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 Blog Roundup is on the flip. Teasers: Feingold in LA, CA-11, CA-50, CA-36, gas gouging, a little on the Dem Gov Primary, and a lot of neat stuff in “Other”.

Feingold Blogger Lunch

OK, first of all, some Los Angeles bloggers got to lunch with Russ Feingold yesterday. Here are their reports:

• Joseph Cannon of Cannonfire (a new blog to me, to be added to the big blogroll)
• Howie Klein of Down with Tyranny
• RJ Eskow of Night Light (and HuffPo)
• Steve of SteveAudio
• Brad Friedman of the BradBlog

CA-11

• Progressive 11th attended the Tracy Candidates’ Forum and reports back. Prog11 supports McNerney, near as I can tell, but assuming his report of Filson’s attitude toward the grassroots is correct, it isn’t very happy-making. More important, those grassroots are the people you need to run through brick walls for you in the general, so you might not want to dump on them in the primary.
• Jerry McNerney was interviewd on the Quake today.

CA-50

• In addition to the new polling data that WHP notes in his diary, Chris Bowers of MyDD has an interesting discussion about determining the baseline for success in CA-50.
• Busby reports that she’s got a narrow lead over Bilbray in her tracking polls. Interesting.
• Brian Bilbray refuses to repudiate the swift-boating of Francine Busby. Let’s check again. Nope, still won’t call for the ad to be taken down, even though he’s done it in a different campaign. Funny, we saw the Bush Campaign do the same nothing in the incident that gave rise to the term. Guess we know what kind of Republican Bilbray is: too chicken to do the dirty work, too nasty to call it off.
• Eric Roach may run against Bilbray in the Republican primary to be held the same day as the special election runoff. I think that’s a good idea: primaries are healthy.

CA-36

Marcy Winograd, the primary challenger to Jane Harman in CA-36, introduced herself at MyDD (and yes, we need to send them an email). The comments are interesting. Down with Tyranny is all for Marcy.

Black Gold! Texas Tea!

• Arnold. Oil. Beholden much? And even more fun, the guy that Arnold wants to look into price-gouging is a pro-extractive industry, anti-regulation lame duck. It’s impressive that Arnold could take action that’s ineffective on almost every level.
• Frank Russo has a rundown of current efforts to tax oil windfall profits and push back the price gouging.
• You’ve seen it all over the place, but I’m going to give D-Day the link for Nancy Pelosi’s short sermon on the effect of putting two oilmen in the White House.

Dem Gov Primary

• ABC has videos of the new ads for Angelides and Westly.
• ABC draws a contrast between Bill Bradley’s negative take on the Angelides campaign with the Washington Post’s take.

“Other”

• Terry Preston of Blue Bear Republic got the same robo-call I did from the forced-breeding lobby in their attempt to resurrect Prop 73. (Also, remember Proposition 75, intended to reduce the power of public employee unions? If you check the Secretary of State’s initiative website, you’ll find pretty much that propostion all over again.) There’s an important lesson here for progressives: the Republicans never consider a matter settled, and neither should we.
• Jesus’ General (not a California blog) comes to the defense of 15% Doolittle.
• janinsanfran reports the immigration discussion from a meeting between the Episcopalian laity in San Francisco and the candiates for the bishopric thereof.
• Mayor Sam’s Sister City reports on some poo-flinging in the race for AD-38. More poo-flinging ensues in the comments. And people say we aren’t related to apes…
• The Assembly Health Committee has been busy with a whole boatload of pro-consumer bills.
• Terry Preston again with an explanation of why teachers teach where they do.

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.

Who knows?  Bilbray says he’s the “presumptive” candidate. 

Neither of the two leading candidates claimed outright victory after Tuesday’s special election to finish the final eight months of Cunningham’s term. They were separated by less than 900 votes.

With 100 percent of the precincts counted, lobbyist and former GOP Rep. Brian Bilbray had 19,366 votes or 15 percent of the vote in California’s 50th District. Eric Roach, a venture capitalist who poured at least $1.8 million of his own money into the race, had 18,486 votes or 14 percent.

You also have to love that Roach’s money could only buy one vote for each $10.  $10/vote.  Wow, those are some expensive votes.  So, while neither Republican can decide who is the winner, they can spend lots of money to decide nothing.

But Roach hasn’t ruled anything out.  Anything.

“We are waiting for those final 10,000 votes to be counted,” said Roach spokesman Stan Devereux. “Then we’ll see if a recount is necessary.”

Devereux didn’t rule out the possibility that Roach might attempt a write-in campaign in the June runoff if he finishes behind Bilbray.

Well, I must admit that I thought Busby vs. Bilbray was my dream scenario for the runoff (if there had to be one.)  But I take that back.  My dream scenario is now Roach running a well-financed write-in campaign and handing the election to Busby.  Hey Eric, you want to spend another $10/vote?

I wanted to put up a diary about how we can help Francine Busby win this election outright.  I’ve done a few calls with MoveOn, and it’s quite a well-designed system.  If you have some time, please try it out.  Every phone call helps.  Sign up and make some calls!

HT to DavidNYC at dKos.

Anyway, if you know of any other way to help Francine take this seat, please post it on Calitics! 

California Blog Roundup is on the flip. There’s a lot, as I’ve been busy with other things (mea maxima culpa). Teasers: Call to Action from Debra Bowen, Eric Roach, Busby campaign responds to NRCC ad buy, lots of CA-11, some CA-4, Schwarzenegger’s ratings and his campaign staff, clean money advances (slow boring through hard boards), more immigration, and a fun little potpourri of links at the end.

Call To Action

• Debra Bowen wants us to email Bruce McPherson to ask him to repeal the “exact match” regulations which are more restrictive than HAVA requires and are causing legitimate voter registrations to be rejected in unprecedented numbers. Yes, we know we need to work on our outreach to get those things here. A big shout out to Mary Scott O’Connor for saying our name in the comments at DKos! Thanks, MSOC.
• In vaguely related news, the California Teachers Association endorsed Bruce McPherson for Secretary of State instead of Senator Bowen. No, we don’t really know why.

CA-50

• Calitics Front-Pager Words Have Power is simply thrashing Eric Roach at his own shop. Why hasn’t Roach bothered to participate in politics before now? Why does Roach have to hire temp workers as “volunteers”?
• The Busby campaign responds to the NRCC attack ad buy in CA-50. The “scandal-plagued” lobbyist in the script is a member of the Keating 5 who gave Busby $500. So is John McCain. One might want to note as well that jailbird “bribe menu” Duke Cunningham gave more than half a million dollars to the NRCC. So they’re using his bribe money to attack Francine Busby for that. Satire is dead.

CA-11

• Say No to Pombo has a great explanation of how the California Democratic Party chooses an endorsement in a primary, in the context of explaining how Jerry McNerney almost got the supermajority necessary to get the tentative endorsement, despite armtwisting on Steve Filson’s behalf by Dem officeholders.
• SNTP again has an interesting discussion on the relative benefits of voting in the Democratic primary vs. voting for McCloskey in the Republican Primary, and the need for movement-building. It continues in the comments, so keep scrolling.
• Progressive 11th reprints Jerry McNerney’s press release: he raised over $50K in the first quarter of the year. If someone has the cash-on-hand numbers and the Filson fundraising info, that would be great — we’ll add them. Otherwise I’ll go dig up the reports.
• PomboWatch wonders if Pombo is using the House Resources Committee as some sort of personal vendetta against the environment.

CA-4

Doolittle keeps Abramoff money. Doolittle is the guy who bought little gold hammers to hand out in support of indicted felon Tom Delay. Doolittle: the Delay of Northern California.

Governor’s Race

• ABC finds an interesting Op-Ed from Ukiah, which argues that Schwarzenegger is in trouble: people just don’t think he’s doing a good job, pretty much based on the job he’s doing, not any easily blamable extrinsic factors.
• On that note, I like Frank Russo’s extraction of wisdom from the most recent poll. Schwarzenegger has 90% name recognition among poll respondents compared to half that for Angelides and less for Westly. And Schwarzenegger is neck-and-neck with two comparative unknowns.
• Frank Russo also catches this article profiling the Schwarzeneggger campaign team. They just hired Alex Castellanos, attack ad hitman from the Bush Campaign, and the creator of the infamous “White Hands” ad from the Jesse Helms 1990 campaign against a black opponent. We’ve discussed the kind of campaign Schwarzenegger is likely to run, based on the team he’s assembled and the McClintock partnership. It’s going to be vicious. More at ABC.
• Angelides comes out with the fiscally responsible and painfully obvious position that in order to have the schools our children deserve, we will actually have to pay for them. Daniel Weintraub was agitating for that a while back — I expect him to now punish Angelides for that honest and responsible position.
• Julia Rosen of Alliance for a Better California found both positive and negative things in Phil Angelides’ performance in the debate. She also penned (typed?) a think piece on momentum in the Democratic primary which is worth reading.

Reform

Don Perata supports AB 583, the clean money bill. Note that the current version is no longer just a display bill, but would have teeth. Time to really pay attention to this one.

Immigration

• Down With Tyranny starts a meditation with Dana Rohrbacher, swerves into punk rock, then back to Rohrbacher. Just go read it.
• People who read the right-wing blogs will have read about Josh Denhalter, the SoCal high school student who staged an anti-MECha protest. Turns out he had some support from the Minutemen and from Save Our State — just a smidge nativist. Everyone should know who the Minutemen are. I have to admit I didn’t know anything about Save Our State. I’m not sure I’m a better person for knowing. Here’s one example of their thinking. And one should read the interchange on their forums where Denhalter asks for support. It’s enlightening. I particularly like that his location is identified as “Third World Cesspool”. Don’t know if he chose that or it’s automatic in the Save Our State forums. Either way, it says a lot.

Everything Else

• John Drzal (recent Calitics diarist — we love you, man!) reports that Wally Herger (Republican CA-2) has a problem with consistency on civil liberties, and when candid, seems to think that “suspected terrorists have no rights”. That sounds jim-dandy as a bowlegged swaggering Marion Wayne sound bite, but it should scare most people. Herger clearly thinks he’s the one who gets to decide who’s an unperson. That’s un-American.
• BE for Change has a link to the webcast of the recent debate in the Lt. Governor’s Democratic primary.
• We’re still paying off Schwarzenegger’s Special Election — but the good news is that the state stiffed the counties!
• California Progress Report has an interesting piece by State Sen. Joe Dunn (D-Garden Grove) arguing that the oil companies have basically created a seller’s cartel in California.
• Tom Hilton of “If I Ran The Zoo” follows up on the “Battle Cry” convention in San Francisco last week, and the way it hoodwinked the Chron’s editorial board into thinking that it was just “religious” not “political”.