Down to his last piece of communications to supports, Phil Angelides is still deluding himself. In a final e-mail to supporters (h/t CA Observer), Angelides is still trying to tie Arnold Schwarzenegger to President George W. Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney.

How exactly do you connect THOSE dots, Mr. "Four more years of Arnold Schwarzenegger means four more years of Bush/Cheney/Schwarzenegger policies in California" Angelides?

Literally the only thing that I can think of is that, to the end, Phil Angelides is only concerned about one thing – raising taxes. If that is the case, then I guess he is right — Bush and Schwarzenegger both share a commitment to opposing tax increases.

But that is about it. Ideologically, stylistically, or geographically, there is very little similarity between the two — except that they are both Republicans.

But then, all Democrats are not alike either. There are… Read More

(Dade County, CA) — The news reports of last week that the SD County Registrar of Voters had not ordered enough mail ballots eliciteda kind of "color me surprised" response from many political watchers.

It’s nice that photocopied versions were sent to those requesting ballots. What you may have missed, however, is that the information on the estimated-to-be-returned 5,000 photocopied mail ballots will have to transferred by hand to official ballots, so they can be run through the opti-scan vote counters.

Say what?! That’s right, the results of every up- and down-ticket race, every local office, and every statewide and local ballot measure for about 5,000 ballots will have to be recorded by hand.

And we thought hanging chads were bad.

As far as day-of-voting, the SDUT is already reporting technical glitches with many electronic voting machines. The line was long, but things seemed fine when I hit my polling placeat 7:15 a.m.… Read More

FR friend Chad Morgan e-mailed, inquiring as to whom we would select as MVP for the Claude Parrish campaign? Well, first of all, there will not be MVP’s named for every race. But if there were, we would have a really tough time coming up with one for "Team Parrish" — especially since I couldn’t tell you the name of one person ON the team.

Seriously, though — I really could not say if there is a consultant or staff person for Parrish, who has run the least visible campaign I have ever seen by a statewide candidate from a major political party.

I will say this for Parrish, though, by way of expressing appreciation — his primary opponent, Assemblyman Keith Richman, declared war on his own political party with his rabid support of allowing Democrats to vote on who Republicans nominate in general elections.

We here at the FlashReport choose to view Parrish’s primary victory as a repudiation of Richman’s anti-Party stand.… Read More

We’re almost through the the FlashReport Campaign MVP’s for this general election cycle. But they are only getting better! We’ve already seen Arnold’s MVP awarded to Katie Levinson, Tom’s MVP to Stan Devereux, and Tony’s MVP to Paul Hegyi. Now we are going to recognize someone who has been a key player in the campaign of Chuck Poochigian for Attorney General! And MVP is….

The feistiest campaign waged by a down-ballot Republican has to be that of Senator Chuck Poochigian’s bid to be Attorney General. Facing two-term former Governor, 3-time former presidential candidate, former Secretary of State, former Democratic Party Chair and current Oakland Mayor Jerry Brown, Poochigian has gained national media notice for the aggressiveness, creativity and hard-hitting nature of his underdog campaign.

The widely respected and likeable… Read More

Real low turnout in San Diego County… Read More

The Pacific Research Institute doesn’t advocate for particular candidates, but the FlashReport does — and after reading this column below penned by Vince Vasquez, you’ll probably want to make sure that Debra Bowen does NOT become your next Secretary of State:

By Vince Vasquez. Pacific Research Institute Today, Californians from all walks of life will be able to vote with a phenomenal technology. Californians can also be confident with “e-voting,” despite the cries of fear-mongers and conspiracy theorists.

E-voting systems, also known as direct recording electronic (DRE) machines, employ easy-to-use touch screens and other high-tech devices to make voting simpler, safer, and more accessible for… Read More

Orange County’s board of supervisors is a powerful bunch. Controlling a $4 billion dollar budget is a big job and too often in recent years votes have gone the wrong way because there were not enough solid conservative valued board members.

Today that will change. The voters of the 5th Supervisorial District are going to elect former Assemblywoman Pat Bates a solid GOP conservative. Bates will get sworn in at the same time as OC Treasurer/Prophet John Moorlach. Both them have integrity that is unquestioned and conservative principles that they never compromise.

Supervisor Chris Norby who was not up for re-election this year is a bit more libertarian but nonetheless conservative and Board Chairman Bill Campbell round out the GOP majority.

There are high hopes that this majority will create a more open environment at the Hall of Administration. That they will make it clear to staff and the unions and anyone who asks, that their agenda is based on sound limited government principles.

Gilliard Blanning Wysocki ran Bates’ campaign against Laguna Niguel Mayor Cassie DeYoung who spent more than $4 million dollars of her own money to… Read More

California politics makes the election-day issue of the Wall Street Journal’s Political Diary (it’s tied into a piece on both California and New York):

A Tale of Two Megastates

As two of the nation’s largest states, California and New York share reputations as bastions of liberalism and a congenial home to moderate Republicans such as Arnold Schwarzenegger and George Pataki.

But the two mega-states are likely to diverge dramatically when it comes to tonight’s election results. In California, private polls show Governor Schwarzenegger with a 15-point lead over his hapless Democratic challenger Phil Angelides. More importantly, Republicans are mounting strong… Read More