There’s lots of California bloggy goodness from the last couple days.

CA-50

There’s really only one story for CA-50 today. Francine Busby is coming up to the special election on April 11. She’s posted a diary on MyDD, and is asking for one more push for cash and phonebank volunteers. (Email to volunteer)

CA-4

Democratic candidate Charlie Brown receives the Californa Labor Federation’s endorsement in the Democratic primary. I note as well that Charlie Brown will be at the Plough & Stars this Sunday for a fund-raiser. That might be worth the price of admission.

CA-11

• Buzzword Alert: Pombowatch discusses the soundness, or lack thereof, of the “sound science” that Richard Pombo touts in support of his natural resource pillage plans.
• Pombowatch also points us to Richard Pombo’s real record on supporting the troops: Veterans Shortchanged I and Veterans Shortchanged II (now with extra McCloskey). Remember folks, what they do, not what they say. A scoundrel will be more eager to wrap himself in the flag than a patriot.
• Delta of Say No To Pombo has a good discussion discussion about the CA-11 Republican primary. The post is just the jumping off point — be sure to read the comments as well.
• Similarly, Matt Lockshin at SNTP posts on the California Labor Federation’s endorsement of Jerry McNerney, and contrasts it with Steve Filson’s backers. Again, the discussion in comments is worth reading.
• Down With Tyranny, by contrast, has an interesting discourse on the intervention in the CA-11 Democratic primary by Senator Boxer, Representative Pelosi, and the DC Dem establishment generally.

Statewide

• Bill Bradley tells us that the Angelides and Westly campaigns are going to stop the attack memos emailed to bloggers and reports. We at Calitics are grateful — now we can take our fingers out of our metaphorical ears.
• Shari of An Old Soul reminds us that partisan rancor in state capitols is a Grover Norquist goal, and points out some of the structural problems that help create that rancor in California.
• Alliance for a Better California points us to an LA Times article on Schwarzenegger’s big-money, fat-cat big-spending ways.
• And last, Cab Drollery points us to an LA Times Op-Ed on the political money trap generally, and the need for public campaign financing.

Think Piece

Kid Oakland on the absolute necessity of change whether we want it or not.

In which we investigate what various folks think happened to the bond measure last week.

Political Tactics

• R’s Rant says in part, the Republican demand that work performed under the bond be more easily contracted out, away from the union workers of the state.
• Gropinator points out Schwarzenegger’s failures in tactics, largely revolving around Schwarzenegger’s own Republican party. (I should give credit where credit is due: much of Gropinator’s analysis is based on Daniel Weintraub’s analysis, without the Weintraub “Dems are cynical politicos” snark.)
• John Drzal, of NorCal Progressive, notes that the Republican non-negotiable demand for new dams didn’t help matters.

Structural Problems

• Here at Calitics, Brian and our learned commenters point out that California’s supermajority requirement for bonds and budgets and the Proposition 13 revenue handcuffs actually cause most of the gridlock. Schwarzenegger is not much of a leader, but Sacramento is hard to lead.
• Last, Frank Russo of California Progress Report points out that the question before the legislature wasn’t whether to approve the bond measure, but to let the voters approve it. The Republican’s refusal to do so was essentially a minority veto.

My take on it is pretty simple. The Republicans in California want to be the party of “tear it all down” just like the national Republicans. But since they can’t get a majority in the legislature, all they can be is the party of “no more progress, ever” by means of the supermajority requirements. Schwarzenegger is only a very little bit different. He’s a one-man party of “no progress except through Schwarzenegger”.

Last week, the Republicans in the legislature exercised their minority veto on the “except through Schwarzenegger” clause. No progress, ever. It’s that simple. And honestly, though California needs the infrastructure work badly, I can’t feel sorry for Schwarzenegger that his own party shot him down. After last year’s abusive and expensive failed hard-right Schwarzenegger power grab, this has the scent of poetic justice for Arnold.

[Originally Posted by LSchwark on Norcal Politics, October 21, 2005]

California’s First Lady, Maria Shriver, will be hosting a women’s conference next week, the "Governor and First Lady’s Conference on Women". This was the conference where, last year, Governor Arnold made his famous remark calling nurses "special interests" and boasting "I kick their butts every day". A women’s conference was an especially unfortunate venue for issuing a smackdown of a profession that is heavily populated by women. It was also the point at which people began resisting his agenda with a passion and his poll numbers started to sag.

So you might think he would make an effort not to ruin his wife’s conference this year. Well, you’d be wrong.

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, at a Monday press conference, may have fueled the political fire when he said his wife might use the conference to talk about her view of the election ballot issues.

"You will hear from her," said Schwarzenegger after being asked a question about his wife’s positions on the special election measures.

Schwarzenegger, giving a plug for her women’s conference, then promised, "I think she’s going to talk about that there … and you will see what she thinks about my work and the initiatives and what we are trying to accomplish here."

But that has prompted a curt — and definite — denial from Shriver’s office.

Shriver won’t "use this inspirational day to discuss the upcoming special election — or her views on the various reform measures," said Terri Carbaugh, her spokeswoman. "It’s a day free from politicking, free from partisanship, free from electioneering. And the women who attend can feel safe from the political warfare that is naturally pervasive in the days prior to an election."

I can only imagine that this has Arnold in the doghouse, big time. I mean, it’s one thing to issue a statement that overshadows the conference once, but two years in a row? Even better, we may never learn her position on the issues. Her spokesperson has this to say:

As to the governor’s comments suggesting that Shriver would take a political stand at next week’s event, Carbaugh said she could not explain them. Indeed, she said he could not predict when or if Shriver would ever go public on her views on the special election.

"It’s important to remember that Maria comes from a journalist point of view, and as such, how she votes and the position she may or may not have, she tends to keep private, like most California journalists," she said. "She’ll cast her votes at the ballot box and leave it at that. "

Before I leave this issue, let me just note the actual measures he wants his wife to endorse:

• Prop 74: Blaming teachers for the problems in out schools by extending the probation period for tenure from two to five years. That means teachers could be fired without cause for three years longer. How does this put kids first? It doesn’t. It just means more teachers will leave the profession after a few years. Teacher turnover is already a problem. Making it worse seems like a bad idea, to put it mildly. Moreover, as this AP article points out, the proposition is so poorly written it actually makes it harder to fire teachers after they have tenure.
• Prop 75: Targets public employee organizations (such as teachers, nurses, firefighters, police — some of Arnold’s biggest critics) by adding additional requirements meant to restrict their participation in political campaigns. Once partially muzzled, it would be much easier to target schools, medical services, fire and police and other services for cuts if the proposal passes. It’s fairly plain — if the people who most understand what effect the cuts will have are partially silenced, the public will have a harder time learning of the true effects of further proposals.
• Prop 76: Setting school funding limits that even the state legislative analysis admits will likely result in a "ratchet effect" (see page 3, second column of the PDF) that lowers future school funding levels following years where money is short, as growth would be limited by previous years’ funding levels. Again, like nursing, teaching is a profession populated largely by women.

Now, there are lots of ways to characterize these things. You could call them anti-worker and anti-education. But teachers are affected by all three and nurses by the "stifle yourself" Prop 75. I don’t think it’s unfair to add anti-women to the list.

No wonder Maria wants none of this at her conference.

Californa Blog Roundup for March 16, 2006

All on the flip…

• Following up on yesterday’s California Observer report on Assembly Speaker Fabian Núñez asking the Secretary of State about the June ballot deadline, we find that Secretary of State McPherson has responded. The answer seems to be that the deadline can probably move if the Legislature and Governor are willing to pay extra and provide somewhat less public input.
• R’s Rant asks why we need to rush the bond measure through. This seems like a good question. If we’re going to create tens of billions of dollars of new debt for ourselves and our children, maybe we should really take our time on it.
• And by default according to New West Notes (and others), it appears that we may be taking our time on it. Bradley’s follow-up post from 6.:46 this morning lays out exactly how FUBAR this process was. I know that one should never see legislation or sausage being made, but this sounds far too much like “The Jungle” for anyone’s comfort
• The CA-11 Blog (On the blogroll today, I promise), tells us that Richard Pombo (CA-11) really has no truck with the reality-based scientific community, and is apparently in favor of mercury poisoning. When politicians and corporate leaders take these kinds of stands, I always want to know what they feed their children.
• Marlene Rose at Down With Tyranny reports that John Doolittle (CA-4) is shilling for social security privatization. Doolittle has apparently never seen a bad idea he didn’t like.
• reid fan at Daily Kos attended the recent CA-50 Special Election debate and reports back, with pictures. And now, crossposted to Calitics… thanks, CarlsbadDem. Please keep coming back.
• ortcutt, also at Daily Kos, summarizes (and handicaps) the current candidates for the various California statewide offices.
• And last, but by no means least, Pombowatch has been paying attention to what looks like some below-the-radar politics by Pombo affiliates in the CA-11 campaign. It’s a little complex, so just go read it.

That’s it for today. Use the comments to let us know of other bloggy California goodness.

Arnold Schwarzenegger is newly humble and bipartisan, so he says, after he took a beating for his hard-right politics and crass attempt at a power grab in last year’s special election.

Nobody with a pulse should believe that.

Schwarzenegger 2006 is shaping up to look like Bush 2000, complete with compassionate conservative rhetoric from the top of ticket for the general population, hardcore Republican fire-breathing from the #2 slot, and carefully targeted negative attacks on his opposition based on voter’s “anger points”. Don’t take my word for it. Schwarzenegger’s campaign preparation says so.

First, Schwarzenegger is teaming up with Movement Conservative Republican Tom McClintock:

Typically in California, candidates for governor and lieutenant governor don’t campaign as running mates — but you’d never guess it by watching Republicans Arnold Schwarzenegger and Tom McClintock lately.

The 2006 campaign is still young, but Schwarzenegger, the incumbent governor seeking an uncertain re-election, and McClintock, a state senator from Ventura County running for lieutenant governor, look very much like a tag team.

Personal friendship — and political necessity — have forged an alliance between the two that mirrors a presidential-vice presidential slate, with each shoring up the other’s weaknesses.

Schwarzenegger helps boost McClintock’s visibility and fundraising ability. McClintock, in turn, has recently rushed in to aid Schwarzenegger by tamping down trouble from his right flank.

Schwarzenegger is Bush, McClintock is Cheney. We all know exactly how compassionate the Bush brand of conservatism has been, and hopefully we will all remember how aggressively Schwarzenegger pushed the extremist Republican agenda in last year’s special election. If you want to know what another Schwarzenegger administration would look like, listen to McClintock, not Schwarzenegger.

Second, look at the team that Schwarzenegger is assembling for the 2006 Election.

• Campaign Manager Steve Schmidt:
  

  Deputy assistant to President Bush and counselor to Vice President Dick Cheney who is responsible for Cheney’s press relations and communications …

  White House point man in charge of strategic communications for the Supreme Court nomination of Judge Samuel Alito …

  [H]eld the same post for the nomination of John Roberts, who was confirmed in September as the nation’s chief justice.

  [E]arned his reputation as a steely political strategist who ran the Bush 2004 war room and became a member of the exclusive Breakfast Club, the small group of top operatives who planned the campaign during regular meetings at the home of White House political strategist Karl Rove.

• Chief Strategist Matthew Dowd:
  

  And what came from that analysis was a graph that I obviously gave Karl, which showed that independents or persuadable voters in the last 20 years had gone from 22 percent of the electorate to 7 percent of the electorate in 2000. And so 93 percent of the electorate in 2000, and what we anticipated, 93 or 94 in 2004, just looking forward and forecasting, was going to be already decided either for us or against us. You obviously had to do fairly well among the 6 or 7 [percent], but you could lose the 6 or 7 percent and win the election, which was fairly revolutionary, because everybody up until that time had said, “Swing voters, swing voters, swing voters, swing voters, swing voters.”

  And so when that graph and that first strategic imperative began to drive how we would think about 2004, nobody had ever approached an election that I’ve looked at over the last 50 years, where base motivation was important as swing, which is how we approached it. We didn’t say, “Base motivation is what we’re going to do, and that’s all we’re doing.” We said, “Both are important, but we shouldn’t be putting 80 percent of our resources into persuasion and 20 percent into base motivation,” which is basically what had been happening up until that point, because of — look at this graph. Look at the history. Look what’s happened in this country. And obviously that decision influenced everything that we did. It influenced how we targeted mail, how we targeted phones, how we targeted media, how we traveled, the travel that the president and the vice president did to certain areas, how we did organization, where we had staff. All of that was based off of that, and ultimately, thank goodness, it was the right decision.

• Communications Director Katie Levinson:
  

  [D]irector of White House television operations … is viewed in GOP circles as a major recruit in the 2008 presidential staff sweepstakes, [and] handled television strategy and planning for the Republican National Committee in 2004.

• Deputy Communications Director Matt David:
  

  “I’m deputy director of communications for Supreme Court nominees at the White House. I work with the media and make sure our supporters are briefed on our current message. This requires identifying potential issues in the media, drafting talking points, and talking to the press. Our objective is to convey the qualifications of our nominee and respond proportionally to attacks from his or her critics. I’ve worked on the nominations of Chief Justice John Roberts, White House Counsel Harriet Miers and Judge Samuel Alito.”

• Matt McDonald (apparently controls rapid response team): Ran rapid response for Bush/Cheney 2004 campaign, and for Bush Administration after 2004 election.
• Sarah Simmons, former aide to Karl Rove in the White House political office, serving as strategist Matthew Dowd’s liaison in California.
  

  SARAH SIMMONS, a former Wisconsin GOP political operative, has moved from the polling firm Public Opinion Strategies to the White House. Simmons will be dealing with strategic reaction to polling data in her position as assistant director in the Office of Strategic Initiatives. (WISpolitics 5/13/05)

• Deputy Campaign Manager Reed Galen: Best evidence is that he was Director of Scheduling for Bush/Cheney 2004.
• Jon Berrier, Assistant to Steve Schmidt: Executive Assistant to Steve Schmidt in Schmidt’s role as Counselor to Vice President Cheney.

That team is custom-built to replicate the Bush campaign strategy in California. Schwarzenegger’s going to be a moderate front man for a classic Bush Republican campaign. Proxies for Schwarzenegger will attack Phil Angelides and Steve Westly with radical smears directed at what the Dems consider to be their strengths. Schwarzenegger will float above the fray, saying little of substance, while his hard men do their dirty work.

It’s not as if the Republicans have a lot of new tricks. They just hammer on the old ones with great vigor. I just hope the California Dems can learn from the National Dems.

Arnold, during the recall and now, claims that he is trying to be an “enviromental governor.” He issues nice platforms  says that he is tough on global warming and makes some pretty nice speeches. And you have to give him some credit.  At least he doesn’t continue on with the lack of evidence baloney:

I say the debate is over – We know the science, we see the threat, and the time for action is now. World Environment Day 6/1/05

But unfortunately, you can’t have it both ways.  He wants to control environmental threats, protect Californians and not injure businesses.  But as they say in the world you can only pick two.  One has to be sacrificed.

And it’s the same with the levee situation in the Sacramento Delta. He says he wants to protect the people living there as well as potential people who want to move there and, of course, to protect development interests in the region.  But you can’t have it all.  So, he’s going to let developers continue building in the flood plain, even while acknowleding that we need to spend $6 Billion in flood protection.  Here’s his logic:

“The reason I don’t like to go toward not building — there are some people who believe that’s the way to go — is that, if you say to yourself, let’s not build in flood prone areas, what do we say about earthquake prone areas?” Schwarzenegger said in an interview with The Bee. “Then you say, the Bay Area, it has a lot of earthquakes…Should no one build in the Bay Area?”

Of course, it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out the flaw in that logic.  In the Bay Area, we have earthquake codes.  We do not build buildings anymore that do not meet a very strict level of earthquake stability.  In the Flood Plain, besides building every house on stilts (which I don’t see happening), what are you going to do?  If a flood comes in the next ten years before the money from the bond package is spent to protect the Flood Plain, what happens then?  Well, all of that development is destroyed with the possibility of death thrown in for the residents.  So, yes, I would not build a rickety building in the Bay Area, but nor should we build in the flood plain until we have given those communities the best possible shot of surviving the natural disasters that are sure to arrive.

The Field Corp has released two major polls in the last two days.  The first (PDF) was a poll on Gov. Schwarzenegger involving his approval ratings, his budget, and the bond proposals.  His approval numbers are up to 40% with 49% disapproval.  His bond package is heavily supported: 56% for to 27% against. However, one must take this for what it is.  It doesn’t compare other plans to the governor.  So what they are really polling on is whether we need to do infrastructure improvement through a bond program.  It would be interesting to see a poll with a comparison plan allowing for choices between the various bond proposals.  However, that’s not likely to come as the deadline for the June ballot is rapidly approaching.

The more recent poll (PDF) concerned the gubenatorial campaign.  Currently Steve Westley has a four point lead on the Governator, which is within the MOE (+/- 6%).  Angelides is tied with Schwarzenegger at 39%.  However, Ahnold’s “unlikely to vote for” group decreased from 55% to 47%.

Last year at about this time, a 56% majority of voters said they were inclined to re-elect Schwarzenegger as this state’s Governor. However, since then voter opinions of the Governor have soured considerably. In four subsequent Field Poll surveys conducted since then, the proportions of voters inclined to re-elect the Governor have dropped to the 34% to 39% range. The current survey finds just 37% favoring his re-election at this time, 47% not inclined to support him and 16% undecided. This represents a decline in the percentage of voters disinclined to reelect the governor compared to October and an increase in the proportion undecided.
One factor working against the Governor is that only 65% of Republicans are inclined to back him for re-election, 14% are disinclined and an  unusually large 21% are undecided. (Field Poll 3/2/06)

The effects of the union barrage following the Special Election are fading somewhat.  While Arnold is attempting to pull off a new modeate appearance, the electorate is not totally sure how to treat him.  His cozy relationship with McClintock scares some voters (it does me anyway) and the unions haven’t really forgiven him.  On Tuesday’s California Report (KQED), Art Polaski, E.D. of California Labor Federation, claims that he’s still waiting for the Governor’s phone call.  And until he makes peace the unions, it will be hard for Schwarzenegger to win any elections, special or otherwise.

I’ve been avoiding writing about the Schwarzenegger vs. Perata fight over the big bond package.  At the moment, I just don’t feel sufficiently informed about the details, and I reckon things will heat up in March, after the June 6 ballot deadline.  But one item in particular kept sticking out in most of the articles about Schwarzenegger’s bond proposal:

[Democrats] Murray, Laird and Chu also criticized Schwarzenegger’s call for a constitutional amendment that would limit annual bond payments to 6 percent of the state’s main budget account, the general fund.

Imposing a cap, administration officials say, would keep California from going too deeply into the red.

“We wanted to have some sort of limit on debt services, although I admit 6 percent is not a magic number,” [State Finance Director Mike] Genest told the [state legislature conference] committee.

If six percent isn’t a magic number, I thought, then why pick that number in particular?  Surely the number wasn’t just pulled out of the air.  I mean, it’s a Constitutional Amendment, after all.  Daniel Weintraub (of all people) rides to the rescue:

Gov. Schwarzenegger’s numbers crunchers have been circulating some figures to legislative leaders and others that compare the debt service cost of his $68 billion infrastructure borrowing plan to the outline floated by Assembly Speaker Fabian Nunez for a $30 billion package.

According to the figures from the Department of Finance, if the state authorizes no more borrowing, the debt service on general obligation and revenue bonds will peak at about 5 percent of general fund revenues in 2010, then decline over time to 1.89 percent 20 years from now. With the governor’s plan to sell $68 billion in bonds, that debt service would eventually reach about 6 percent of the general fund, compared to about 4.73 percent today.

Well, look at that.  Six percent is a magic number.  It’s the number at which nobody after Governor Schwarzenegger can ever borrow money until Schwarzenegger’s debt is paid down.  It’s a low-rent starve-the-beast Norquist-style strategy for the state government.  (Weintraub conveniently forgot to mention this astonishing coincidence in his entry on the topic, though he does manage to find time to craft a paragraph to snipe at the Democrats in the state legislature — priorities are important.)

Schwarzenegger 2006 is shaping up to look like Bush 2000, complete with compassionate conservative rhetoric from the top of ticket for the general population and hardcore Republican firebreathing from the #2 slot. And here’s why I make that prediction:

Typically in California, candidates for governor and lieutenant governor don’t campaign as running mates — but you’d never guess it by watching Republicans Arnold Schwarzenegger and Tom McClintock lately.

The 2006 campaign is still young, but Schwarzenegger, the incumbent governor seeking an uncertain re-election, and McClintock, a state senator from Ventura County running for lieutenant governor, look very much like a tag team.

Personal friendship — and political necessity — have forged an alliance between the two that mirrors a presidential-vice presidential slate, with each shoring up the other’s weaknesses.

Schwarzenegger helps boost McClintock’s visibility and fundraising ability. McClintock, in turn, has recently rushed in to aid Schwarzenegger by tamping down trouble from his right flank.

Schwarzenegger is Bush, McClintock is Cheney. We all know exactly how compassionate the Bush brand of conservatism has been, and hopefully we will all remember how aggressively Schwarzenegger pushed the extremist Republican agenda in last year’s special election. If you want to know what another Schwarzenegger administration would look like, listen to McClintock’s campaign, not Schwarzenegger.

More on this topic later this week.