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

Today is election day! Have you remembered to vote? I’m going to go vote right after I finish up this commentary.

There is a practice within the main stream media to pretty much stop election coverage in the final couple of days before the election, with some notable exceptions. I think that the idea behind this is that at a certain point, it becomes too late for anyone to contest or disagree with the analysis of a newspaper or a TV station, and that it may just seem a bit unfair to weigh into races in the final days/hours. That said, there are a few stories on the main page worth a read, on individual races. Today we have featured a column from Sacramento Bee ace columnist Dan Weintraub, who pens a piece on what the various ‘hot spots’ are around the state, providing a ‘guide’ to follow election day results. Definitely worth a read. In the "Golden Pen" today is a must-read column from the Wall Street Journal’s Brendan Miniter on the lessons of the Congressional District 50 special election. An excerpt:… Read More

RC’s ace reporter on things going on out here in the West penned this piece in today’s Roll Call Newspaper: Parties on Edge in California By David M. Drucker Roll Call Staff The wild special election to replace former Rep. Duke Cunningham (R) in California’s 50th district comes to a head today, and the outcome will have broad implications in the battle for the House and on the role issues such as illegal immigration and ethics might play in the fall.… Read More

I know everyone can hardly wait to see if Keith Richman or Claude Parrishbecomes the GOPTreasurer nominee.

But in LA County We got other stuff going on.

Judges: Everyone has trouble figuring out judges. Below are Conservative LA County Sup Mike Antonovich’s picks. Other sources are LA GOP DA Steve Cooleyor Robyn Nordell’s great site.

Long Beach: Is picking a Mayor. Look like the Dems will pick this one up. You can read the most recent article on the race here.People have to vote twice!See my last post with links here. Torrance: Will Dan Walker survive? this is a hotly contested race. My takes are here.Vote Rod Guyton for Council.

Sheriff: Lee Baca needs to… Read More

The 2006 Republican Primary in the 65th Assembly District could go down as one of the dirtiest and most expensive primaries ever. In fact, I see it as a virtual case study on what’s wrong with gerrymandering: the major parties beat themselves senseless and broke during primaries and don’t ever face the opposing party to debate what’s best for the state. In this five-way contest, it’s about who’s the most against illegal immigration, and who’s the most against taxes. Then there are the lies, distortions, exaggerations, insults, accusations, character assassination and cheating that help define what a great species human beings really are.

How special this race has been. Anyway, now it’s time to speculate about what the results are going to look like tonight, based on limited information and partial analysis. First, the fundraising totals. San Jacinto Councilman Jim Ayres leads the field, having raised $472,804. Hemet Mayor Robin Lowe took in $395,159. Banning Councilwoman… Read More