The word is that today there will be some kind of major announcement in a local SD assembly race. Trying to pin it down, I’ve been asking around,"This isn’t the stale Packard thing, is it?" If it turns out to be a cataclysmic story, I’ll post it later.

In the meantime, speaking of Scott Packard, former Vista councilmember and son of the former congressman, apparently he has jumped in the 74th, no surprise there, although the late entry will cause fodder. The North County Times has the story this morning.

But, I simply can’t resist the mention on the SD Politics blog, posted in the wee hours:

Getting To The Party Late

Scott Packard, son offormer Congressman Ron Packard, announced this week that he is joining the race for the 74th Assembly District.

So it’s official. Well, well, well, welcome to the party! Packard has some serious ground to make up. He’ll have few… Read More

It was mention elsewhere in the blogosphere already, but this morning I was able to confirm that the arrival of Pat Clarey and Rob Stutzman to the payroll of the California Republican Party is a done deal.

Republican Clarey, who had been serving as Governor Schwarzenegger’s Chief of Staff until the end of last year, was replaced in that position by Democrat Public Utilities Commissioner Susan Kennedy. Stutzman had been serving as Arnold’s Communications Director, and he has been replaced inside of the administration by another stalwart GOPer, Adam Mendelsohn.

It is not unusual for these kinds of staff hires to take place at the GOP. I know from my perspective as having served as Executive Director that having folks who are working on… Read More

My first election cycle involved in politics was in 1988. It was a great year to be involved in politics – especially because the two campaigns on which I first volunteered were for two veterans of the Reagan White House who came home to California to run for Congress. One was former speechwriter Dana Rohrabacher, who won the GOP nomination and is now a high-ranking member of our GOP majority. The other was Reagan lawyer Chris Cox. I remember that Chris eeked out a primary win over the liberal Mayor of Irvine (Baker) and served a distinguished career in the House of Representatives. As a matter of fact, I was very proud when late last year President Bush nominated Chris to serve as Chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission. He is currently in that post, of which all California Republican can be proud.

It turns out that Chris is going to be having a surgical procedure done. Below is the Associated Press story. But I just want to encourage all who read this weblog… Read More

Some things are just too unbelievable to read. Today when I got an email from FR friend Carl DeMaio of the San Diego-based Performance Institute, with a link to an online version of a research paper, I was blown-away with what I read.

Clicking this link took me to a 79 page analysis by some guy named Lee Cokorinos at the website of the Center for Policy Initiatives. To read it, you start to think of that Mel Gibson movie, Conspiracy Theory. Your eyes start to go wide, and you start to look for photographs of black helicopters on each page.

This bizarre look at one left-wing analysts view of conservatism in San Diego is called Target San Diego: The Right Wing Assault on Urban Democracy and Smart Government.

This is their brief discription of their study:

My kids get a kick driving by the Pixar Studios when we’re running errands in Emeryville. They love knowing that there are big kids (masquerading as grown-ups) inside who spend their days creating family-friendly movies like "The Incredibles" and "Finding Nemo." Yesterday my 10-year-old daughter had the same reaction to the big Disney-Pixar deal as many of us grownups when she asked doubtfully, "Um, does that mean that Disney is going to make the Pixar movies now?" You don’t have to be over 5′ tall to know that Pixar is the king of animation and Disney runs a slow second. For Disney maniacs like me, it was painful to watch Michael Eisner at the helm of Walt’s company. I never felt that he cared about Walt’s vision. Iin the end, Roy Disney didn’t care for Eisner’s leadership either and resigned the board in 2003… Read More

In a typical Bay Area approach to problems, local government officials in Oakland and Contra Costa are blaming fast food restaurants for littering and juvenile obesity.

Oakland‘s City Councilmember Jane Brunner is proposing a new tax on fast food restaurants that are located near schools (read the SF Chronicle story here). Why? She says that they need to pay because they "are making a profit off of students." Gee, how about holding the kids doing the littering accountable for their behavior rather than making it more expensive for local businesses to do business in Oakland?… Read More

On Tuesday I took an eight hour drive from San Diego back to Sacramento. I made myself one promise the Monday before – that I would NOT be stuck going over the hill on the 405 looking at the Getty Center at 5pm. That I would plan to avoid one of the worst bottlenecks in the state by leaving on time from San Diego at 1:30 or 2:00. Instead I left at 3:00 and found myself, you guessed it, looking right up at the Getty Center at 5pm.

I’ve now made the drive back and forth probably 100 times in the last ten years, and based on this experience I am going to state some rules of thumb for statewide campaigns on the road, since my experience is everyone’s estimates are different. Assuming light or no traffic and averaging 75 miles per hour on the parts of the road that are not totally urban, it is three hours from downtown San Diego to downtown Bakersfield. It is an hour and a half from Bakersfield to Fresno. And generally two and one half hours from Fresno to Sacramento. I’m driving down again in a month and a half and will relay the time from Sacramento to Stockton to Modesto to Fresno to Bakersfield to downtown LA to Irvine to Carlsbad to downtown… Read More

Forty-two days after Ernie Dronenburg announced he would be resigning from the board of education, two weeks after the board adopted the timeline and process for filling the vacancy, 10 days after I started railing about the lack of info (with Voice of San Diego following the lead), and a mere TWO DAYS before applications are due, someone finally did something.

The County Office of Education has posted to its website the fact that there is a vacancy on the board and applications are due this Friday, giving anyone who sees it plenty of time to jump through the hoops.

This, apparently, is how you define successinabureaucratic world.

Most telling of the County Office’s posted info: The headline, "Hartley is New President of County Board of Education; Applications Now Available to Fill Dronenburg Seat," still takes second fiddle to the now-long-posted main… Read More