It was a Republican tsunami nationwide, that turned into a riptide when it hit California, and sucked the Republicans in this state into the ocean. The question is why? How could a year that began with so much promise fall apart so completely?

The loss was complete. Even if Steve Cooley is able to pull out of his embarrassing showing against the weakest Democrat ever to run for Attorney General, it is no great victory. $140 million for Governor, and other millions for the various other seats. Never has so much been spent on so few to accomplish so little. We could have all gone home, watched football, saved the money, and still done just as well as we did in this election. What went wrong?

I have my own theories, and they begin with Arnold Schwarzenegger. Meg Whitman began her campaign sounding like Schwarzenegger, and ended up losing. Schwarzenegger has given the Republicans a bad name in California. The country showed its dislike of Obama by voting against his candidates throughout the country. The state showed its dislike of Schwarzenegger by voting against Republicans.

On a national… Read More

As we all know, when we all went to bed last Tuesday night, the Attorney’s General Primary between Steve Cooley and Kamala Harris was too close to call. Since that night, Harris has held a slim lead over Cooley. Well, not any more… AG UPDATE – COOLEY LEADS AGAIN! TO: Interested Parties FR: Kevin Spillane, Senior Consultant, Steve Cooley for Attorney General 2010 DT: November 5, 2010… Read More

From today’s Wall Street Journal opinion page…

The Two Left Coasts: Why the GOP wave didn’t wash over New York and California. Tuesday’s GOP landslide didn’t spare many Democrats, but it did stop at the state lines of California and New York. These coastal exceptions deserve some explanation, because they illustrate the difficulties Republicans will face if they fail to reform entitlements, taxes and public spending. In California, Senator Barbara Boxer cruised handily to a fourth term, defeating Carly Fiorina by nine percentage points and change. Democrats also notched a victory with Jerry Brown’s restoration to the Governor’s mansion; he… Read More

Earlier this afternoon, at a meeting of the incoming Assembly Republicans (which is to say retiring "seniors" were not there, and incoming but-not-yet-sworn-in freshman were) — a change in leadership took place. Assembly Republicans elected Connie Conway of the Central Valley as their new leader. Conway was just re-elected to her second term on Tuesday.

It is not unusual to see a change in legislative leadership when seats (or in this case a seat) are lost in an election. Garrick will have been one of the shorter-tenured leaders, having been elected to his post earlier in the year.

Conway made an attempt to displace Garrick during the state budget drill, which was not successful. Subsequently Garrick released her ("you’re fired!") from her role as Caucus Chairman. While we don’t know who the new Caucus Chairman will be, it’s a safe bet it won’t be Garrick…

Senate Republican Leader Bob Dutton is secure in his… Read More

Gone are the old days when candidates and political onlookers alike went to bed on election night with final election results. On the contrary, unless a candidate has racked up a substantial lead by evening’s day end, it will be days (or maybe even weeks) before final results are known. This played itself out in the primary for Assemblyman Mike Villines who ultimately won the GOP primary for State Insurance Commissioner but didn’t know that for literally weeks after election day had passed. Now it is Steve Cooley and Kamala Harris’ turn to wait it out as the slow process of waiting for all of the ballots to be counted continues to take place.

Locally here in Orange County where I live, Neil Kelly, our Registrar of Voters, said that some 30% of the total votes to be counted in the general election were still being processed. I live in a small town in South Orange County called Rancho Santa Margarita. In our local city council races, the differential between several candidates is so small (less than a hundred votes) that the outcome is completely up in the air — with over 4,300 ballots yet to be… Read More

The Fresno County Clerk’s Office needs to be investigated. Victor Salazar, who ran unopposed this year, has made a mess out of the entire voting and ballot counting process. The Fresno Bee has an opinion piece on the mess here, and you can read this news story here.

Like most government officials, they blame their incompetence on lack of funding. But that is not going to change anytime soon, and they knew about budget cuts 6 months ago. The real problem is a complete lack of creativity, entrepreneurial thinking, and planning for right sizing government. We have all had to do this in our business lives, but the Fresno County Clerk evidently doesn’t have the capacity to operate without unlimited funding.

Salazar had 6 months to create a volunteer brigade, engage students, lower the poll worker stipend, and communicate the polling place consolidation plan to the community, and he didn’t do it. Now, given the problems, we can’t… Read More

From today’s Wall Street Journal Political Diary E-mail… … Read More

As California Republicans sift through the ashes post-election day, we can look to the good that did result and some of the indicators of why the public may have voted how they did. Yep, we as Republicans sure lost all nine statewide elections though there is some hope for Attorney General, being only 9000 votes behind right now.

In D.C. picking up the gavel with 61 or so in the House is the single most important accomplishment for the next 2 years for the country. Republicans moving from 41 to 47 in the US Senate certainly will give strength to stopping bad Obama/Dem policies. Though the lost opportunities in Colorado and Washington among others are very disappointing, we did gain in places like Illinois’s Obama seat and the Wisconsin/Feingold seat.

Backhere inthe Golden state, we can see pickups in 2 Congressional seats if the votes to be counted in 2 valley seats swing our way.We did well in the State Senatewith Anthony Cannellaholding the 12th seat [of Jeff Denham’s], a seat with a 19% or so Democrat advantage.Cannella is a great guy who will be one of my favorites… Read More