My friend Jon Fleischman has opined today that Governor Arnold won the debate on bonds. I beg to differ. It does not take a genius to know the infrastructure needs of the State, if one lives here. Nor does a take a genius to know that we cannot afford any more significant general obligation debt. It simply takes an ability to add and subtract. Nor does it take courage to propose massive borrowing. What was most disappointing about the bond debate is that not enough legislators came forward and told the truth about whether we can run a structural deficit, as we are now, and heap more debt on top of an unbalanced budget. We simply can’t, and in this debate we didn’t make that argument at all.

The people of the State seem to have a better grasp of this than Arnold does. If in fact the Democrats killed this deal they did us all a favor. At some level we need to make a strong case for balancing our budget, not spending more year over year, and applying surplus revenues to projects on a pay as you go basis. This is only a realistic strategy if you tell the truth to the voters over and over… Read More

Orange County Republicans were bracing for the primary battle of all time — with Republican Assemblymembers Van Tran and Lynn Daucher preparing to square off against each other this June, for the honor of representing the Republican Party in the general election in the highly competitive 34th State Senate District.

The contrast was between the more moderate Daucher (pictured to the left), who was actually elected to the legislature with the assistance of non-Republican voters back in 2000, the only election cycle when the ill-fated Open Primary measure was in effect, and the more conservative Van Tran, who cut his teeth back in college as an activist with Young Americans for Freedom.

There were a lot of dynamics at play that lead up to Van Tran’s ultimate decision to seek re-election in the 68th… Read More

This edition of The Atlantic Monthly has an interesting article on Speaker Gingrich, who they point out correctly was always more of a futurist than a conservative. I’m not going to reprint it here, and I’m afraid many Republicans will be loath to actually walk down to the newstand and purchase this kind of magazine. See, the Atlantic, the New Yorker, and Harpers are sort of “pornography” in the Republican activist community – material you wouldn’t want anyone seeing you purchse. I get my copies in a brown paper bag, sent to a PO box under the psuedoname Smitty Von Trap. The article also points the reader over to the Speaker’s website www.newt.org, which is worth taking a gander at.

I’ve always sort of viewed Gingrich and Delay – who were not exactly kiss on the mouth friends – as two necessary componants of our party… sort of a Janus type deal with two opposite heads. I viewed Gingrich as the idealist, the ‘big idea’ man who kept the Revolution from stagnancy… who kept our ideas fresh and forward thinking even if sometimes he sounded like your uncle the inventor after a couple of pops… Read More

The last-minute frenzy surrounding the infrastructure bond negotiations looks depressingly familar to anyone who’s ever watched the state legislature flounder its way to the deadline for passing a state budget every year. Months of posturing, preening, and procrasination, followed by a panicked rush in the last hours to fulfill their actual responsibility and negotiating out an agreement. Endless pledges to stand on principle no matter what, before finally compromising or letting others do it on their behalf.

Yawn.

Like a college student pulling all-nighters before his finals, these people are congenitally incapable of getting their work done before their backs are up against the wall. Instead of spending the semester hanging out at beer bashes and fraternity parties, though, legislators instead spend their spring term holding hearings in which they ignore witnesses, talk past each other, and generally behave as if they would have an allergic reaction to any type of productive negotiation and compromise.

Such is life in a state capitol dominated by special interests. Before actually engaging in reasonable discussion, there is… Read More

FIRE ROB REINER The rallying cry is growing – Fire Rob Reiner! As we have written about several times on this site, Rob Reiner is an embarrassment to us all. Not only that, but his political philosophy is at the extreme left end of the Democrat Party. This is clearly not someone that we would want in any position of public trust, and now we know why. As head of the Prop. 10 Spending Commission for California, millions of taxpayer dollars were used to buy commercials supporting state-run preschool as an idea, while he was paying signature gatherers to help him qualify his initiative to tax wealthy Californians to create a state-run, centralized pre-school bureaucracy. A lot has been written on all of this. Well, State Senate Republicans have now penned a letter to the Governor, asking that Reiner be replaced (Reiner’s term has expired, and with the stroike of a pen, he is off of this influencial commission). You can do something about it, too. There is an on-line petition set up at www.firereiner.com where you,… Read More

FIRE ROB REINER The rallying cry is growing – Fire Rob Reiner! As we have written about several times on this site, Rob Reiner is an embarrassment to us all. Not only that, but his political philosophy is at the extreme left end of the Democrat Party. This is clearly not someone that we would want in any position of public trust, and now we know why. As head of the Prop. 10 Spending Commission for California, millions of taxpayer dollars were used to buy commercials supporting state-run preschool as an idea, while he was paying signature gatherers to help him qualify his initiative to tax wealthy Californians to create a state-run, centralized pre-school bureaucracy. A lot has been written on all of this. Well, State Senate Republicans have now penned a letter to the Governor, asking that Reiner be replaced (Reiner’s term has expired, and with the stroike of a pen, he is off of this influencial commission). You can do something about it, too. There is an on-line petition set up at www.firereiner.com where you,… Read More

Lee Baca has a problem. Did he break the law, by giving ID cards to campaign supporters? It sure looks that way. See here.So here is the big question. Will any of the candidates for Sheriff have the money to exploit this and his other failings? He could go down if the dollars are there. See my previous post here.… Read More

San Francisco Supervisor Tom Ammiano introduced a resolution on Tuesday calling on Cardinal William Levada, the former archbishop of San Francisco, to reverse a rule that prevents the church’s charity organization from placing children awaiting adoptions with same-sex couples.

The San Francisco Chronicle reports: "As a gay Catholic," Ammiano said, referring to himself, "Cardinal Levada is everything that is wrong with the Catholic Church.

"If this cardinal would put the kind of energy into ending sexual abuse and homophobia in the church as he puts into persecuting same-sex couples …" Ammiano said, adding, "I think there’s a reason that the office he represents now was once called the Office of the Inquisition."

In San Francisco, everyone is a radical and no one has to… Read More