Danny Ramirez may be the least known Democrat in the CD 51 Filner-Vargas brouhaha, but he may also be working for Filner.

Thanks to John Dadian for sending this along fromthe Capitol Morning Report:

Danny Ramirez, a Democrat running in the 51st CD, has announced filing a criminal complaint with the DAs in Imperial and San Diego counties and with the AG’s office against his opponent Asm. Juan Vargas and Vargas’ “campaign staff man” George Bresnahan. Ramirez says Vargas and Bresnahan violated CA Election Code 18205 by offering him “valuable consideration” in exchange for running in the 80th AD instead of the 51st CD. According to Ramirez, he and Bresnahan are acquaintances from church and Bresnahan visited his home on the evening of March 7. Ramirez recalls Bresnahan saying explicitly that he’d been “sent by Juan Vargas to make an offer or deal with me in regard to not becoming a candidate for the 51st CD.” The approach made Ramirez “uncomfortable,” he says, “so I promptly got a witness.” Ramirez remembers Bresnahan saying to him, “Danny, both you and Juan Vargas have Hispanic names, so you know what will… Read More

Just came over the wire that Governor Schwarzenegger is putting National Guard on the border, and that he is claims authority over them. I think I’ll offer up a toast to the Governor tonight.… Read More

I read with great interest Karen Hanretty’s two previous posts regarding the Governor, the first theorizing that he will sign an illegal immigrant driver license bill if he is re-elected, and the second his apparent support of single payer health care for California during a second term.

It’s time to put him on the record on both of these issues. As soon as these primaries are over the State GOP Board or Executive Committee needs a commitment from him to oppose both of these issues if he earns a second term. If we can’t get a firm commitment, there isn’t any reason to work for his re-election. The Governor needs to understand who his primary constituency is.… Read More

The Oakland Unified School District board voted yesterday to ignore state law and grant diplomas to students who did not pass the state’s high school exit exam. It was a cheap political move by the board’s part because they know that State Administrator Randall Ward is unlikely to support the decision. Without Ward’s signoff, the vote was symbolic, allowing the board to placate the people who complain that the exit exam is unfair.

Dan Siegel, the board member who proposed the resolution, said that it is "very unfair to say to students who, for 13 years, have done what we have asked them to do, ‘You can’t graduate.’"

Clearly, the Oakland schools, as run by… Read More

A friend called me up yesterday, laughing, saying, “Well, I’m sure this is the first and last time I’ll see a lawn sign for a Democrat in your front yard.”

She may be right, unless I continue to live in Oakland where no GOP candidates even bother to file for the mayor’s race (or my assembly district!).

Normally, I’ll just cast a vote and ignore the rest of the campaign (in 2002, I voted for the more conservative candidate in the race for mayor—Jerry Brown).

This time, I’m a little more invested in the race. Not so much on behalf of the candidate I’m supporting—City Council President Ignacio De La Fuente—but because I cannot sit back and allow the wackos in this city install Ron Dellums in the mayor’s office. I do not want to foot his travel bill to Cuba or his self-esteem meetings for the poor kids kicked out of school because they… Read More

This morning I thought I would take a few minutes to share some of my thoughts about goings-on in San Diego County. It’s a crazy time in the county just to the south of my own…

Congressional District 50 – a.k.a. "Oatmeal vs. Acid" What do you do when the Republican candidate in the special election doesn’t excite conservative voters? The only issue on which he seems to be campaigning where he is in line with conservative voters is on the immigration issue, where he has been paid to be hardcore as he has represented (as a federal lobbyist) a hard-line immigration reform group. Bilbray moved into the district. He was tapped by D.C. power-brokers. He defeated a horribly split field of conservative candidates to eek out a plurality, most likely with the help of non-Republican voters. On many issues that I care about, he is only marginally better than the liberal Democrat Francine Busby. And so I read in ‘insider… Read More

This morning I thought I would take a few minutes to share some of my thoughts about goings-on in San Diego County. It’s a crazy time in the county just to the south of my own…

Congressional District 50 – a.k.a. "Oatmeal vs. Acid" What do you do when the Republican candidate in the special election doesn’t excite conservative voters? The only issue on which he seems to be campaigning where he is in line with conservative voters is on the immigration issue, where he has been paid to be hardcore as he has represented (as a federal lobbyist) a hard-line immigration reform group. Bilbray moved into the district. He was tapped by D.C. power-brokers. He defeated a horribly split field of conservative candidates to eek out a plurality, most likely with the help of non-Republican voters. On many issues that I care about, he is only marginally better than the liberal Democrat Francine Busby. And so I read in ‘insider… Read More

From today’s WALL STREET JOURNAL POLITICAL DIARY

Whistling Past California’s 50th District

Republican officials in California are less nervous than their national counterparts about the prospects of holding onto the San Diego congressional seat being filled next Tuesday in a special election. Republicans have been unlucky in the seat ever since the previous incumbent Randy "Duke" Cunningham went to prison for taking bribes and cast a corruption pall over the race to succeed him. The GOP primary was a contentious affair in which a former congressman turned lobbyist named Brian Bilbray came out on top with only 15% of the vote in a divided field. He now faces… Read More