Today’s California Blog Roundup is on the flip. Teasers: Phil Angelides, Arnold Schwarzenegger, CA-50, Richard Pombo, Jerry McNerney, John Doolittle, Marcy Winograd, prisons, immigration, biodiesel, redistricting, reform.
Governor
- Frank Russo is excited about Angelides.
- Remember, folks, when Schwarzenegger’s not running for office, he’s a slash-and-burn bully-boy Republican. He’s no moderate.
- The California Observer notes that Phil Angelides has hired on Bill Carrick. That is, of course, an inside-baseball story, but it will be interesting to see what effect Carrick has on Angelides’ campaign.
- Ms. Geek has some words of wisdom for Angelides to counter the bogus “borrow to balance” Schwarzenegger plans and canards about “moving backward“.
- It appears that Schwarzenegger’s campaign managers (almost all Bush/Cheney alumni) have adopted the campaign model of “if we say it, it’s true“, no matter how bogus the attack. This is par for the course from a Bush crew, of course. See, for example, nukes in Iraq, Iraq’s involvement with Al Qaeda, jailing American citizens, asserting state secrets defenses whenever challenged. It’s all the same mode of operation.
- Martini Republic on Angelides on smart growth. And GM on subsidizing stupid growth.
- Live from the Nuke Free Zone asks some really good questions about where the votes are going to come from.
- Bill Cavala on Schwarzenegger’s deferral of deficits through debt (i.e., taxing our children).
CA-50 (Finally, the end of the post-mortems)
Other Electoral
Miscellany
- From Fish Wars on Cars, BioDiesel, baby. Blue Santa Clarita points us to a Mark Schmidt piece explaining the “no gubmint never did nothing for me delusion” under which Western Republicans labor. It ain’t just the Sun Belt, either. I grew up in Alaska, and despite almost always being a net recipient state, most Alaskans are convinced the government does nothing for them.
- Frank Russo went to Sacramento yesterday to visit the taxpayer-funded Republican media event, in which they invited a lot of Republican-friendly talk radio hosts (and to be “fair”, Air America) to set up shop.
- Brad DeLong points out a WaPo Op-Ed that talks some sense on immigration. And of course, border security is not really the issue.
- Ned Wigglesworth, guest-posting at California Progress Report, on the IE campaigns’ distortions of the political process.
- Ah, a good piece on narratives for a change.
- Our prisons are a train wreck. I’d love to see a breakdown on how much of the overcrowding is attributable to 3 Strikes and the war on marijuana.
- Kathay Feng of Common Cause on the case for neutral redistricting. Bill Cavala against.
