It may be recorded as one of the most stunning electoral comebacks in the history of San Diego area politics.

Former Assemblyman Juan Vargas, who just two weeks ago refused to concede the race while Assembywoman Mary Salas was declaring victory and seemingly pulling away, now leads his opponent by six votes in the race for the Democratic nomination in the 40th State Senate District.

The winner will face Republican Brian Hendryin theNovember run-off. San Diego Rostra has been tracking the race all week, with Jim Sills posting breaking news updates as each of the three counties overlapping the senate district have revised their tallies with remaining absentee and provisional ballots.

"Completing an astonishing week-long comeback," writes Sills, "Juan Vargas today claimed the LEAD over rival Mary Salas in their classic primary." See the entire breaking news story posted late this afternoon.

The Rostra post was followed by on-line stories by the… Read More

We call those views "right" and "wrong" — you decide…

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Jerry Brown keeps working hard to draw the “I’m just not cut out to be California’s top elected official” narrative – since the primary. First we had him compare his opponent Meg Whitman to Nazi Josephs Goebbels (yes, one of Adolph Hitler’s right hand men). Who does that? Shortly after that followed his snide retort to a reporter who asked him about state’s finances, to which he said that he had a plan, but that would tell us, “after the election.” (Seriously.)

Well, now are on to #3 of “Stupid Moments For Moonbeam’s Campaign” – the state plane that he keeps announcing he sold when Governor, that he did not sell. In a campaign video, Brown bragged up in April that he sold the Executive Jet – but he did not. But their campaign did sucker our friends Phil and… Read More

Southern California Public Radio listeners were treated to a bit of political theater yesterday, as State Controller John Chiang and Schwarzenegger Press Secretary Aaron McLear (I grabbed McLear’s Twitter avatar so you can see him in action) discussed the (unfortunate but necessary) possibility of paying state workers minimum wage next month unless the Legislature gets around to passing a budget. Chiang is an elected Democrat (read: union tool) who has in the past rather defiantly refused to pay workers minimum wage, even though a 2003 Supreme Court ruling (White vs. Davis) says that is exactly what he must do when the state is running without a budget. In yesterday’s interview Chiang, who has unsuccessfully tried to appeal the ruling before, said that his… Read More

We are pleased to share this piece from RNC Chairman Michael Steele…

In response to the story we broke here this morning, the Kern County Registrar of voters has put out a statement that they were in error, and that Rubio’s home is NOT in the 16th District where he is a nominee.

Click the link below to see the press release…

What happens now… Should be interesting…… Read More

Thanks to California’s infamously gerrymandered legislative districts the vast majority of seats are “pre-ordained” to be either Republican or Democrat. Only in a few districts is the registration close enough that a seat is “in play” in the general election. One of those is State Senate District 16 in the Central Valley.

This seat is currently occupied by term-limited Democrat Dean Florez, who has mentored Democrat Kern County Supervisor Michael Rubio (pictured, right) to succeed him. The Democrat “machine” in the southern part of the valley is so lock-step behind Rubio that he had no primary opponent whatsoever.

On the Republican side of the ballot, rancher and realtor Tim Theisen (pictured, left)… Read More

This just in from Team Carly’s Communication’s Honcho Julie Soderlund…

Yesterday Team Boxer and Team Carly met for the first time to discuss debates. As you know Carly is willing to debate Boxer pretty much anywhere, anytime. As a starting point Carly’s debate negotiation team comprised of political veterans Ken Khachigian and Beth Miller proposed a minimum debate schedule of five debates in local markets around the state in addition to two nationally televised debates. Team Boxer didn’t propose anything and said they would take our ideas back to Boxer’s camp. Below is the follow-up email Beth sent over to Dan and Ace that gives you the full rundown. We’ll keep you in the loop as this process develops! Dear Dan and Ace — … Read More