version of the front-paged posts.
• janinsanfran has a great series of pictures from San Francisco.
• The Idiotarian Savant thinks that Bradley and Kaus have the “blowback” narrative exactly backwards.

Doolittle, Doolittle, Doolittle

• Words Have Power on the Doolittle trickle-down economics of corruption.
• Nite Swimming, riffing on the same source material, talks about the effects of that trickle. And yet again, focusing on the Auburn Dam project as reflected in local letters to the editor.
• Dump Doolittle reports an endorsement of Doolittle from what may be the most inappropriately named newspaper on the planet.
• AnthonySF at DKos has a story on what a class act Doolittle is. The punch line is awesome.

CA-11

All of these links are from Say No To Pombo:

• Time for Thomas to Drop Out?
• More McNerney Endorsements.
• Wes Rolley’s thoughts on the primary, which I can’t summarize so you just need go read them already, ok, just go.

Everything Else

• Alliance for a Better California has some good critiques of the new eentsy-weentsy Schwarzenegger ad buy: Arnold on jobs, then and now, synchronization with “non-campaign” stops, old old news. I think Dowd is reprising the Swift Boat strategy, without the vicious lies yet: make a small ad buy the story, and get the press to do your advertising for you as part of the horse-race coverage.
• Arnold hires still more consultants from Bush/Cheney 2004.
• The California Observer points us to a new California Budget Project report on the minimum wage. I’ve downloaded, but not yet read.
• Julia Rosen (Jay Rosen’s niece — whaddya know?) on Carla Marinucci’s climbing the learning curve from reporter to blogger.

According to Rasmussen Reports, a Republican-leaning polling outfit, these are the current numbers:

The latest Rasmussen Reports election poll in California shows Schwarzenegger trailing State Treasurer Phil Angelides by one percentage point, 45% to 44%. That is the same nominal edge Angelides enjoyed in our February poll, when he led 41% to 40%.

State Comptroller Steve Westly leads 45% to 44%. In our last poll, Schwarzenegger led Westly 39% to 34%.
…
The fact that both Democrats poll essentially the same numbers at this time suggests the race remains a referendum on the incumbent rather than a choice between competing candidates.

The Referendum-on-Arnold model is very different from Matthew Dowd’s (public) “it’s a choice” strategy for the Schwarzenegger campaign.

( – promoted by SFBrianCL)

At least in politics, especially California politics with our large media markets.  Schwarzenegger is likely going to have an advantage over whomever we select in our primary.  So, one of the things that we need to consider is who can raise a ton of money to win the Governor’s race.  So far, Westly has the advantage:

The campaign financial reports released Wednesday were grim reading for state Treasurer Phil Angelides, the leader in the polls. Although he has a substantial $14.5 million in the bank, that’s still $8.5 million less than the $23 million state Controller Steve Westly had on tap as of March 17, the closing day for the reports.  The actual gap is somewhat less because Westly’s report showed $1.6 million in unpaid bills.(SF Chron 3/23/06)

Of course, you have to consider that Westly has a big bank of his own.  He put $2.5 million in recently, a sum larger than Angelides has raised all year.  That Chronicle article also has a lot of information about the financial situations of the down ballot races as well

Today’s CaliBlogger roundup below the fold:

• Daddy, Papa & Me notes that the San Francisco Archdiocese is looking at preventing SF Catholic Charities from placing children for adoption with GLBT couples. In related news, the SF Chronicle tells us that a new Field Poll finds a significant positive shift in Californian’s views of same-sex marriage, relationships, military service, and adoption. Can’t happen fast enough.
• Left I on The News draws a contrast between the amount that the proposed Santa Clara County sales tax bump would raise, and the amount of money already spent in Iraq. Bottom Line: Santa Clara County residents have spent way more on Iraq.
• Santa Cruz for Change notes that Christine Pelosi (Nancy Pelosi’s daughter) will be offering her perspective tomorrow night on the Reid / Pelosi plan for the 2006 mid-terms. I look forward to hearing that. Perhaps Ms. Pelosi can explain where regulating bloggers, coming out against Feingold’s censure resolution, and enforcing an ethics truce in the House play into that plan.
• On that note, one should read Robert Shaw’s piece in BeyondChron, and the resulting letters.
• Say No To Pombo has two good posts. First, Richard Pombo gets new House Ag Committee leadership role, no doubt to show that some good Pombo pork will come to the Central Valley should he be relected. Second, VPO suggests that some Dems switch their registration to Decline to State for the primary in order to vote for McCloskey in the Republican primary.
• The BradBlog (the place to go for all your voting machine news) points us to a great summary of the suit against Secretary of State Bruce McPherson to prevent him from certifying the Diebold voting machines for the upcoming elections. The summary, unsurprisingly, comes from State Sen. Debra Bowen, herself a candidate for Secretary of State.
• The California Observer points us to this handy list of the contributors who ponied up at the Schwarzenegger / McCain Corporate Interest Festival earlier this week.
• The Left Coaster’s paradox rips into Carolyn Lochhead of the Chron for failing to call Bush out on a flat-out lie. Note as well, toward the end of the article, the verbatim reprint of Bush’s Luntz-approved “Democrat Party” sneer, without even a [sic]. Maybe Lochhead and the Chron don’t know that the name of the party is the Democratic Party, now matter how many times the Republicans call it something else.

I just wanted to point out that Survey USA had released their latest poll results. Check out Alliance for a BetterCA and S-USA’s site.

All voters (last month)
Approve 36% (32)
Disapprove 61% (65)
Not Sure 3% (3)

Arnold plans to raise anywhere between $75 and $120 million for his re-election:

A former top Schwarzenegger advisor has told business leaders that the governor is trying to raise $120 million for the November election, much of it for the state Republican Party. Schwarzenegger has refuted that figure, and aides now say his goal for the year is $75 million.

Whatever the target, his schedule in the weeks ahead includes a long roster of events to gather campaign money from donors, many of whom have a stake in decisions he makes as governor.(LA Times March 21, 2006)

The unions have already started their protests at the prospect of Ahnold spending all summer raising cash. Go Unions!

In Beverly Hills on Monday, unions held their first major protest of the year against the Republican governor’s collection of campaign money. About 200 nurses, bus drivers, school clerks and other union members marched outside a private Schwarzenegger reception and dinner for donors, who paid up to $100,000 for seats near the governor and his guest speaker, U.S. Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.).

As Schwarzenegger was ensconced with top supporters inside the Beverly Hilton, sign-waving protesters shouted from the sidewalks outside at rush-hour traffic on Wilshire and Santa Monica boulevards.

***

The scenes were similar to the dozens of protests that organized labor held last year during its successful battle to kill Schwarzenegger’s November ballot initiatives. This year, of course, the target is his reelection.

The unions’ core message on Monday — that Schwarzenegger broke his campaign pledge to shun special-interest money — is part of a broader effort by labor and its Democratic allies to cast the governor as a standard politician who fails to keep his word.

“He said he wasn’t going to take special-interest money, and then this fundraiser flies in the face of everything he said he would be,” said Robin Swanson, a spokeswoman for the Alliance for a Better California, the union coalition formed last year to fight Schwarzenegger’s ballot measures.

Good work Alliance for a Better CA!  I also just thought it would be nice to point out what the GOP donors are getting for that money (on the flip).  He spent over $140 million out of his campaign funds so far!

The fact remains that Arnold claimed he was going to be a governor who would reject special interest money, yet he revels in it and what it can buy him.  The fundraising binge that he is now pursuing is both disheartening for our state and an embarassment for our electoral system that we need $100million campaigns.

Big spender

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has spent more than $142.5 million in campaign donations since entering politics about four years ago.

A sampling:

—

Sources: California Secretary of State, Times research LA Times