“Never has so much resulted in so little change.” Paul Pfingst, the former D.A. and now a local KUSI-TV news analyst, said it about the San Diego mayoral election, in which Democrat Donna Frye could barely muster a higher percentage (46%) than she did in the primary. Yet, the comment would about hit the mark for the statewide special election as well. Over $200 million spent, significantly more when everything is analyzed, and status quo has been achieved.

If someone is looking for the bright side, while grasping at straws, they could say that the statewide unions were forced to spend a third of that money to get exactly what they have now, nothing more. But, of course, nothing more is pretty much political control of the state.

It’s not over until it’s over, a great baseball philosopher once said. This one was over the day the election was called. Plenty of other pundits will get into an in-depth analysis of all the “whys”. Aside from money spent, low turnout, voter fatigue, mixed messages, another special election, yadda, yadda, yadda … lastly, Republicans had no… Read More

Orange County did as it always does, came through on the right side of just about every contest. See a .pdf run-down of the OC numbers here.

Chairman Scott Baugh is a clear winner tonight, having overseen an impressive county party run precinct operation. The OC GOP won each of the measures it endorsed, plus Steve Knoblock for San Clemente City Council (consultants Janice and Paul Glaab utilized well the county party endorsement there).

Measure D, a move by the firefighters to re-allocate some of the Prop. 172 monies from OC Sheriff and the DA to the OC Fire Authority lost big. The was a lot of wound licking and cheering in the respective two camps, this fight was the OC Sheriff’s Deputies Union with help from Sheriff Mike Carona and DA Rackauckas vs. the Firefighters Union with help from various local electeds who sit on the Fire Authority Board. The bottom-line analysis shows that if there is a pot of money, someone is… Read More

My good friend and fellow FR contributor Mike Spence has suggested each of us in the arena of public opinion should find ourselves in the fiery depths of whatever afterlife awaits evil researchers.

While I may take issue with the methodology used by many of the pollsters that have released results this cycle and I will talk more about this in an election analysis piece in the near future, the bottom line is, we are researchers. We just call it like we see it. If you want to blame someone, how about the media for blindly publishing our work product.

NOTE: I mean no disrespect to the various news outlets that publish and broadcast my results after careful consideration. … Read More

I have found in this world of ‘breaking news’ that you have to make a judgement call on when something is ‘rumor’ and when it is ‘fact’. My general principle is the ‘rule of 6’ – if I hear a rumor and can find six credible sources that can confirm this rumor, even off of the record, then I feel comfortable going forward… While I had been hearing this story for a few days, last night – the ‘rule of 6’ kicked into effect — so here is what I’ve heard: SCHWARZENEGGER TO PICK NEW CHIEF OF STAFF Since his election as Governor, Patricia Clarey has served honorably as Arnold Schwarzenegger’s Chief of Staff. Her pick was a surprise to some that assumed the Governor would pick someone with a higher profile. Clarey, as a Deputy Chief of Staff to former Governor Pete Wilson, had always kept a lower profile in that administration. One can only imagine the challenge… Read More

The second-guessing and backseat driving has now hit epidemic proportions, as every pundit, political science professor, and columnist in the state has begun to explain exactly why the Schwarzenegger reform effort has failed. Nowhere has that criticism been more intense than among the ranks of Republican campaign consultants who are not affiliated with the governor’s committees. And while I have certainly not avoided the opportunities offered by an always-willing news media to offer my thoughts as well, at least today it may make sense to worry less about what has happened and begin to think about what comes next.

I have previously written that Schwarzenegger can plausibly claim victory if he passes either Proposition 77 or 75, on the grounds that he will be able to argue that at least he has opened the door for further reform by achieving either the redistricting reform or paycheck protection that those two initiatives offer. If one or the other passes, there’s a good chance he pulls Prop 74 across the finish line… Read More

Last night, I attended a private event in San Francisco, a reception with Helen Thomas, the veteran UPI reporter who covered the White House for nearly 40 years. After we mixed and mingled, Thomas gave a speech and took Q&A from the audience.

I expected Thomas’ speech to be an interesting journey through the administrations of the eight presidents she covered—Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon, Ford, Carter, Reagan, Bush and Clinton. And while I expected Thomas’ politics to be left of center, what I was not prepared for was the vitriolic speech she gave against President Bush.

Before Thomas started her speech, she was introduced by a founding partner of the hosting firm who reminded her that the audience was of mixed political views. She clearly didn’t care.… Read More

Shakespeare may have hated lawyers, but there was not much polling goingon by the monarchy at the time. I think he might have thought otherwise if there had been pollsters then.

I have to admit I have hired pollsters and even repeated their findings. I apologize.

After seeing Bill Whalen’s piece on new poll numbers hereand last weeks here. Then reading FlashReports exclusive interview with Arnie Steinberg here as well as LA Times, PPIC, Field, Survey USA polls and the elusive CRP/Arnold Internal polling, I have concluded they should all go. Most will have been shown to be wrong by some degree today.

Also, the real focus on pollsleaves public policy behind and focuses discussion onthe numbers . Our ideas are right regardless of the polling. But, if all we talk… Read More

I’ll leave the pollsters alone in this blog (as long as we are allowedopen season on them in the not-too-distant future).

But, speaking of Prop 73 (see Matt Cunningham’s prior post), I heard a pastor talk to his congregation about it on Sunday. Although he did not expressly advocate for it, you can’t be too careful these days, so I won’t mention the church (I hope no jack-booted IRS thugs show up at my doorstep asking questions after this).

It was the way this pastor said it, and I paraphrase:

"Whether you think Arnold Schwarzenegger or Warren Beatty is the celebrity that best knows the issues, that’s up to you," he said in jest. But, when it comes to Proposition 73, the school won’t even give a band-aid to my daughter without calling me….so I can’t even imagine when it comes to a medical procedure. "I’m not telling you how to vote or anything. But if you want to know more about the issue, you can go to our church website, and we have a link to YES ON 73, and you can read more about it."

You gotta… Read More