Today the San Gabriel Valley Tribune had an editorial addressing the gerrymandering of the 59th Assembly District and the impact on the race to replace Dennis Mountjoy. See it hereGone unnoticedby the so-calledMSM (Main Stream Media) is the potential candidacy of law enforcement union boss Kevan Otto. Otto took out his papers to run in this district yesterday. His candidacy was first discussed on FR four days ago. See the post here.His candidacy and the possibility of big union money in this race changes the dynamics for both Adams and Lancaster.… Read More

The furor surrounding Rob Reiner’s continued presence on the State’s Children and Families Commission continues to grow ever since it became common knowledge that Reiner maintains his seat on this commission by virtue of the fact that Governor Schwarzenegger has not appointed a replacement – which he can do at any point.

FR buddy Bill Bradley over at his New West Notes blog (always accessable via the FR Blog Roll above) mentions that he called the Governor’s Press Secretary about Reiner:

Since Reiner’s post is now a political issue, I asked the Governor’s Office about his status as chairman of the state commission, as his term there expired more than a year ago.

Gubernatorial press secretary Margita Thompson’s [pictured] careful statement: “His term expired in 2004. He has subsequently… Read More

The news cycle is no longer measured in days or in hours, but in minutes. It is a natural phenomenon that the Main Stream Media political types would be developing blogs of their own, in order to stay ahead of the curve. Those of us that maintain weblogs outside of the press welcome the entry of our normally paper-bound reporters to the blogging world. We only want to get as much content to our readers as possible and the more places from which we can get it, the better!

There are a number of places where MSM folks are really doing well on the blog scene — last year, I spent a lot of time checking out the San Francisco Chronicle’s 2005 Special Election Blog. Well, they have recently rekindled their political blog, and have put their capable team of political reporters into the mix: Jim Brewer, Zachary Coile, Edward Epstein, Paul Feist, Lynda Gledhill, Carolyn Lochhead, Greg Lucas, Carla Marinucci, Mark Martin, Andy Pollack, Marc Sandalow and John… Read More

Dr. Phil Kurzner has decided to end his quest to become California’s next Insurance Commissioner. During my opportunities to talk with Phil, I found him to be an intelligent, engaging and savvy candidate. While I understand the politics of his departure, I do lament a process that causes some of our better candidates to decide not to run.

Phil’s departure, combined with the very low-key candidacy of Gary Mendoza appears to leave the doors wide open for businessman Steve Poizner from the San Francisco Bay Area.

Here is a statement released today from Dr. Phil Kurzner on his departure from the race:

Based on a ton of emails that I have received since my post yesterday afternoon on the California Republican Party hiring Patrick Dorenson to be its new Communications Director, I felt like I needed to follow up with a note.

You see, I thought it was incredibly newsworthy that the CRP has hired a prominent former Democrat political operative to head up their Communications effort. I first heard about this hire from reading about it in Capitol Weekly, who also thought that Dorenson’s past work for the campaigns of Al Gore and Bill Clinton were worthy of note, leading with that in their story.

The reason for this note is that many are assuming that because I pointed out this ‘unique’ (to say the least) background for Dorenson, that this means that I am unhappy or displeased with his being hired. That is not the case at all. As a matter… Read More

A laugh for the day….read the San Francisco Chronicle’s story on the Richmond music teacher who is so upset that the kids in his community are gang-bangers with asthma that he felt compelled to chain himself to a park bench in Oakland for the week to protest the war. He’ll be getting up for bathroom breaks at the nearby Grand Lake Theater, which regularly posts diatribes on the marquee which alternate between calling for President Bush’s impeachment and deploring the use of Diebold voting machines. The protester was going to chain himself to a federal building, but decided he didn’t want to get charged under the Patriot Act. Like most of us, he couldn’t get a phone call returned from the Oakland police (after calling to see how much trouble he’d get into chaining himself to a city bench, so he just went ahead and did it).… Read More

A few weeks ago, I reported that Christopher Cox, Chairman of the Federal Securities and Exchange Commission, was undergoing surgery. I’m happy to let you know that FR friend Chris Cox today returned to work! Cox, of course, ably represented Orange County in the United States House of Representatives from 1989 until last year when he was tapped by the POTUS for this new role.

Here is the short AP blurb on Cox’s return to work:

It was recently reported that conservative former Assemblyman Howard Kaloogian had listed on campaign piece that he had been endorsed by the California Pro-Life Council, when, in fact, he never had the endorsement of that group. I heard from a representative of Kaloogian’s campaign that this was printed in error. In reality, Kaloogian was actually endorsed by Mike Meunsh, Legislative Director for the National Pro-Life Alliance.

Of course, Kaloogian is running with about 500 other Republicans in the primary to see who will replace Duke Cunningham in Congress. Many of the candidates are pro-life — Howard certainly one of them.… Read More