Update action for now is on Twitter here.

Top notes: It’s Whitman vs. Brown, Fiorina vs. Boxer.… Read More

Meg Whitman — Remarks as prepared for delivery… Thank you so much… What a great night! This victory is yours! I just received a very gracious phone call from Steve Poizner conceding the race. I want to commend Commissioner Poizner and his supporters for the energy they brought to their campaign. It has been a tough campaign, but I’m a stronger candidate tonight because of it. I’m battle-tested. … Read More

Hi FR gang, I thought I’d knock a little rust off my FR password in honor of Flash’s new arrival [Congrats!]

The race for the 12 county 4th Senate District up here is nearing its conclusion and what a ride its been. I’ve got a good feeling about it, with great thanks to my team…more on that later.

Justa bit on Prop 14, as I’ve seen very good commentary on here already. As vows are being made to have intra-party conventions in response to a possible passage of Prop 14, I have to wonder how that will be a better process than what we have now. The smoke-filled room way of doing business is the exact turn off to voters that will be perpetuated by PASSING 14, when, potentiallya few hundred party people can be wined and dined to favoring a candidate vs. having to make the case to all the electorate in a party primary.

With the "goal" of 14 to cause more moderate candidates, you instead get more bought and paid for ones answering to afew party bosses. The freedom of people that choose to affiliate with a particular party ideal areleft to choose an annointed one, post the party convention, not their… Read More

Check out this new website developed by the Institute for Government Studies at UC Berkeley.It called California Choices and it is apartnership between IGS, the Bill Lane Center for the American West at Stanford, the Center for California Studies at Sacramento State, and Next 10, a Bay Area "green" think tank founded and funded by venture capitalist F. Noel Perry. This website shows the positions mostmajor statewide organizations have taken on state ballot measures and allows you to email your positions to friends.

This could be a handy tool when your friends and family call to find out how you voted on the ballot measures. The only issue is that the website does not tell you how they might be using the information collected during the transmission of information from friend to friend. Are they collecting and tallying the info? Are they collecting emails? I’m assuming that if the website proves to be useful to the public over the long termthose… Read More

Ok, nowfor the real analysis on Orange County…(other than the treasurer’s race for which I did a public poll, all predictions are based on my best guess)

-Appointed Sheriff Hutchens will either win re-election or be the top vote-getter

-District Attorney Tony Rackauckas is re-elected (he has no opponent)

-Clerk-Recorder Tom Daley is re-elected

-Public Administrator John Williams is re-elected or will be the top vote-getter

-Auditor David Sundstrom wins re-election

-Assessor Webster Guillory will fend off a challenge from former BOE member Claude Parrish

-Shari Freidenrich will be in a run-off with Keith Rodenhuis will face each other in a run-off for Treasurer

-5th Dist. Supervisor Pat Bates wins re-election (no opponent)

-2nd Dist. Supervisor John Moorlach wins re-election (no opponent)

-Fullerton Councilman Shawn Nelson will win the Special and Primary Elections for 4th Dist. Supervisor and probably face Harry Sidhu in a run-off on November (but Nelson will be seated immediately to fill the unexpired term of now Assemblyman Chris Norby)

There are some other less interesting offices like… Read More

The race to watch for Republicans in tomorrow’s statewide primary election is actually the Democrat primary for Lt. Governor. San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom is battling it out with Los Angeles City Councilwoman Janice Hahn. Hahn has great name identification from years of her family’s public service in the county, a far bigger media market than San Francisco. But Newsom is spending money and can probably do more to light up the core Democratic Left voters in the primary than Hahn.

The race is now very important because it will define some of the more obvious differences for voters in the Democrat and Republican statewide tickets in November. The odds are that Jerry Brown will win his primary for Governor in the Democrat party, and Meg Whitman and Abel Maldonado will most likely win theirs for Governor and Lt. Governor in the Republican primary. A “Whitman/Maldonado” ticket will look a lot different to California voters than a “Brown/Newsom” ticket from the standpoint of pure winnability. “Whitman/Maldonado” will look more like California to statewide voters, while “Brown/Newsom” will look more… Read More

Survey USA just released poll results that show Proposition 14 is “positioned to pass” tomorrow. I know the Flash Report contributors have been vocal about the dangers posed by Proposition 14 and its “top two” primary system. Although the measure is being sold as way to lessen the influence of “special interest”—especially the political parties—Proposition 14 will actually create even more of the backroom political deals that voters despise. The latest political scandal creating headlines is the allegation by Democrat U.S. Senate candidate Joe Sestak that the White House privately pressured him to end his challenge against incumbent Arlen Specter. Amazingly, Sestak actually rebuffed the emissary sent by the White House: former President Bill Clinton. In the end, it worked out pretty well for Sestak when he defeated Specter in the Pennsylvania Democrat primary. Voters are … Read More

As an elected officer of the California Republican Party, my least favorite part of the job (by far) is that under the party’s rules I am obliged to “sit out” contested Republican primaries for partisan office. That having been said, with the election taking place tomorrow, I would not be able to live with myself if I did not take at least a few minutes to talk about a candidate running for State Senate. Let me preface my brief comments by making it clear that this is not a formal endorsement – consider it more of an “informational item” – as it were.

Joel Anderson, who is currently serving in the State Assembly, is seeking the GOP nomination for the State Senate tomorrow – in the 36th District, where Dennis Hollingsworth is retiring due to term limits.

It is has been my good fortune to know Joel Anderson for over twenty years – and to call him a friend. When I think about Joel in terms of his attributes, the thoughts that come to mind are integrity, conservatism, courage, activism,… Read More