The waiting is over. Time to shut down the bandwagon and roll it back into the garage. Sen. Barbara Boxer apparently will not run for president in 2008, according a report in The Hill, a Capitol Hill newspaper. Boxer deferred to her former in-law, the junior senator from New York (Boxer’s daughter was once married to Tony Rodham, Hillary’s younger brother). "Someone has to stay in the Senate," Boxer told the Times. "And the Senate i s not chopped liver." Or, in Boxer’s case, a load of bologna.… Read More

It appears George Bush doesn’t have enough problems with rank and file Republicans over the Miers nomination, government spending and immigration. Now his fundraising visit to California, two weeks before the special electionhas become a source of division. The official CRP spokesperson called the visit "ill-timed." Look for these fights to continue as issues like redistricting reform seperate California’s Republicans from the White House..

Read all about it in Jon Fleichman’s commentary here.… Read More

The generic images of smoky back-room party politics have not been a realistic depiction (at least not in CA) for decades. While the back-rooms are used for storage now since it’s illegal to smoke in them anyway, party politics is back, with a punch. Parties are getting keen to the idea of weighing at all levels of election politics, including endorsing and spending money on behalf of not just legislative candidates, but local races too. Read more in a column I wrote that was published today in Capitol Weekly.… Read More

BOXER’S NEW BOOK Barbara Boxer has two titles now – career politican AND author. That’s right, she has a new book out, entitled "A Time to Run" that is seemingly and interesting read. Apparently the scenario has a liberal female U.S. Senator from California opposing a conservative female appointee to the Supreme Court (shock). Fiction or non-fiction? I’m not really sure. The San Francisco Chronicle’s political writer/analyst has takes a quick peak at the book.

I’m not saying what Carla’s

priorities are here, but she did make it to the ‘racey’ parts of the book, like this excerpt: "… Her shirt was very short, and Josh found himself mesmerized by her pefectly shaped silken legs, with kneecaps that reminded him of golden apples … and her… Read More

I’m not one to fall in love with poll numbers, but here are some survey results that are worth a notice. They come from Stanford University-Hoover Institution-Knowledge Networks.

Two things worth noting: this is online sampling, with the wording from the actual ballot presented to respondents. These folks were closest to recall’s final results back in 2003, which might say something about Field and the LA Times revisiting their survey methods.

First, the Arnold slate:

Prop 74 trails, 49% to 51% Prop 75 leads, 70% to 30% Prop 76 trails, 30% to 70% Prop 77 splits, 50% to 50%

As for the other initiatives:

Prop 73 leads, 54% to 46% Prop 78 leads, 59% to 41% Prop 79 leads, 58% to 42% Prop 80 trails, 37% to 63%

If the Prop 75 and 79 numbers are true, what does that say about the power of negative advertising?

FYI – here’s a link to the survey.… Read More

Well, not really but close. City Attorney and Democratic candidate for Attorney General is suing the Los Angeles Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) on nine counts of polluting the environment. Read it here.

Drum roll please. The Chair of the of the MTA is Mayor of Los Angeles Antonio Villaraigosa.

Looking like an enviroin a Dem primary is always more important than the interests of a fellow Dem office holder.… Read More

Much more will be wrtten here about businessman Bill Mundell (pictured with Prop. 77 initiator Ted Costa) as he gears up a campaign to challenge Dianne Feinstein in her bid for re-election. Mundell, who hails out of the Westside of Los Angeles, is a successful businessman, son of a nobel-prize winner in economics, self-styled libertarian Republican who has played a key role in Proposition 77, the Redistricting Reform measure. You can read Mundell’s bio here.

It is actually safe to say that without Mundell’s early financial support, it is dubious whether 77 would be on the ballot AT ALL right now – in a state as large as California, you must have a paid effort to gather the requisate signatures. In late 1997, I worked for Ron Unz on the successful Prop. 227 campaign (to end bilingual education) – a popular issue – and still it took a substantial paid effort augmenting a volunteer effort to get onto the ballot).… Read More

In recent weeks, the conservative Republican Study Committee, the conservative caucus in the U.S. House of Representatives, has ratcheted up the pressure on GOP leadership to deal with the growing budget deficit in the wake of Hurricane Katrina and Iraq. When RSC leaders held a press conference announcing "Operation Offset" House GOP leadership aides lurked about the conference belittling RSC to the assembled media and Houseleaders subsequently criticized RSC members for "undermining the unity of the GOP conference," being "unrealistic about the Senate’s willingnessto go along," and creating negative publicity for House Republicans."

In the weeks following the launch of Operation Offset, the House leadership incrementally embraced the proposals of the RSC. First, they committed to find additional savings from a process called "reconciliation," which forces committee chairman to find a specified amount of savings within their committees. The following week, they embraced a 2% across the board spending cut and what do you know, they started to get positive responses from the RSC, the… Read More