Today’s California Blog Roundup is on the flip. Teasers: infrastructure bonds and the governor’s race, just the governor’s race, CA-50, CA-04, CA-11, immigration, CA-45, auto insurance, levees.

Infrastructure Bonds

• Alliance for a Better California outlines the effect the infrastructure bonds may have on the race for governor. Also, Julia’s got the two main Democratic candidate’s press releases on the topic: Angelides thanks the Democratic leaders, while Westly uses the “bipartisanship” buzzword.
• Frank Russo likes the bonds, but doesn’t think the bonds will help Schwarzenegger much, given that the legislative leaders asked him to just stay out of the way. Apparently, when Schwarzenegger governs least, that’s when he governs best.
• See also Bill Bradley: Arnold wants the “Bipartisan” cred anyway and is looking for ways to use the current revenue windfall, probably politically.

Gubernatorial Race

• Fired Up! California points us to a Sherry Bebitch Jeffe op-ed, which suggests that in supporting Schwarzenegger the extremist California Republican Party will, against their instincts, truly be choosing the lesser evil.
• Apparently, we now have to learn “flip-flop” in a variety of Native American languages in order to describe Arnold Schwarzenegger’s approach to Indian gaming.
• New Westly ad in Spanish: it’s clean, fast and optimistic.

CA-50

• Down With Tyranny explains that CA-50 is a choice between sane and honest Democrat Francine Busby on the one hand, and on the other either extremist Republican Roach or corrupt Republican Bilbray. Oddly, the Republicans don’t seem to be doing as well as their voter registration numbers suggest they should be.
• San Diego Politics notes that Cheney, McCain, and Hastert will be raising money for the corrupt Republican.
• Words Have Power notes that Christian values don’t seem to go much past gay-bashing and anti-choice positions in CA-50.

15% Doolittle / CA-04

• Dump Doolittle has a nice summary of 15% Doolittle’s corruption, delivered in convenient bite-sized pieces, with quotes. Also, some creative signage in CA-04.
• This is rich: 15% Doolittle has gone too far in opposing civil rights even for Tex Sensenbrenner, the Republican chairman of the House Justice Committee that wanted to turn assisting out-of-status immigrants into a felony.

Immigration

• janinsanfran spent some time on Sunday thinking about the new immigration movement. In related news criticism, left i on the news notes the peculiar disparity in coverage of two different rallies.
• Dan Ancona also penned a meditation on immigration issues.

Paid-For Pombo / CA-11

• Not even Republicans like Paid-For Pombo. That makes sense. Paid-For Pombo doesn’t really like America.
• Progressive 11th has a news roundup covering Jerry McNerny and Paid-For Pombo.
• Say No To Pombo asks the timeless question: “Does Paid-For Pombo’s knowing lie in a campaign mailer constitute mail fraud?”

The Rest

• Frank Russo. One post, one idea: Clean Money.
• Get Your Blog Up notes another entrant into the CA-45 race, but doubts the wisdom of the entrant.
• Whatever It Is, I’m Against It is actually for Proposition 81, but against Proposition 82. So, I guess he’s against being against Proposition 81?
• The California Observer reports a new battle in the auto insurers’ decades-long war on John Garamendi. What’s amusing about this is that the auto insurers are attacking Garamendi in the Democratic primary for lieutenant governor, when his competition is Jackie Speier. First, this is just punitive, since he’s termed out of the insurance commissioner position. Second, do they think that Speier would be more insurer friendly?
• There is no industry so libertarian that it won’t seek a government subsidy.
• The mess at Devil’s Slide.
• Running statewide, downticket.
• Brian Dennert here asks a good question: Is Tom McClintock really from Thousand Oaks, or has he gone all Sacramento?
• California Progress Report asks what happens when the levees fail? Terry Preston thinks we’ll get it sorted, no help from the outside.

Today’s California Blog Roundup is on the flip. Teasers:Infrastructure Bonds, Governor’s Race, Immigration, 15% Doolittle, Paid-For Pombo, LA-area Assembly Races, some cynicism, Latinos as a power, labor, and some pictures.

Infrastructure Bonds

• Bonds during the day yesterday.
• Bonds today from ABC.
• Bonds today from California Progress Report.
• Bonds today from Bill Bradley.
• Bonds tomorrow from Randy Bayne.

Governor’s Race

• Julia Rosen from ABC sends us to the Washington Post for an outside perspective on the Governor’s race. Shortest: California is big, nasty, and expensive. See also, this ABC post, which suggests that the race is also largely unpredictable.
• Angelides’ new ad. Not bad, IMO, but relying very heavily on the endorsement proxy-race.

Immigration

• Demosthenes at BTC News wraps some historical and personal context around the immigration issue. Terry Preston suggests that history repeats itself regularly on this issue.
• Cab Drollery has some brief thoughts on why federalism is not a good answer to concerns about immigration.

CA-4 and CA-11

• 15% Doolittle likes things just as they are. No ethics, no change. Inertia is profitable.
• Oh, and SNTP also points us to CREW ethics and IRS complaints against Richard Pombo. It’s all about the Benjamins with him, apparently.
• Say No To Pombo has a good post and really dense discussion thread concerning the DCCC’s involvement in CA-11 and other primaries.

Everything Else

• The Mad Professah adds some context to an LA Times piece on the AD-45 primary.
• Mayor Sam’s Sister City has a couple endorsement updates in AD-42 and AD-44.
• Rising Q1 foreclosure rates in California part of a longer trend.
• Guest-posting at California Progress Report, the President of PowerPAC argues that Latinos are the slumbering electoral giant in California.
• Final CDP convention post by Greg Dewar. He’s not even a little bit cynical.
• Marc Cooper lets us know about the California Legislature’s golf fundraiser with AT&T. He’s maybe a little bit cynical. Public financing, people.
• Randy Bayne attended the California Labor Federation Legislative right after the CDP Convention and gives us his impressions. See also Randy on small businesses and the minimum wage.
• Tom Hilton has two last posts with Mendocino picture sets: one and two.

OK, here’s the California blog roundup for today. There’s no immigration in it; I’m going to save all of the immigration posts (and there are lots) for tomorrow, and combine them with those that people write in the evening. Teasers: Lots of California Democratic Party Convention, 15% Doolittle, CA-04, Paid-For Pombo, CA-11, Republican corruption, this & that.

CDP Convention

• Frank Russo has a list of every candidate endorsed at the convention.
• Scott Shields at MyDD doesn’t have a dog in the Democratic gubernatorial fight, but thinks that either Westly or Angelides could win. The folks in the comments do have a dog in the fight, though. As an aside, having sat through both candidates’ speeches and their press appearance, I found genuinely puzzling Shields’ reporting that insiders think Westly has “more charisma”.
• Julia Rosen thinks that the endorsement is a good thing, but is not a huge thing. Also, a reasoned argument against negative campaigning, and an interesting take on the primary.
• Greg Dewar has a series of posts up about his experience at the convention: one, two, three, four. I think number four may be most interesting, analyzing the spin on the endorsement of Angelides.
• Here’s Julia Rosen’s liveblogging of the Convention. And the sequel.
• Frank Russo is stoked about the energy and the young folks. Frank’s semi-wrap-up is here.
• For reasons that I can’t quite identify, I prefer Marc Cooper’s brand of cynicism to certain other pundits.
• Bill Bradley tees up the attacks on Angelides for “hyper-partisanship”, even while he discounts the support Angelides receives from Democratic partisans. Okey-dokey.
• Randy Bayne writes about his experience as a volunteer.

15% Doolittle / CA-04

• From Words Have Power, 15% Doolittle pretends that the public doesn’t care how corrupt he is.
• Apparently, 15% Doolittle is convinced that his trouble is all the fault of the Sacramento Bee. Reality does have a liberal bias. BTW, I clicked through to read the Op-Ed itself, and it’s a fascinating piece of work. 15% Doolittle made his wife part of his campaign apparatus and complains that she should be off-limits. He also repeats the lie that the commission on funds raised is a common practice. Dang.
• And if you’re not down with that, Dump Doolittle points you to some collateral you can use if you’re in 15% Doolittle’s district.

Paid-For Pombo / CA-11

• Down With Tyranny meditates, ferociously, on the CDP’s endorsement of Jerry McNerney in CA-11.
• Pombo badness from Progressive 11th. Of note, Pombo’s continued imperviousness to facts.
• Pombo Watch reports yet another Pombo no-show at a Republican candidates’ forum. This guy really doesn’t give a damn.

The Rest

• Words Have Power reminds us that two sitting US Representatives were very very friendly with Duke Cunningham and his pimp, Brent Wilkes. Reps. Duncan Hunder (CA-52) and Jerry Lewis (CA-41) have a lot of explaining to do, and not just to their families.
• Dunner’s Stunners on porn, zoning, easter, and the First Amendment.
• More Mendocino shots from Tom Hilton.
• Terry Preston smacks down Daniel Weintraub’s simplistic attack on Bill Lockyer.
• Jon Fleischman really wants Schwarzenegger to fire Susan Kennedy. I agree — she’s pretty much the only “bipartisan” prop that Schwarzenegger’s got left.
• The Mad Professah endorses Ron Oden for AD-80.

Today’s California Blog Roundup is on the flip. Longish, as it’s been a while. More regular roundups will resume shortly. Teasers: Marc Cooper on the state of the Democratic Party, the horse race (meh), PPIC exposes some “and a pony” thinking on education, 15% Doolittle, Paid-For Pombo, the impending Roach / Bilbray primary in CA-50, electoral and finance reform, and last, miscellany.

This roundup does not include any posts from yesterday, as I was at the CDP Convention. I’ll try to post a supplement and a Convention after-action later today.

• Marc Cooper has written a great article / blog post at LA Weekly concerning the schlerotic California Democratic Party and the extent to which the primary race for the Democratic gubernatorial candidacy is determined by ridiculous endorsement races, money tracking, all aided and abetted by the punditocracy and punditeriate more interested in color commentary on the horse race than actual issues.
• And speaking of horse race crapola, we have the Westly complaint against Angelides lodged with the Fair Political Practices Commission. I have a hard time taking seriously the Westly campaign mouth noises about positive campaigning (including Westly’s prepared speech for the CDP convention) when they’re pulling this kind of stuff.
• Frank Russo has a pretty good thumbnail of the recent PPIC poll on the most important issue for Californians: the state of our education system. Of particular interest, most likely voters want to increase funding for education, but they don’t really want to do what’s necessary to pay for it. And of course, Phil Angelides is willing to step up and challenge this “and a pony” kind of thinking that the Republicans exploit, for which he’ll no doubt be punished. See also Bill Bradley.
• Alliance for a Better California points us to a pair of SacBee articles comparing the recent Angelides & Westly ads.

CA-04, CA-11, CA-50

• Republican corruption: it’s the gift that keeps on giving. Does 15% Doolittle, family man, moral exemplar, feel any concern about his assocation with procurers? No? What about pimps?
• A small miscellany from Delta at Say No To Pombo. Also, Delta likes Steve Thomas as much as or more than either of the major candidates.
• Down With Tyranny comes out for Jerry McNerney and against both Paid-For Pombo and Rahm Emanuel.
• Words Have Power has been on fire for the last few days. First, he’s got George Will’s endorsement of Eric Roach in the CA-50 Republican primary. Sweet! And of course, one might question whether the megachurch fundamentalists in CA-50 will turn out for Mormon Roach.

Reform

• The Young Democrats have a guest post at Frank Russo’s place, laying out a new primary plan. Worth pondering. See also Mayor Sam’s Sister City on AB 2949, intended to make California’s presidential primary earliest.
• John Drzal likes AB 2948, which would throw California’s electoral votes to the popular vote winner.
• Public finance! Public Finance!

Miscellany

• One of my hobbyhorses: auto insurance companies don’t want to rate people according to their records, but extraneous personal factors.
• ABC has got this gem: Governor Schwarzenegger wants automatic increases for his own budget, even while he’s resisting cost-of-living increases in the minimum wage. Good for me, but not for thee, apparently.
• Lockyer takes on the oil companies. Go, Bill.
• Last, because it’s purty, Tom Hilton’s pictures of Mendocino.

Today’s California Blog Roundup is on the flip. Teasers: the independent expenditure campaign for Angelides, a bit more on the Angelides/Westly matchup, Governor Schwarzenegger’s manifest and multitudinous failings, the import of CA-50 and the Republican swift-boating of Francine Busby, more 15% Doolittle and his defenders moral relativism, Paid-For Pombo’s self-dealing and propaganda, and some miscellaneous commentary I found interesting on Di-Fi, Bush’s visit, California Senate Staffers, etc.

The Angelides / Westly Matchup

• I was away for a long weekend and return to lots of commentary on the independent expenditure effort on Phil Angelides behalf. I rather like Shane Goldmacher’s California Observer post, which has a good summary of what’s happening and notes, sensibly, that most of the carping and speculation that one hears is really all inside baseball which likely won’t affect the voters. Bill Bradley has a bit more on the genesis of the IE campaign, as well as a lot of inside baseball and personality gossip, for them as are interested in that sort of thing.
• Bill Bradley also notes that Steve Westly has bought a fair bit of cable TV advertising. That’s likely to be pretty closely targeted, so if someone has an insight as to which channels, that would be interesting.
• Another day, another Bill Bradley critique of the Angelides campaign.
• Angelides is green. No, wait, Westly is green. OK, they’re both all Kermitesque. So are the Dems in the State Senate.

Governor Schwarzenegger

• Richocheting off of a piece by Frank Russo, ABC notes that Governor Schwarzenegger’s workers’ comp reform seems to have worked pretty much in favor of the insurance companies at the expense of the workers. Why is anyone surprised when a Republican initiative hoses working people? It’s as predictable as gravity . . . maybe more so.
• Arnold good with California’s prison system? Not so much.
• Arnold getting some federal help to donor-state California to strengthen the levees in the Sacramento Valley? Not so much.
• Arnold enforcing laws intended to help the working poor? Not so much.
• Frank Russo asks if Governor Arnold “5 Hummers in my garage” Schwarzenegger will do anything about what looks very much like gasoline price gouging? Hey, the man owns five Hummers. If he can take it, surely the rest of us can. Wimps.

CA-50

• Chris Bowers at MyDD ponders whether a Busby win in the runoff would be a harbinger for realignment, and whether a loss would indicate the opposite.
• Francine Busby responds to the Republican swiftboat-style ads in CA-50. Turns out those ads are pretty much all lies and distortions. Whoda thunk it?
• Words Have Power notes that the NRCC, which is paying for the ad, seems to have no-one able to comment on it. Apparently the ad sprang organically from the Republican party infrastructure in the dark of night (rather like a mushroom).

15% Doolittle / CA-04

• Can 15% Doolittle stop lying? Now it turns out that a 15% commission paid (to the candidate’s wife) on amounts raised is not actually standard practice in the fundraising industry. See also the SacBee editorial that Dump Doolittle points toward. Seriously — this is a flat-out bribe. B.R.I.B.E. Doolittle might as well have had a menu like Cunningham’s printed up.
• Oh, wait a minute: maybe 15% Doolittle does have a menu. Here’s WHP again with a 15% Doolittle connection to Duke Cunningham’s favorite bribe source.
• And in 15% Doolittle’s defense, we get another Republican saying “as long it’s legal”, it’s ethical. That explains a lot about the modern Republican party: both their corruption and their burning desire to pass laws to regulate private behavior. They’re just trying to stop themselves before they sin again.
• But wait, there’s more. Words Have Power finds Jon Fleischman of the Flash Report (also former Executive Director of the California Republican Party) joining the fan club for 15% Doolittle. Seriously, these people have no moral compass.

Paid-For Pombo / CA-11

• Progressive 11th has a pretty good litany of Paid-For Pombo’s self-dealing as the nominal representative of his constituents. Look, if one is a doctrinaire movement conservative like Paid-For Pombo, believing that government has no real purpose, why not strip-mine it?
• Again from Progressive 11th, a roundup of links concerning Paid-For Pombo’s use of public money to distribute anti-conservation propaganda. See also Seeing The Forest.

Smörgåsbord

• The mighty King of Zembla looks, briefly, at Dianne Feinstein’s financial ties.
• Martini Republic wasn’t all that excited about Ned Lamont dropping in for a fundraiser in Oakland.
• janinsanfran has a useful categorization of political types, jumping off from a reading of Crashing The Gates.
• The California Observer profiles the top Democratic staffer on California budget issues. Craig Cornett sounds like an impressive guy, but I am reminded again of the extent to which term limits force us to rely on staffers and lobbyists for institutional memory.
• Also from The California Observer: a net loss in the absolute number of jobs in California, with a particular weakness in the building industry. The reader is left to make his or her own inferences.
• left i on the news has a brief and piquant critique of the Washington Post’s reporting on President Bush’s visit to California. liotn also has some coverage of the protest of Bush’s presence at Cisco, which is most notable for the photo showing the distance of the “free speech zone” from Bush’s august person.
• Last, the SF Chronicle endorses Debra Bowen, as reported by … Debra Bowen.

An interesting irony:

Three weeks after Jack Abramoff pleaded guilty to three federal felonies, Rep. John Doolittle hired an attorney for legal advice concerning his own association with the disgraced lobbyist.

According to a report filed by Doolittle’s re-election campaign with the Federal Election Commission over the weekend, the campaign on Jan. 27 retained for $10,000 the services of the Virginia law firm of Williams Mullen.

Doolittle’s chief of staff, Richard Robinson, said the attorney handling Doolittle’s inquiry is David G. Barger. Barger is the former president of the Virginia Bar Association’s criminal law section and a former assistant U.S. attorney who later was an associate of special prosecutor Kenneth Starr in the Whitewater investigation during the Clinton administration.(SacBee 4/18/06)

Doolittle is going down.  Pure and simple.  He is #1 on Coburn’s list.

Today’s California Blog Roundup is on the flip. Teasers: The Governor’s Race, Taxes, 15% Doolittle lawyers up, CA-50 and Republican Extremism, McNerney Endorsements, Pombo’s owners, Field Poll Methodology, Campaign Finance Reform, Fake News.

Governor’s Race

• Bill Bradley puts up his take on the current state of the Democratic gubernatorial primary.
• ABC has the lowdown on the “New Majority”, a Republican big-business front group that has been in the news and the Republican blogs a lot lately. Looks like they may have been coordinating advertising, at least tacitly, with the Schwarzenegger campaign. This is a big no-no in election law, and is entirely unsurprising. See also Frank Russo.
• And in the “useless gestures” department, Governor Schwarzenegger comes out on tax day to encourage California’s working poor to take advantage of the Earned Income Tax Credit. (Fun fact: people who try to claim the Earned Income Tax Credit are audited at a higher rate than pretty much any other taxpayers.) Oh, and see also Frank Russo on the CBP’s awesome new report on who actually pays the taxes in California.
• Left-Over asks: “Will the real Arnold please stand up?“

15% Doolittle / CA-11

• To parrot a traditional Republican talking point: If 15% Doolittle doesn’t have anything to hide, why did he lawyer up?
• Nite Swimming thinks we should ask folks like UPS why they were so interested in contributing to 15% Doolittle, a congressman from a safe seat in a relatively rural district. Could it be that they thought he could “help them out” from his position on the Appropriations Committee?

CA-50

• Our own Words Have Power takes the North County Times to task for an attack on Francine Busby from a fake nonpartisan. Here’s a hint for all those reporters out there: “nonpartisan” means only “doesn’t publicly back specific candidates”. It doesn’t mean “doesn’t have an opinion”. That’s particularly true on the Republican side, as we find more and more Republican punditry and think-tankery depends on having their own facts.
• It looks like the RNC is backing Bilbray in both the special election runoff and the primary. Now that’s sticking a finger in the eye of the California Republicans. You know that our Republicans are extremists when they are at odds with the RNC.

Paid-Off Pombo / CA-04

• Progressive 11th reports that the SEIU, East Bay Young Dems, and DFA Tracy have all endorsed Jerry McNerny in the Democratic primary. One really does wonder if the Democratic leadership talked to anyone in the district before they started helping Filson out.
• Say No To Pombo reprints a McCloskey press release pointing out something I think most of us already know: Richard Pombo has been bought outright by special interests. (Or, for the property rights fundamentalists: “deeded in fee simple”.)
• Again from SNTP, a pretty good piece of political theater by Pombo in Their Pocket.

Everyfink Else

• Speak Out California has a great post up on the evidence showing the extremist takeover of the California Republican Party. A lot of talking heads (Cough! Dan Walters! Cough!) like to pretend that the Republicans and Democrats are both hostages of their extremists, but that’s pretty much hooey, and really requires that you throw away the last 30 years of actual history.
• Bill Bradley debates Mark DiCamillo on the Field Poll’s methodology. Before I decide who’s right, I want to know if DiCamillo is a MENSA member as well — I think that may be the determining factor.
• Fake News: it’s not just for Comedy Central.
• The Rest of Us are on the California Progress Report talking about campaign finance reform.
• Bradley on energy.

California Blog Roundup for this rainy Easter Sunday. Teasers: Prop 82 con and con, Field Poll results and spin, 15% Doolittle, CA-11, rabid Republicans, some news in the campaign for Governor, some global warming, some sound principles for infrastructure, and some miscellany.

Prop 82

• Governor Schwarzenegger swings from appearing moderate by backing Proposition 82 to appeasing his corporate backers by opposing. Again, I wonder what big business doesn’t like about a tax which falls solely on high-earning individuals… What could it be? What could it be?
• Bill Bradley reports that John Burton, liberal firebrand, comes out against Prop 82 because the guarantee of universal preschool subsidizes people who don’t need the subsidy. I’m sympathetic to this criticism — you put the money where it’s needed — but one of the things we’ve learned in the United States is that once you make something into a program for the least fortunate among us, it turns into a target for the least generous among us.

Field Poll Fun

• ABC has the headlines from the big 3 NorCal papers’ Field Poll articles on Schwarzenegger. I think they can be summed up as “lukewarm”. Also, here’s the Schwarzenegger vs. Angelides / Westly summary.
• ABC again on the lead that Steve Westly has purchased himself. They note that Mark DiCamillo thinks the lead is surprisingly large. I’m not surprised by DiCamillo’s spin on that; I’ve read some comments by DiCamillo in the past suggesting strongly that DiCamillo is not politically neutral, at least in his commentary.
• Frank Russo of the California Progress Report notes that the same Field Poll suggests that the anti-immigrant nativists are a definite minority in California.

Doolittle / CA-04

• Dump Doolittle notes that John “15%” Doolittle visited his district last week, but stuck to hand-picked audiences. Doolittle will also be at a photo-op with President Bush on Earth Day. Truth is stranger than fiction. I expect the audience there will be hand-picked as well — that’s par for the course with the modern Republican Party.
• Last, Dump Doolittle has a quick blurb on the FEC reports of 15% Doolittle and his Dem challengers. As one of the commenters notes, $287K raised by 15% Doolittle last quarter means that he put just over $43K in his own pocket.

Pombo / CA-11

• Progressive 11th notes that Richard Pombo will be receiving an award from Exxon on April 25, thanking him for his service.
• Say No To Pombo has a bit more information on the FEC filings of the major Dem candidates. For some fun inside baseball, make sure to read the comments. Apparently Filson’s financial director has been less than forthcoming about his relationship to the Filson campaign.

Campaign for Governor

• California Republicans: Nothing will ever satisfy them.
• I don’t know why Arnold Schwarzenegger wouldn’t want to be seen with George Bush. After all, he’s surrounded himself with Bush Republicans.
• Frank Russo posts on the need for the candidates for Governor to address California’s structural deficit. Twice.
• Bill Bradley thinks it’s all a muddle.
• Schwarzenegger has “released” his 2002-04 tax returns. On Good Friday. By allowing reporters to go through the returns for a few hours in a closed room.

Environment

• The California Progress Report has a guest post by Craig Noble of the NRDC on the principles that should underpin an infrastructure program that would be sustainable over the lifetimes of our children and grandchildren — those for whom we hold the present in trust.
• ABC on the Schwarzenegger’s ineffective and politically weak middle position on Global Warming.
• Uneasy Rhetoric rips Daniel Weintraub for his schmibertarian global warming denial.

This ‘n’ That

• Apparently, thinking that a line-item veto is a bad idea makes one a rabid Bolshevik. No, seriously.
• At least these Republican spouses pay each other salaries, not commissions like 15% Doolittle. Did you know there were any meaningfully pro-choice Republicans left? Me neither. Mayor Sam’s Sister City tells us that one of them is term-limited out in AD-38, and reports on the race for his seat.
• From Brian Dennert Here: this is just funny.

Todays California News Roundup is on the flip. Blog Roundup should come later today. Teasers: immigration, more on Westly payola (?), some oppo research on Angelides masquerading as news, CA-50, SacBee thrashing John Doolittle, global warming, salmon, rural roads.

UPDATE: Somehow I forgot the story concerning voter registration fraud by Republican-hired contractors.

• We lead today with immigration. First, Governor Schwarzenegger has an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal Editorial Pages (the nation’s most expensive platform for wingnuttery) in which he burnishes his compassionate conservative credentials on the immigration issue, without actually saying very much beyond “gastarbeiters good, I’m compassionate”. But one should check out Tom McClintock, Schwarzenegger’s running mate, to see what the Republicans are really about.
• The Mercury News profiles some of the undesirable illegals who the Republican Party wants to deport (or exploit, as long as they’re entirely outside of the law). And, the CC Times reports on Sunday’s march in San Diego.
• In the Democratic Primary, there’s a lot of news recently. First, a little follow-up on the question of whether Westly did anything wrong by recommending Healthpoint to CalPERS after taking money Healthpoint raised. In what looks like a piece of oppo research fed to the SacBee by the Westly campaign, it’s noted that in 1994, Angelides sold his minority share of a failing bank before he began his run for treasurer. The story is full of innuendo, but doesn’t seem to amount to much.
• Color me surprised — Daniel Weintraub doesn’t attack Phil Angelides for talking about fulling funding California schools. Dan Walters puts together a pedestrian response to the Angelides-Westly rhetoric ratchet that I won’t bother linking to, but he has an interesting piece on vocational education. If one can ignore the undercurrent of sneering at the “elite”, it’s not a bad read.
• CQ Politics (Is it a blog, is it news? I don’t know.) has a rundown on the mudslinging in CA-50. The one comment is particularly entertaining (maybe comments are a sufficient precondition for blogginess?) Also, the LAT notes that there is a special election in SD-35 on Tuesday as well.
• The Sacramento Bee Editorial Board explains in great detail exactly why John Doolittle’s arrangment skimming off contributions through his wife is so very troublesome. Their news page does a rundown on the rest of the candidates in CA-4.
• The Union-Tribune explains the current set of players, rationales, and proposals concerning California’s current thinking on global warming. Schwarzenegger, of course, wants to do less, not more. In related news, there’s still a shortage of raw materials for solar panels.
• 75 fish per boat per week. That’s the restriction on the California Salmon fishery this year. I’ve worked in the salmon fishing industry — on shore — and have a hard time imagining how few fish that is. When I worked, we pulled brailers full of fish off of the fleet from 6 at night until we were done, sometimes 3 or 4 the next afternoon.
• Last, I just thought this piece on the condition of rural roads was interesting. Turns out people who live in the sticks have pretty much the same needs as the rest of us.