One of my pet peeves with this business is that everybody’s an expert. The truth of the matter is that that having a bunch of money will always make you brilliant politically….1000 points ofTVbeatscable and 12 pieces of mail beats 5any day….but that alone doesn’t qualify anyone as an expert. I’ve railed on the so-called-revolutionaires who lost their way, but one guy never lost his way and truly deserves to be called an expert….Newt Gingrich. … Read More

Last night, Phil Angelides won his party’s nomination to face-off against the Governator this November. But typical of Steve Westly, he couldn’t quite find it in himself to concede defeat, and congratulate his primary opponent. Instead, Westly had this to say in his statement last night: "My friends, we’ve run a terrific campaign, and we’re going to be running a good campaign for another day or two it looks like. I’m here to tell you the LA Times has announced the race is too close to call. With roughly 30% of the vote in, bouncing back between three and three and a half percent, most of the counties we believe will be strongest remain – have yet to be counted."

I found this to be a hypocritical position as you need not look back too long ago to remember when Westly was singing a different tune. Westly narrowly defeated Tom McClintock for his current… Read More

Bilbray Heartens the GOP – WSJ’s Political Diary

Republicans can breathe a sigh of relief. With some 40,000 absentee ballots yet to be counted, moderate former GOP Congressman Brian Bilbray won a much-watched special election in San Diego yesterday. Mr. Bilbray won 50% of the vote to Democrat Francine Busby’s 45%. Should those numbers hold through the absentee count, it will mean that Ms. Busby won only the base Democratic vote in the district — John Kerry won 44% there in 2004.

What makes the Bilbray victory noteworthy is that he was a weak candidate, having won a divided GOP primary with only 15% of the vote and losing 5% of yesterday’s vote to right-wing third party candidates. Even the National Republican Congressional Campaign Committee, which spent an unheard-of $4.5 million on his behalf, noted this morning that Republicans… Read More

Since we don’t have a central coast blogger right now, I’m going to pick up the slack and report on Ventura County’s hotly contested Supervisorial race. The district includes the cities of Simi Valley and Moorepark. Republican Judy Mikels was the three term incumbant in this GOP dominant district. Mikels, who challanged Tom McClintock unsuccessfully in 2000 for State Senate, was seen as somewhat vulnerable because of her ties to unpopular local development projects and an ongoing rumor that she actually lived out of state. Populist Democrat Jim Dantona declared against her nearly a year ago and was rrunning a well funded aggresive campaign but the general feeling among many insiders was that party registration alone would probably save Mikels. Enter conservative Republican Peter Foy, who literally decided to run and filed on the deadline. Local media reported Foy as a ‘spoiler’ set up to run by local conservatives who disliked Mikels in order to make sure Dantona came in first in the run-off against Mikels. Most of the coverage treated him as a secondary candidate, with the big show being the increasingly bitter and savage Dantona… Read More

In a press release, which characterizes an NBC report which aired Wednesdayas "false," Congressman Jerry Lewis (R-Redlands) issued the following statement in response to the report:

"I have never recommended a lobbyist to any constituent, contractor or anyone seeking federal funds. I have absolutely never told anyone to provide ‘stock options’ or any other sort of compensation to someone who is their advisor or lobbyist. To do so would be extremely unethical, and it goes entirely against all of my principles of good governing.

"It is outrageous and false to suggest that I might have supported a program in order to provide some illicit benefit for a friend. This technology was primarily supported by the two Congressmen who represented the area, and had been endorsed by top members of the Defense Appropriations Subcommittee – including the Democratic chairman. Although I was a junior minority member of the subcommittee at the time, I felt it was worthwhile to join in that support because the technology appeared to have promise.

"All of this information was provided to NBC in detail, and I am… Read More

There were several elections in LA on Tuesday. See here.Lee Baca was easily re-elected Sheriff despite a litany of failures. See here.

In Torrance Dan Walker was easily defeated as anti-development fever siezed control. Unfortunately Good Guy Rod Guyton fell victim as well. See news article here.

Long Beach went Demo with the win of SCE former Exec Bob Foster. See article here

Also John "Lower Taxes" Loew only got about 22% of the vote for Assesor.

As I wrote a while back about "Foreign" sounding names. (See here)Sitting judge Dzintra Janavs was upset by an unqualified rated Bagel Shop owner Lynn Olsen.

CRA Endorsed Glenn Forsch… Read More

As mentioned earlier, in San Bernardino County’s four-way race for Assessor Tuesday, challenger Bill Postmus, Chairman of the Board of Supervisors, captured more than 46 percent of the vote in his first countywide bid. The incumbent, Don Williamson, ran a distant second finishing nearly 13 points behind. As I’ve also said, a key factor in this result was the presence of two other candidates in the primary, who combined to take about 20 percent of the vote.

It’s important to again emphasize the significance of Postmus’ accomplishment in this race, and how strongly he is positioned for November:

1. Roughly two-thirds of the votes cast for Assessor were for someone other than the incumbent.

2. No incumbent who placed second in a San Bernardino County primary has ever won the runoff. As a general rule, in runoff elections more of the remaining votes against the incumbent tend to go to the remaining challenger.

3. Even Williamson’s razor-thin re-election margin four years ago illustrated his weakness. In the… Read More

Big congratulations to Sacto based political consultant Tab Berg for his win with retired Marine Colonel/Town of Yucca Valley Mayor Paul Cook in the GOP Primary for the 65th AD.

I was Cook’s pollster and have been proud to work for Col. Cook–a true American Hero.

A funny piece of full disclosure–before signing on to do the polling for Cook I had made a financial contribution to one of Cook’s opponents–Jim Ayres. It was at the urging of a friend, I had never met San Jacinto Councilman Ayres.

So while I am confident my polling was good and accurate and helped Tab develop strategy and targeting, I guess you could say Cook won despite me.

Note: I disclosed my contribution to the Cook campaign before being hired and we agreed it didn’t make a difference and it didn’t.… Read More