(This thing is starting to make more sense to me.  There is a firm deadline to make the June ballot, January 24.  Secretary of State Bowen recommended an early deadline because local election boards basically have no time to do all the random counting needed to qualify the initiative.  By missing that deadline the dirty tricksters risk missing the June ballot, as election boards must ramp up for the February 5 primary and that takes priority.  The SacBee article is one of the first to inform what’s really going on here. – promoted by David Dayen)

(Well, looks like the rightwing is going all out on the Dirty Trick – promoted by Brian Leubitz)

(full disclosure: I work for Courage Campaign, which is working on defeating the dirty trick)

The state campaign finance disclosure laws say that you have to report your contributions within 10 days of receiving them.  The relatively short turn around means that we know what kind of money the dirty tricksters have and where it is coming from.  Though they have been swearing up and down they have $3 million to get this on the ballot, the initial round of contributions only adds up to about $539,000 in the last two weeks.  That is nowhere near enough money to get it on, though they could have cash rolling in over the next few days.  John Meyers has the names.

So who are some of the donors? The larger contributions come from people like Glen Holden, an insurance investor and former ambassador to Jamaica under the first President George Bush; Duane Roberts, an Orange County businessman who’s also given money this year to GOP presidential contenders Rudy Giuliani, Mitt Romney, and John McCain; money manager Robert Day, listed on Forbes’ 2006 list of “The World’s Richest People”; venture capitalist Floyd Kvamme, appointed by President George W. Bush in 2001 as co-chair of the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology; Jerrold Perenchio, former CEO of Univision who’s also been a financial backer of Governor Schwarzenegger; and Bill Leonard, an elected member of the California Board of Equalization and former Assembly GOP leader.

I am sure Lehane and company with their oppo-research team are digging into these guys.  We already know about Issa.

And as publicly reported before, seed money has also been contributed by U.S. Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Vista) — from both his own checkbook ($50,000) and from his campaign account ($9,500).

The last one is interesting, though not surprising.  I say interesting because I am wondering where they are getting the money from.

The single largest contribution so far to the campaign known as California Counts: $80,000 from the California Republican Party.

The California Republican Party is bankrupt, so where did they find the cash for this?  And is someone using the CRP as a way to funnel money into the campaign, without having their name disclosed.

From the Santa Cruz Sentinel, Sept 16, 2007:

Given the widespread anger at the record of the Bush administration, few people think it will be easy for a Republican to win a fair presidential election in 2008.

But the backers of a proposed California ballot initiative aim to make it easy – by getting around that inconvenient word “fair”.

Devised by Sacramento political attorney Thomas Hiltachk, the Presidential Election Reform Act is a clever confidence trick, disguised as reform of the Electoral College. The PERA’s true purpose is to guarantee about 20 additional electoral votes to the Republican Party, with the aim of setting up a GOP victory not just in the 2008 presidential election, but in many more to follow.

Here’s how it would work.

Currently, California, like most states, awards its 53 electoral votes as winner-take all. Many voters are unhappy with this system, and quite understandably, since it can serve to override the popular will. If voters in a congressional district elect a representative from Party A, most of them probably also support Party A’s presidential candidate. But the electoral vote from their district may very well end up going to the Party B’s candidate if Party B wins more of their state’s districts overall.

The PERA seeks to take advantage of voters’ frustration over outcomes like this. But it does so in the time-tested manner of the classic con game: distract the mark with bait, then make the switch.

The bait is the promise of reform. The switch is the unmentioned fact that the PERA would amount to a unilateral disarmament by California, a large blue state. Meanwhile, large red states, such as Texas, would continue under the old system.

The PERA’s backers call themselves Californians for Equal Representation. Since Equal Representation is part of their name, you might think they’d also throw their support behind a national reform effort, which could lead to equal representation everywhere – including red states. But that isn’t truly their aim, particularly since Californians for Equal Representation is actually a front for the California Republican Party.

The group’s address is initiative-writer Hiltachk’s law firm. Hiltachk is also Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s election lawyer. And, as the New Yorker’s Hendrik Hertzberg has pointed out, he is a specialist in “initiatives that are the opposite of what they sound like – the Fair Pay Workplace Flexibility Act of 2006, for example” That one was, in fact, designed to slash overtime pay and make it almost impossible to raise the minimum wage.

Unsurprisingly, California Republicans enthusiastically endorsed the PERA at their convention in Indian Wells this past weekend. Interestingly, though, the governor has expressed reservations. As one of the world’s best known self-made men, Schwarzenegger has said he was uncomfortable with the “loser’s mentality” represented by “changing the rules in the middle of the game … saying I cannot win with those rules, so let me change the rules”.

The governor’s fellow Republicans would have done well to heed his advice, because if they win this campaign, it will be at the cost of serious damage both to their party and to democracy itself.

Why, after all, is the public angry at the Republican record in the White House and the Congress? To answer that question is to recite a list of failures and scandals: the falsehoods that spawned the war; the “compassionate conservatism” that brought Guantanamo Bay and the abandoning of New Orleans; the widespread spying on American citizens; the schemes of Jack Abramoff, Tom DeLay, Randy “Duke” Cunningham, Mark Foley and others; the politicization of the Justice Department; and, sadly, so on.

In this context, do Republicans really want to trumpet their endorsement of another slick maneuver around the public interest?

If they do, they will likely pay even more heavily at the polls than they have so far. After all, as Idaho Sen. Larry Craig has shown so dramatically, most Americans are quite tolerant, but not if they conclude you’re a hypocrite.

Nevertheless, given events at its California convention, the Republican Party may well be bent on further self-destruction. But unfortunately, it is not only the party that will suffer. We all will. That’s because these repeated insults to trust erode voters’ basic belief in our laws and institutions. How many times can you play people for suckers before they conclude the whole thing is just a rigged game? Too many Americans have already come to just that conclusion.

We’ve learned this lesson before, in the Dust Bowl. You can exploit and exhaust the soil for so long, and you may even prosper while you do. And then, one day, the wind comes up and the soil blows away.

Well, it’s happening again. Only this time it’s happening to the soil of democracy – the public’s trust.

We call on all people of every party, including the many Republicans of good conscience – many of whom we have heard from who are deeply disturbed by the direction their party has taken – to repudiate the Presidential Election Reform Act.

By all means, let’s reform the Electoral College. But as we talk about how to do it, let’s use words with their original meanings, not new meanings we’ made up to mask selfish, ulterior motives. Just like fair pay doesn’t mean “slash my wages,” “reform” doesn’t mean “scam the system”.

“Reform” means make it better – for everyone.

That may seem quaint to the creative minds behind crafty tricks like the Presidential Election Reform Act, but it’s what democracy is supposed to be about.

By Zach Friend (chair, Santa Cruz County Democratic Central Committee), Vinz Koller (chair, Monterey County DCC) & Spencer Critchley (spokesman, Monterey County DCC).

From the (subscription only) Capitol Alert

“We’ve received a request and there’s been a great deal of interest among our members who want to see every vote count,” party chairman Ron Nehring told Capitol Alert.

Nehring called a potential endorsement a “significant step” and that the party could provide money or help gather signatures to qualify the measure.

But here is the quote of the day:

“Cynical ploy orchestrated by the blah blah blah,” said Nehring. “The vitriol and overreaction from the Democrats caught a lot of people’s attention from the party.”

Of course, most of the opposition to-date has come from Newspaper Editorial Boards who are going to look none too kindly on the GOP if they make this mistake. Here’s and updated list of what the editorial pages are saying.

Stockton Record, “Awarding California’s electoral votes based on the outcome in each congressional district is unfair, harmful to democratic precepts and a blatant political power grab.”

OC Register, “A proposed change, which could be on next June’s ballot, in the way California’s votes are allocated in the presidential election might have a sheen of fairness, but it is nakedly partisan and profoundly subversive of our constitutional system.”

San Francisco Chronicle, “This is nothing but dirty politics.”

The New York Times, “It is actually a power grab on behalf of Republicans.”

Oakland Tribune “It’s an obvious political ploy.”

San Jose Mercury News, “it’s naked politics masquerading as reform.”

Sacramento Bee, “the California initiatives are merely partisan gamesmanship masquerading as reform.”

Vallejo Times Herald, “an embryonic state-ballot measure filed by some Republicans would make more sense, save for the fact that it smacks of a blatant power grab, and should be rejected as such.”

I’m sure I’m missing some. But I doubt they Ed Board writers will forget.

(Also in orange. – promoted by Brian Leubitz)

Well, it looks like the latest SF Chronicle story on Michael Kamburowski’s immigration problems have knocked him out of his perch as the Chief Operating Officer of the California Republican Party. Damn you wicked irony, why must you always stalk the Republican Party like a successful version of Elmer Fudd? You always create such hilarity, how can I take the Republican Party seriously?

Well,  thanks to the sometimes-fabulous, always-hilarious  Carla Marinucci in today’s SF Chronicle, it seems California Republicans are rid of the “Australian menace.” (Not to be confused with the Canadian Menace.)

Michael Kamburowski, an Australian immigrant who served as the California Republican Party’s chief operating officer, abruptly resigned Sunday — less than 24 hours after The Chronicle reported he had been ordered deported in 2001, jailed in connection with the order, and now has a $5 million wrongful arrest lawsuit pending against U.S. Department of Homeland Security officials. (SF Chronicle 6/25)

Flip it…

Yes, the delicious irony just keeps on giving.  Boy, are they enraged, and are thrilled to get one more “illegal alien” from “their country”.

Fleischman, in a letter distributed to GOP board members Sunday, warned that “needless to say, if any of this is true (especially alleged jail time, and alleged litigation against the U.S. government) it is a very serious matter.”

Red County San Bernardino, another GOP blog site, called the revelations jaw dropping, and added that “if it is true that Kamburowski did not disclose this arrest to the party, it suggests serious deficiencies in his character.”

Fleischman is the heart and soul of the CA conservative blogosphere, and he happens to be a board member of the CA Republican Party.  And, he’s generally a stand-up guy (with neolithic political views).  But, you know, he voted to bring him on board as COO. 

Poor, Poor Republicans.  The opportunity for schadenfreude is nearly impossible to resist here. But even Steve Schmidt, the man that ran Bush’s ’04 Campaign, and Schwarzenegger’s ’06 Campaign sees the irony and hypocrisy of the Republicans on these issues:

Former White House adviser Steve Schmidt, who ran the re-election campaign for Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, angrily described the appointment of Kamburowski as “almost a parody of incompetence and malfeasance.”

“Somebody who has been imprisoned, faced deportation, has never worked on a state political campaign … and who is suing the government for harm inflicted by his deportation order defies description,” Schmidt said. “The bylaws of the Republican Party invest enormous authority in the position of chief operating officer — and it’s clear that this person brings no experience and qualifications to run a state party of the size of California, not to mention the assorted legal issues involved.”

Of course, Schmidt is more a corporatist than Minuteman-type, so  it is hardly shocking that he would level this criticism at Ron Nehring, the current CA Republican Party Leader, and San Diego anti-immigation zealot (well, San Diego Republican and immigration zealot are probably redundant, aren’t they?).  But, the tone of that remark is just classic.  But, now that Kamburowski is out at the CRP, Schmidt needn’t worry about ol’ Mike’s threats.

Kamburowski generally suggested that Hanretty will never be able to eat lunch in Washington again.

“This story would not have the ‘legs’ it does were it not for the role Karen Hanretty is playing in fanning it,” Kamburowski said in his letter. “I do not know Karen, but I find the spectacle of someone who has fed at the trough of the CRP (California Republican Party) behaving in this way despicable and sad. If she desires a career in Republican circles in Washington — she may find her career rather short-lived.”

By the way, IMHO, this story should win Marinucci some kind of award. If no Pulitzer arrives, we may have to create the Calitics Journalism Award.

The Chron gives a follow-up to last week’s hilarious story that the California Republican Party has been hiring non-citizens to staff their top jobs, even as they decry the menace of immigration.  In fact, it turns out that one of their hires may not even be in the country legally.

Michael Kamburowski, the Australian immigrant hired as a top official in the California Republican Party, was ordered deported in 2001, jailed three years later for visa violations — and has filed a $5 million wrongful arrest lawsuit against the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, according to U.S. District Court documents.

Kamburowski was named in March to be the chief operating officer of the California GOP. He is responsible for the state party’s multimillion-dollar budget and oversees campaign funds and financing for the nation’s largest state GOP organization.

This is hypocrisy on steroids.  You have a party that never misses an opportunity to rail against illegal immigration, hiring an illegal immigrant, essentially, as their COO.  Kamburowski says he’s a legal resident now, and that he’s suing DHS for unlawfully jailing him and attempting to deport him.

But the funniest part is, for a lot of this time, Kamburowski was selling real estate in the Dominican Republic:

But Kamburowski’s former boss in the Dominican Republic resort town of Punta Cana — where Kamburowski worked until February — expressed astonishment that the Australian was hired for such an important financial job in a major political party.

“I wouldn’t give him my company to run, I can tell you that,” said Rico Pester, the owner of Re/Max Island Realty in the fashionable Caribbean beach region.

Pester said Kamburowski arrived in Punta Cana in the summer of 2006 and “was so successful that he couldn’t sell anything the whole time he was here — and we provided him with clients. He didn’t rent anything and he didn’t sell anything. … I have no idea what he was doing.”

Then, in February, Kamburowski “ran away without mentioning anything to us,” he said.

“I couldn’t understand how somebody like him could become a (Republican Party) COO,” Pester said in a telephone interview.

Look, if you’re bad at selling prime vacation property in the D.R., maybe you’d be good at selling a brand as damaged as the Republican Party in California!

Of course, someone like Kamburowski doesn’t have to worry about money.  He’s a classic wingnut welfare recipient who cut his teeth with a Grover Norquist-affiliated group.  He overstayed his visa after coming to this country, did the game of marrying an American woman to get a green card, then divorced her but remained in the country.  The INS tried to deport him but Kamburowski claimed he never got their messages because he moved to DC.  There’s more in the article.

This is someone who’s seemingly never had to answer for any of his actions, and somehow keeps falling upward.  What a perfect symbol for the state GOP.