Winsome Newsom

San Francisco’s politics have always been a colorful soap opera, but never more so than now with the city’s 39-year-old mayor, Gavin Newsom, having admitted that he conducted an affair with the wife of his own campaign manager — who has since resigned in disgust.

Many people are distressed by the mayor’s behavior, although there is no indication he will resign from office or not seek a second term this November. But hard-bitten Democratic operatives say the scandal has probably ended Mr. Newsom’s hopes of higher office. "What happens in San Francisco tends to mean politicians there stay in San Francisco," is how one of them puts it.

Indeed, Democratic leaders aren’t nearly as upset by Mayor Newsom’s affair as they were last September when the new divorcee was seen squiring about a… Read More

I was reading the SF Chron story on the Arnold tapes and this passage caught my eye:

A spokeswoman for Perata said the comments made in the tapes will not affect cordial relations and productive legislative action accomplished by the governor and the Senate leader.

"There’s nothing in those tapes that will prevent this year from being as productive as last year," said Alicia Trost.

That’s a real shame.

For a brief, shining moment, I hoped these examples of Gov. Schwarzenegger actually being authentic might throw a monkey wrench into the Schwarzeneggerian-Democratic "post-partisan" partnership to expand state government at the expense of Californians’ liberty and wealth.

After all, it’s no mystery what Democrats… Read More

FR friend Adam Mendelsohn had to work a lot over the weekend, as Phil Angelides and/or his operatives have released more of their secret cache of audio recordings of Governor Schwarzenegger with his speechwriters, that were famously extracted from the Governor’s computer system by crafty though questionable techniques. Of course Cathy Calfo, who managed Angelides’ losing bid, denies they released the tapes (again). Riiiight. The Governor’s office released the following statement from Mendelsohn:

"There are over three hours of private tapes. They show a Governor who is thoughtful, concerned and focused on solving some of California’s most serious problems. Governor Schwarzenegger discusses his hope of… Read More

FR friend Adam Mendelsohn had to work a lot over the weekend, as Phil Angelides and/or his operatives have released more of their secret cache of audio recordings of Governor Schwarzenegger with his speechwriters, that were famously extracted from the Governor’s computer system by crafty though questionable techniques. Of course Cathy Calfo, who managed Angelides’ losing bid, denies they released the tapes (again). Riiiight. The Governor’s office released the following statement from Mendelsohn:

The CRP can’t show us the money because of they are over $4.5 million debt. One of the most recent attempts to explain the debt is that the millions spent were an investment in infrastructure. See here. This is not a new approach to things. The CRP did officially support two bond measures last election cycle (and of course supported one without approval). The stories coming out now about how little will be accomplished by the bonds begs the question for the CRP. Where is the infrastructure? I can’t figure it out. The paid staff has been released. The call centers are shut down. A couple County Chairs thought they were going to get some of the scanners etc… Turns out most of the equipment turns out to have been leased. The party claims to have registered around 125,000 voters (At a devastating cost to local programs. … Read More

Ron Nehring e-mailed me Saturdayletting me knowhe was in the desert (Rancho Mirage) and did I want to get together. Ron (pictured to the right) is a friend, one of those friends I never seem to get to spend enough time with, but would like to – you knowthe kind.Anyways, we had some bagels and cold cuts and sat out on the balcony at the Hyatt Grand Champions in 80 degree sunshine and talked for a couple of hours.

I’m enthused to see Ron assending to the Chair of the CRP. And I’m glad he’s doing it unopposed. Tell you why. Competition is usually a good thing and we who work in this business, of course, relish a struggle. But not now. What I believe our party needs at this time is some real campaign oriented, disciplined, goal oriented leadership. The base is deflated – look at the turnout last November. But let me digress for a moment.

We had to support the Governor.And we did.Some… Read More

Next weekend, the California Republican Party Convention will take place at the Sacramento Hyatt Hotel. FR friend Ron Nehring is running unopposed for the Chairmanship. The race for statewide Vice-Chairman, though, is a three-way donnybrook between Tom Bordonaro, Tom Del Becarro, and Jalene Forbis. On this blog, we’ve featured columns from all three. Also, we featured a letter from Assemblyman Chuck DeVore on behalf of Bordonaro and a letter from Tony Strickland on behalf of Del Becarro. Below is a letter that I received from former United States Congressman Richard Pombo on behalf of the candidacy of Jalene Forbis: FROM THE DESK OF FORMER CONGRESSMAN RICHARD POMBO

… Read More

Every six months or so, I try to take the family cars to get detailed at my local car wash. You know, try to keep them in good shape and all. Well, yesterday I took the Explorer over to my local car wash here in Irvine, to find that, to my dismay, the price had increased by $15! The manager was nice enough to give me a ride back to my house after I brought over the car, and we had an interesting conversation. I asked her about why the price was increased for the detailing, and she told me that they raised the price because of the hike in the minimum wage — the car wash is just passing that cost along to us. But she said that it really hasn’t worked well because the number of people getting their cars detailed (at least at their carwash) has dropped — because people are unhappy with the higher prices. So because of that, she is having to cut back on the hours of the employees who detail the cars. Go figure. But wait, there’s more. I asked her how the wage increase is effecting the rest of the car-wash operations. She said that in response to the wage increase, and a recent increase in cost for their… Read More