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Anthony York's profile of Schwarzenegger advisor and friend Bonnie Reiss, who is leaving her formal job with the admininistration, notes how Reiss became shocked at the power of unions in the Capitol. Dan Weintraub notices a trend among Democrats.
 One of the best Reiss stories comes from well before Schwarzenegger entered politics. It was Maria Shriver and Reiss who used Schwarzenegger for their political ends, not the other way around. Times staff writer Joe Mathews had this description of the Reiss-Schwarzenegger relationship in a recent story:
"Bonnie Reiss got a look at her future boss in action in 1979 when she and her friend Maria Shriver were trying to whip up interest in a Teddy Kennedy for President event at a roller-disco club in Hollywood. The two women coaxed Shriver's bodybuilder boyfriend into taking a stroll along Venice Beach. 'He let us walk 20 feet behind him and try to sell fund-raiser tickets to the people following him down the beach,' Reiss recalled."
Reiss is returning to Malibu, but Schwarzenegger said she will always "have a seat at the table."
- Number of public school teachers the state Legislature envisioned it would train in mathematics and reading standards under a 2001 law: 176,000
- So far, the number of teachers that districts could prove they trained: 7,230
- Taxpayer cost of program so far: $113 million (enough to fully train 45,000 teachers)
- Number of school districts that could not provide any information to the state auditor about the number of teachers who completed the required 120 hours of training: 41 of 100 surveyed.
Read the audit of the Department of Education here.
After the 2003 recall, Schwarzenegger turned down an offer to film a reality TV series based in the California governor's office. Denying the public that much sunshine into his life was probably a wise move, given that just a brief, electronically recorded glimpse caused such a "hot-blooded" stir this year.
 Now, Schwarzenegger is calling for more openness to California's school system — including putting all sorts of public information on the Internet for parents and others to see. In reality, he wants to create a marketplace for schools by forcing them to compete against each other for students. Schwarzenegger said recently:
"And my policy always has been, let the sun shine in. Let the sun shine in on everything. Let the schools open up their financial record. Let us see how they spend their money and where that money goes. And then I think that will really make it easier for parents to shop for the best schools and it will make them more competitive because all of a sudden they will see that this school is getting more students, this school is losing students. So then the ones that are losing students, they'll be getting their act together."
The governor's position is being bolstered by a new poll sponsored by Children Now that found 92% of those surveyed "favor requiring better and more accessible information so that we can understand where our education tax dollars are being spent." This gives the governor political ammunition if he supports legislation on the subject next year. He's sure to face opposition from some school and teacher groups that already feel hectored enough by achievement tests and school rankings.
Hey, what about mandatory webcams in all California classrooms so the public can view teachers and students in action? That might generate some sympathy for teachers, in fact. It would show they have to put up with students like this.
Along with schools, Schwarzenegger seems inclined for more openness in law enforcement. He recently signaled that he was interested to the concept of videotaping police interrogations of suspects arrested for violent crimes. Read the "I'm interested" veto statement here on legislation from last year.
Anna Werner, an investigative reporter with CBS-5 in the Bay Area, has a new piece on Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's "taxpayer-funded PR machine," which includes live webcasts and videos of the governor's public appearances. The governor's office claimed these webcasts are not edited, but Werner found some footage that "never made it to the governor's website:"
- Clip 1: Schwarzenegger gives a speech in which he tells a joke featuring his wife, Maria Shriver. "My wife came to me and she says, 'You know, what do you want for Father's Day?' I said, 'Let me think about that. Well, how about 10 more points in the polls? And how about some wild sex?' She said, 'Uh, well, let me work on the poll numbers.' " He also jokes that cigars show the "difference between Democrats and Republicans." To Schwarzenegger, a cigar means you "kick back and relax," but to Bill Clinton, a cigar is "evidence," the Republican governor says.
- Clip 2: A joke he frequently tells about his uncle-in-law, U.S. Sen. Edward Kennedy. Shriver tells him he is becoming more and more "Kennedyesque." Schwarzenegger muses that he must be like Robert or John Kennedy, when in fact she means he's becoming "fat" like Uncle Teddy.
- Clip 3: Schwarzenegger introduces his new chief of staff, Susan (No Relation) Kennedy, to the Capitol press corp. When the reporters sit silently, he jokes: "Tone it down, not so much applause."
- Clip 4: At a speech before law enforcement, Schwarzenegger jokes he hasn't seen so many police since he "had my motorcycle crash and was asked for my driver's license, which I didn't have."
 "The lesson for California Republicans is that in the governor’s office they have an egotist and an opportunist who picks his friends to serve himself and maintains his loyalties only so long as they do so. The Party — its members and organizations — should return the favor with gusto. What Schwarzenegger should get from them for the asking should be: absolutely nothing. - William E. Saracino, musing that Schwarzenegger is more like Richard Nixon than Ronald Reagan.
For Arnoldologists of this persuasion, there are even Nixon-Schwarzenegger coffee mugs available on Ebay.
I was sitting in a restaurant last night trying to figure out why a lumpy, brown, aging crab cake was floating in my gazpacho when Phil Angelides walked through the restaurant. He greeted a few people and came to the table to say hello. He had just finished a four-hour meeting with his three closest advisors — media guru Bill Carrick, campaign manager Cathy Calfo and Democratic Party strategist Bob Mulholland. Everyone had thick binders under their arms.
 After essentially three years of campaigning, it would be natural for Angelides to call a meeting to deconstruct why he suffered such an embarrassing loss to Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger. Any politician would want to find out what went wrong.
But that is not what the meeting was about. (Although some post-election analysis did occur, Carrick said.) The meeting at the 33rd Street Bistro was to plan his comeback in California politics, which seemed sort of astonishing to the people at my table. Isn't he, like, a loser?
Mulholland came over and suggested Angelides would be a candidate in 2010 for governor or another higher office (U.S. Senate, if Barbara Boxer leaves?). He mentioned other politicians who lost big elections — Bill Clinton, Dianne Feinstein, Alan Cranston — and then came back to win higher office. Cranston, Mulholland said today in a telephone conversation, announced immediately after losing reelection for state controller in 1966 that he would run for U.S. Senate in 1968. Reporters dismissed him as crazy — he was, after all, a loser — but Cranston won.
Mulholland said Angelides has been active in Democratic politics for 15 years and "still has another good 15 years in him." He said he wants to play a big part in getting a Democratic president elected in 2008, and would look to something for himself in 2010. "Phil will not be running for Board of Equalization, let's just put it that way," Mulholland said. "I will guarantee that you will see a very active Phil Angelides in politics."
All of this seems sort of delusional to me. I still remember sitting in the piercing sun on the porch of Al Checchi's Beverly Hills mansion listening to him explain how he would remain a player in California politics even though he had just lost big to Gray Davis in the 1998 Democratic primary. Checchi really hasn't been heard from since. But Angelides is a different animal, so who knows?
Meanwhile, don't order the gazpacho at the 33rd Street Bistro.
(Photo: Rich Pedroncelli / AP)
Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger is blowing off the Republican Governors Assn. meeting that starts today at the Doral Golf Resort and Spa in Miami. Twenty other Republican governors and governors-elect are attending, including Mitt Romney of Massachusetts, Rick Perry of Texas and George Pataki of New York. Currently, there are 28 GOP governors — but the party lost six gubernatorial offices in the November election.
Instead of attending, Schwarzenegger has a busy schedule dedicating a new freeway in Orange County, attending an auto show in Los Angeles, and flying to Mexico City for the inauguration of President-elect Felipe Calderon.
Why isn't Schwarzenegger attending the governors' conference? Perhaps because he isn't really a Republican governor. (Snark!) "As far as I can tell, he's never attended," said Schwarzenegger press secretary Margita Thompson. "The governor's first priority is developing policies that will be part of the next year."
It's another nightmare scenario.
In a Florida district this election, 18,000 people declined to cast a vote in a congressional race but voted in other contests on the same ballot. That was four or five times the number of "no votes" than in other elections, raising alarms about Florida's electronic voting machines.
 In the race, Republican Vern Buchanan has been declared the winner over his Democratic challenger, Christine Jennings. Buchanan won by 369 votes out of 238,000 cast, state officials said, but there is no paper trail to verify what happened to those 18,000 "no votes." Oh, and by the way, Buchanan and Jennings were running to replace Republican Rep. Katherine Harris, who was Florida's secretary of state during the 2000 election debacle and vacated her seat to run for U.S. Senate.
Could this happen here? What is wrong with those people? Should Florida just be eliminated as a state? Now, U.S. Sen. Dianne Feinstein wants to answer at least one of those questions and take a hard look at electronic voting machines when the new Congress convenes.
In California, little-known to the general public, election officials have been auditing their electronic voting machines, as required by law, after the November election. Each county must compare the voting machine results from 1% of precincts to the voter-verified paper trail that the machine produced.
With all the squawking about the dangers of voting machines, a remarkably small number of people have been attending these public audits and observing the process. In some counties, nobody shows up while election officials verify the accuracy of the machines. But Kim Alexander with the California Voter Foundation, which fought to require a voter-verified paper trail in the state, and Stanford professor David Dill, who founded Verified Voting, have observed some interesting things while watching the audits over the past few days:
- It's up to county election officials to figure out the method of picking the precincts they want to audit. In San Mateo County, Dill said, they rolled 10-sided dice. Los Angeles County uses a random-digit generator. Some counties asked the voting machines themselves to pick which precincts to audit — which Dill said was like asking a bank to pick which part of the bank to audit.
 Alexander and Dill both worried that some counties were picking which precincts to audit several days before actually auditing the machines. "It does compromise the process because people know in advance what is going to be audited," Dill said, "and that means that maybe mistakes won't be caught if someone wanted to cheat."
- Alexander said that during the audit in San Joaquin County, a paper jam on one machine forced election officials to print out a new record of the votes. That meant they were using a record of votes produced by the machine and not verified by the voter on election day. "If somebody tampered with the results after the election, a printout from that same data wouldn't show that," she said.
- Few counties seemed to have written procedures for their audits. They sort of winged it. And it's unclear what is supposed to be done if errors are found. Alexander said in San Joaquin County, there was a two-vote difference between the voter-verified paper trail and the electronic results from the Diebold machine. In Yolo County, a one-vote difference was found. Which is correct?
Ordinary people can call their county elections office to see about watching e-voting audits that haven't been finished yet. Alexander has a tip sheet for observing.
For the most part, alarm bells are not ringing about California's auditing process, but look for legislation next year to reform the process and additional scrutiny from incoming Secretary of State Debra Bowen. "I've gained a lot of respect," Dill said, "about how complicated it is to do good auditing."
(Photos: George Clark / AP; Joshua Roberts / Gettty Images)
"He does not really have an in-depth interest in policy. ... He loves marketing."
—State Sen.-elect Mark Wyland (R-Del Mar), speaking about Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, who is about to launch a policy-heavy agenda on health care, prison overcrowding and election reform.
 Ron Nehring, the vice chairman of the California Republican Party, has been in Baghdad for a first-hand glimpse of the war. He went there to train Iraqis on democracy through a group called the International Republican Institute, which says it promotes the free market and "rule of law" around the world.
Let's just say there wasn't much rule of law while Nehring was in Baghdad. You can sense how chaotic the situation has become there in just a few posts.
Nov. 22 posting: "Those I met with are good people, genuinely interested in building a new country for a new generation. It’s very different than what we see on television, which typically highlights divisions and difficulties that make for better ratings than less alarmist progress and diligence."
Three days later: "Since arriving here last Sunday I’ve had my luggage lost, car bombs detonated outside of the building where I was lecturing, mortar fire within easy earshot, flights canceled, and now uncertainty about just when I will have the opportunity to return to California."
Lisa Gates with the International Republican Institute said today that Nehring and his group have left Iraq. The Baghdad airport appears to have reopened after bomb blasts in the Sadr City slum killed more than 200 people, but Baghdad remains in chaos.
 "In California, it is very much influenced by the Hollywood mentality." - U.S. Sen. Jim Inhofe, (R-Oklahoma), responding to comments by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger on Sunday that Inhofe was living in the Stone Age because he said man-made global warming is a hoax.
Inhofe also said he admired Schwarzenegger "immensely" and predicted he would be one of the top leaders in the Republican Party. Speaking of a Hollywood mentality, Inhofe noted that his nephew, Hollywood-based Fred N. Davis III, was media consultant for Schwarzenegger's re-election campaign.
(Photo: Mohammed Jalil / AP)
Proposition 83, which would put new restrictions on sex offenders, is coming unglued in federal court - but cities and counties are moving to tweak the law on their own turf. Even if the federal courts clarify how the law really works (probably next year), California could end up with a patchwork of sex-offender ordinances as local communities fight to be toughest on the state's pervs.
 "Jessica's Law" - which was approved by 70% of the state's voters - prohibits sex offenders from living within 2,000 feet of a school or park, and requires them to wear a GPS tracking device for life. The Times' Jenifer Warren reports that Atty. Gen. Bill Lockyer, in photo, left a federal judge feeling "ambushed" by arguing the new law applies retroactively to old cases - specifically, current sex offenders who try to move into restricted areas.
Significantly, Jessica's Law allows local communities to expand where sex offenders are banned from living or even simply showing up.
In the city of Highland in San Bernardino County, an ordinance is being considered tonight that would carve out an exemption for sex offenders who are legal guardians of children, allowing them to take them to school, bus stops and day care centers. But the city would expand the law to prohibit sex offenders from even being within 300 feet of bus stops, schools, parks and day care centers. San Bernardino County itself has an ordinance clarifying the sex offenders already living in restricted areas would not be forced to move.
In Solano County, elected officials and the sheriff are drafting an ordinance to extend the ban, possibly to near bus stops and equestrian centers. San Diego would ban loitering by sex offenders within 300 feet of "any public or private school for children, child care centers, parks, recreation facilities, playgrounds and arcades in the county's unincorporated areas," the Union-Tribune reported. (Although sex offenders could "exercise" in parks.) In Baldwin Park, a proposed ban would prohibit sex offenders near public day-care centers, community centers, libraries and other facilities where children might gather.
This is how law gets made by initiative. Multiply this scenario by 478 cities and 58 counties in California.
(Photo: Rich Pedroncelli / AP)
Lots of opinions about the future of the California Republican Party after Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's self-centered reelection campaign left his own party without any significant wins but his own (and insurance commissioner.)
- L.A. Times editorial: "For Republicans, the path to relevance leads away from knee-jerk obstructionism and toward the moderate policies that Californians, with their support of the governor, have signaled they prefer."
- Dan Weintraub on new Assembly Republican leader Mike Villines. "Instead of seeing Republicans on the sidelines until the last minute, when the governor exerts pressure on individuals to provide their votes, Villines wants Schwarzenegger and the Democrats to have to deal with him as the leader of a solid bloc that won't be splintered the next time a big issue is hanging in the balance."
- S.J. Mercury News: GOP hopes new chief will stand up to governor. "That's their problem. The governor will simply deal with the Democrats and when he needs six Republican votes on the budget, he'll pick them off one at a time, (said Tony Quinn, co-editor of California Target Book.)"
- The Desert Sun: "Memo to California Republicans in the state Legislature: Now is not the time to start partisan bickering - even if the target of your grumbling is Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, a fellow Republican."
- Associated Press: "Republican Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger won re-election by courting independents and Democrats, but his biggest problem in 2007 may be finding common purpose with his own party."
- Jason Kinney: Schwarzenegger confounds GOP. "Now picture this: it's January 2009 and newly-elected President Hillary Clinton, in a sweeping and historic bipartisan gesture, is swearing in her new U.S. Secretary of Commerce, Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger."
 Well, now I've seen everything. Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has made a Top 100 list - above Buddha. (Not that Buddha would mind, of course.)
A panel of experts at the British Environment Agency has named Schwarzenegger one of the 100 greatest eco-heroes of all time in a list announced today. Schwarzenegger, who popularized the planet-fouling Hummer, recently signed legislation authored by Assembly Speaker Fabian Nunez to curb global warming emissions in California. Environmental groups have given Schwarzenegger generally favorable reviews, but certainly not in the ranks of "earthshakers" such as Rachel Carson.
Schwarzenegger comes in at #29, right after Kirkpatrick Macmillan, the inventor of the bicycle, and John Ruskin, the Victorian architecture and art critic. The British list includes James Audubon (#20), the American woodsman who killed thousands of birds before drawing them. Also named were Jamie Oliver (#99), known as the "Naked Chef," and Siddartha Gautama Buddha (#92).
"The 12th rule is to let him in all things seek his greater mortification and continuing abnegation."
—Jerry Brown, California attorney general-elect, in an interview with the New York Times' Deborah Solomon, which also includes this exchange:
Solomon: "Over the years, you have moved from being a fabled liberal to a centrist position."
Brown: "I don’t know. I don’t use that spatial metaphor."
Solomon: "Then how would you describe yourself politically?"
Brown: "I’m very independent. There’s a great line from Friedrich Nietzsche: A thinking man can never be a party man."
(Photo: Paul Sakuma / AP)
 Caspar "Cap" Weinberger, the U.S. secretary of defense under former President Ronald Reagan, is getting a posthumous honor: the state is naming a room in its Finance Department after him. Apparently, Schwarzenegger's current finance director Mike Genest is a fan.
Weinberger served as former Gov. Reagan's finance director in the late 1960s before being appointed by President Richard Nixon to the Federal Trade Commission, the Office of Management and Budget, and as secretary of Health, Education and Welfare. During that time, he earned the nickname "Cap the Knife" for his proposed budget cuts, but he was far more generous as secretary of Defense. The Pentagon budget ballooned under Reagan and Weinberger.
 Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's Department of Finance is hosting a reception Dec. 7 to dedicate the new Caspar Weinberger conference room in a wing on the first floor of the state Capitol. This follows the Ronald Reagan Cabinet Room in Schwarzenegger's office, the Pat Brown reception area in the governor's office, the Jesse Unruh and the Ken Maddy legislative hearing rooms, the Willie Brown conference room in the Assembly, and the Rose Ann Vuich bathroom on the Senate side (she was the first female state senator, and discovered to her dismay no women's restroom near the senate chambers when she arrived.)
It's unclear if Weinberger would have approved of Schwarzenegger's philosophy of encouraging the growth of state government revenue to pay for additional social services (but without tax increases, of course!) But Genest said he is a fan of Weinberger's "performance-based" budgeting - giving government departments clear goals and objectives, and following through by holding them accountable for reaching goals. "It's a good thing to recognize accomplished people from the past," he said.
There was no mention on the invitation of Weinberger's felony indictments for lying to Congress in the Iran-Contra affair (pardoned by lame-duck President George H.W. Bush in December 1992).
(Photo: AP)
 Does Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger need some divine guidance? A group of evangelical Christians thinks so, and they have set up a special website where Christians can pray for the Republican governor. The site, and others for various U.S. governors, is the earthly inspiration of the Rev. Tom Walker of Indiana, president of One Accord Ministry.
Donations, starting at $10 a month, fund a 256-bit encryption website where private communication "takes place and your network is connected as a concert of prayer."
Their goal is to exert a direct and positive influence in government, education and the family." Which means injecting religion back into government by "educating the nation concerning the Godly foundation of our country" and "encouraging Christians to be involved in the civic arena."
Don't look for much religious diversity on the Schwarzenegger prayer site. Although anyone is welcome to pray to whatever illegitimate god they choose, the creators stressed that "the Governors' Prayer Team is not an interfaith ministry. Because there are fundamental differences in the beliefs of Christians and non-Christians (as defined by the Lausanne Covenant), including methods of prayer and worship, there is not a common ground upon which to unite without compromising important faith tenets held by the individual groups."
The California website is run by a woman named Stephanie Steele. I suppose it helps her spiritual ambitions that Steele is using an e-mail address from Oracle — the software company, not the temple at Delphi. (UPDATE: Steele has since changed her e-mail address. Rev. Walker wrote to say she "had inadvertently used this address rather than her ministry address.")
(Photo: Branimir Kvartuc / AP)
Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger appeared on "Meet the Press" on Sunday, which resulted in a variety of interpretations about what so-called news came out of the interview.
- Schwarzenegger dismisses anti-global warming rhetoric of Sen. James Inhofe (R-Okla.) as "from the Stone Age" and "backward." (Eat the Press)
- Host Tim Russert fails to follow up on a question about Republican credibility on global warming, which Schwarzenegger fails to answer. (Rachel Sklar, Huffington Post)
- Schwarzenegger calls for health care for every uninsured Californian and declares he would eliminate the state's structural budget deficit in his second term, all without tax increases. (Sacramento Bee)
- Arnold won't rule out a run for U.S. Senate. (Playfuls.com from Romania. And UPI in DailyIndia.com)
- Schwarzenegger says one of the top concerns of his second term will be reform of that state's festering prison system. "This is good news if he means it." (Blogger News Network)
- Schwarzenegger: I'm A Moderate. (Newsmax.com and the Weekly Standard)
- He won't run for president: "I think that it will never happen in my lifetime. I think that it's something that the people of America can debate over in the future. And this is a debate worth happening. You know, let the debate go on, but I mean, it's not for me. I'm happy where I am; I'm happy to be a public servant and to serve the people of California." (Hotline blog)
- Schwarzenegger talks about solar power. He's not conservative. (Extreme Mortman)
- Arnold interviewed by a girlie man. "But we Californians were stupid enough to reelect a 'big government' pandering lying wimp." (Angry Bear)
(Photo: Alex Wong / AP)
When we last checked in with Orange Cove, "mayor for life" Victor P. Lopez was facing a tough reelection challenge because of his two-decade ban on dancing in town taverns. Lopez, seen in still-creepy photo, said dancing in bars could lead to illicit behavior and violence — as opposed to, say, drinking alcohol in bars.
 Turns out, Lopez has won another term in Orange Cove, a Fresno County fruit-packing town on the western edge of the Sierra Nevada. Lopez's major challenger was Republican Manuel Ferreira, whose wife co-owns one of the two bars in Orange Cove. Ferreira told the Associated Press after his defeat: "How are you going to tell people you can't dance? It's our basic freedom of expression. We're going to get that ban taken off by going to court or whatever it takes."
Lopez said his detractors were just jealous of his success. (Note in photo that Lopez named a government building after himself.)
But I was struck by this sentence in the Fresno Bee: "But (Lopez's) penchant to travel the world — China, Mexico and elsewhere — in the name of official business over the past five years has cost the city nearly $174,000, his critics said."
In an article from July, the Bee reported that Lopez — mayor of one of the state's poorest cities with a high unemployment rate and gang problems — had received dozens of extra travel "allowances" worth $300 each for attending meetings. One was just 10 miles away. The city didn't require receipts to justify travel expenses until May. "From 2001 through 2005, Lopez journeyed to China, South Korea and Mexico. He traveled to Florida once and to Washington, D.C., five times. He made two trips to Las Vegas, four to South Lake Tahoe and at least 90 to the Sacramento area.... In 2004, according to city records, Lopez received 58 mayor's allowances — $17,400. From 2001 through 2005, he received 224 allowances — $67,200, all provided by taxpayers."
So the mayor for life in a 10,000-person agricultural town has spent $174,000 of city money on travel? Whoa. That rivals, if not exceeds, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's expenses on foreign trips. But the governor does private fund-raising for his trips and even his domestic air travel, and doesn't stick most of the bill to taxpayers.
Someone send in an auditor, or at least Kevin Bacon, to sort Orange Cove out.
(Photo: Gary Kazanjian / AP)
Bill Whalen has a piece in the Weekly Standard pretty much shooting down the notion that Arnold Schwarzenegger's 2006 brand of governing could be used by President George W. Bush as he faces a Democratic Congress. Whalen is highly skeptical, and offers a few reasons why it probably won't work: Bush's conservative ideology, Maria Shriver's influence on Schwarzenegger, the dominance of the Democratic Party in California, Schwarzenegger's shaky allegiance to his own party, and the differing media climates in Washington and Sacramento. They all make Schwarzenegger's situation sui generis.
 Quietly encouraged by the Schwarzenegger administration, a lot of pundits nevertheless have been pushing this idea of an Arnold Way for the Beltway. Heck, Schwarzenegger even wants to travel the country preaching it before the 2008 presidential election. But conservatives - the ones who would actually have to change their course under the Arnold Way — aren't buying it.
CNN's Bill Schneider "informed the GOP that the way to recover from midterm losses is to imitate Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger and embrace liberal policies," the liberal-media hating News Busters concluded. My favorite response to the Whalen piece came from Weekly Standard reader Calcowgirl, who simply pointed to Schwarzenegger's deeds as proof he wasn't one of them. She (I assumed Calcowgirl is a female) keeps a list of the governor's offenses from 2006:
- Signed AB 1835, Minimum Wage Increase
- Signed AB 2911, California Discount Prescription Drug Program
- Signed AB 32, Greenhouse Gases
- Signed SB 1368, Electricity: emissions of greenhouse gases. (Out of state purchases)
- Signed SB 1, Million Solar Roofs
- Signed SB 201, Sustainable Oceans Act
- Signed SB 107, Renewable energy
- Signed AB 2560, Public School Health Center Support Program.
- Signed SB 437, Health care coverage (expected to cover 94,000 additional children)
- Signed SB 1534, Public benefits (for illegal aliens)
- Signed AB 680, English language learners.
- Signed AB 2600, Vehicles: HOV lanes
- Signed AB 1613, Vehicles: wireless telephones (Nanny State)\
- Signed SB 1827, Taxation: domestic partners (homosexual agenda)
- Signed AB 2251, Reproductive Health Care Svcs – Confidentiality of Personal Info
- Signed AB 2583, Dispensing prescription drugs and devices; refusal to dispense
- Signed SB 1441, Discrimination: state programs and activities: sexual orientation (homosexual agenda)
- Signed SB 1654, Voting: absentee ballot (homosexual agenda)
- Signed AB 1160, Crime - Gay Panic Defense - Gwen Araujo Justice for Victims Act (homosexual agenda)
- Signed AB 1207, Code of Fair Campaign Practices (homosexual agenda)
Absentee ballots are part of the homosexual agenda? Anyway, the real question is: How many of these would President George W. Bush support?
 Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger today offered his condolences to the family of Robert Altman, the legendary director of "MASH," "The Player," "Nashville" and other great films. Altman died last night at age 81.
In his statement, Schwarzenegger mentioned that he worked with Altman on "The Long Goodbye," the 1973 film in which he played a hoodlum who tries to shake down detective Philip Marlowe. (In the movie, Marlowe threatens to call Gov. Ronald Reagan when police don't believe his story.) The future California governor is uncredited in the role. It was only his second appearance in a major film, after "Hercules in New York."
Click here and here for funny photos of Schwarzenegger (in his underwear) from the movie.
(Photo: MGM)
The California Republican Party is conducting an internal audit over why its unprecedented $20 million get-out-the-vote effort didn't produce wins for their candidates on election day. Only Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and insurance commissioner Steve Poizner captured statewide offices for the GOP, which also failed to pick up any new seats in the Legislature. One Republican incumbent, Secretary of State Bruce McPherson, was unseated.
 Some conservative Republicans are demanding answers from the party. State Board of Equalization member Bill Leonard, who was reelected to his regional seat by a large margin, already has asked for the audit of the statewide effort. He has heard "rumors" that the GOP telephoned voters using scripts written by Schwarzenegger's team that only mentioned Schwarzenegger, that there was "mischief" with literature distributed on door-hangers in neighborhoods, and that the Republican Party may have called non-Republicans to encourage them to vote.
"At this point, such accusations remain just that: undocumented statements with a tinge of bitterness following a brutal defeat of most of the party ticket," Leonard wrote to his supporters this week. "Therefore, what is needed is full disclosure by the CRP leadership, a detailed political audit of how this campaign was waged. The party members, donors and volunteers deserve to know the full truth and the actual numbers."
Turnout in some important Republican counties was lower than in Democratic areas. A look at the most recent statistics, for example, shows Democrat-heavy Alameda County had a 61.2% turnout among all voters, while only 49.7% showed up in Republican-leaning Orange County. San Bernardino County, which leans Republican as well, showed a 43% turnout.
Mike Spence, another Republican activist, said other problems emerged during the get-out-the-vote effort: the GOP sparsely canvassed precincts in eastern Los Angeles County and an outreach program to churches "died wandering in the desert." He also has called for an audit. Spence said the conservative ideology of some Republicans, such as lieutenant governor candidate Tom McClintock, can't account for their losses. If so, he said, why did a moderate like McPherson not benefit from the get-out-the-vote message that swept Schwarzenegger to victory in a landslide?
 California GOP chairman Duf Sundheim said he thinks the $20 million effort proved effective, particularly in early voting by mail. During the campaign, Schwarzenegger made several visits to GOP call centers, such as the one seen at right in photo. But Sundheim said a Democratic wave on the weekend before the election sunk candidates in the end.
Indeed, the L.A. Times exit poll showed that 11% of California voters made their decision for governor in the three days before the election; Angelides took a much higher proportion of these last-days voters than Schwarzenegger. Even if that trend didn't benefit Angelides, it likely held true for Democratic candidates down the ballot.
"The pollster I have been talking to said when people started to realize the Democrats had a chance to take over Congress, there was a significant shift in the mood," Sundheim said. "Not only did the Democrats turn out, the independents swung for change, and there was suppressed Republican turnout. It was kind of like the perfect storm in the last 48 hours."
To be sure, even $40 million may not have solved the Republican task. It was a Democratic year, and Republicans make up only 34.3% of the registered voters compared to 42.5% for Democrats. Schwarzenegger, too, virtually ignored the other Republican candidates on the ballot and courted Democrats in message and policy.
Now, Sundheim said, an internal investigation will look at the effectiveness of the GOP's phone calls, door-hangers, mailed brochures and precinct walking. He said it would remain private within the party. "We're going to go through each and every program, just like they did after the successful Bush-Cheney program" in 2004, he said. "Most people who are objective want to look at it, want to see how we can do better."
(Photo: Damian Dovarganes / AP; Noah Berger / AP)
Joe Desmond, the energy advisor to Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, has taken a new job with a Houston-based company seeking to operate a liquefied natural gas terminal about 12 miles off the Ventura County coastline. Desmond will be senior vice president of external affairs for NorthernStar Natural Gas Inc. and provide "counsel and guidance as the company seeks to develop environmentally safe, sensitive importation terminals in California and Oregon," the company announced.
 NorthernStar will have to negotiate with California officials and Desmond's old boss, Schwarzenegger, to finalize the rights to build the terminal. Under the Deepwater Port Act, the governor can veto the final license for offshore LNG projects. Schwarzenegger said in his 2003 campaign that he was generally supportive of building more LNG terminals, and Desmond told The Times last year that California needs to develop more natural gas importation from other countries. The NorthernStar terminal is proposed to begin operating in 2009.
Desmond is the former chairman of the California Energy Commission — which recently released a report calling for more LNG supply — but Desmond's job there ended when the state Senate refused to confirm him. Lawmakers thought he was too sympathetic to building coal-fired power plants and favored deregulation of the energy industry. Schwarzenegger then appointed him as undersecretary of energy affairs in the Resources Agency.
The NorthernStar terminal is one of a handful being proposed for California's coast. BHP Billiton wants to build a terminal about 14 miles off the Ventura County coastline, and Australia-based Woodside Energy Ltd. has proposed another facility about 22 miles off Los Angeles.
UPDATE: Under state law, Desmond cannot have any communication with the Resources Agency for a year after leaving government service. In an interview, Desmond said that also would include the state Lands Commission, the Energy Commission and the Coastal Commission -- all of which have a part in the NorthernStar terminal deal. But the law does allow him to communicate with the administration itself, including chief of staff Susan Kennedy and Schwarzenegger, and the Legislature.
Desmond said California imports 87% of its natural gas, about half of which is used to make electricity. He said additional natural gas supplies could bring down costs. "The single most effective thing we can do is to find a way to lower the cost of gas, and having additional sources of supply brings downward pressure" on the market.
 Since the death of Nobel Prize-winning economist Milton Friedman, one tidbit of Arnoldalia is worth revisiting. Arnold Schwarzenegger did the introduction for an updated video release of PBS's "Free to Choose" series featuring Friedman. Schwarzenegger sounds remarkably measured and informed in the four-minute introduction videotaped in 1990.
"I truly believe the series has changed my life," Schwarzenegger says. To the future Republican governor, being free to choose meant being able to "chase your own rainbow without the government breathing down your neck or standing on your shoes."
Schwarzenegger said he discovered the "Free to Choose" series while TV channel flipping as he waited for Maria Shriver to get ready for a mixed doubles tennis game in Palm Springs.
Watch the video here.
Margin notes: Notice Andy Warhol's portrait of Shriver on the wall of Schwarzenegger's office. And Schwarzenegger mentions Friedman's work on the "drug disaster" — the economist said he believed that the tough drug laws in the U.S. were essentially immoral. Schwarzenegger has never said anything this controversial about the drug war.
Democracy — gotta love it. Check out the newest initiative being prepared for California's ballot — "The McCauley-Rooker Wealth Tax and Oceans Preservation Act." It's named after Bradley Rooker, the vice president of a Sheet Metal Workers Local Union 105 in Glendora, and Paul McCauley, the union's CPA from Santa Monica. The union members propose to:
- Impose a $250 billion tax increase on people worth more than $20 million and couples worth more than $40 million. It would levy a "Hasta La Vista Tax" on such millionaires who try to leave the state to avoid the tax. It would raise taxes on people making $250,000 or more as well.
- Pay $5,000 to relatives of dead people who donate a kidney, heart, liver, lung, pancreas, "or other vital body organ." All other donated body parts pay $500.
- Grant tax credits worth tens of millions of dollars to four specific groups: the Center for the Improvement of Child Caring, the Nature Network, the Marine Mammal Center, and Restore Hetch Hetchy.
- Buy majority shares of public stock in Exxon Mobil, Chevron Corp., General Motors Corp., and Ford Motor Co. to "stabilize prices" and provide sufficient "resources of the acquired entities to the research for development of alternative fuels to replace fossil fuels."
In addition, the state would direct the managers of these companies "to conduct their operations without engaging in the overthrow of governments of sovereign nations, the mass murder of human beings and the destruction of the global ecosystem." Who could argue with that?
 Ice cream shop owner Gary Condit is back in court. The former Central Valley congressman has once again sued author and celebrity voyeur Dominick Dunne for defamation. This time, Condit claims Dunne implied he withheld information from police about the death of intern Chandra Levy. It's the latest legal entanglement for the Condit family, which fled California after Condit lost his seat and faced public humiliation over the scandal.
Dunne and Condit settled a $11 million defamation suit in March 2005, after Dunne said publicly he did not mean to imply that Condit was involved in Levy's killing. But eight months later, Dunne told "Larry King Live" guest host Bob Costas: "I think (Condit) knows more about what did happen than he has ever said." The newest suit claims "Dunne knew that the defamatory statements about ... Condit were nothing more than unverified and unsubstantiated rumor and gossip."
Meanwhile, Levy's family continues to look for the killer. The Levys this year created a website, WhoKilledChandra.com, with a simple plea for information about the case. "Despite all the publicity and tabloid speculation surrounding the case, there is yet no conclusive evidence as to who murdered Chandra," the site declares.
 Condit and his wife operate a Baskin-Robbins ice cream store and other businesses near Phoenix, according to the most recent press reports.
Meanwhile, Gary Condit's children, Cadee and Chad, are facing their own legal troubles. The state Fair Political Practices Commission sued the siblings Jan. 10 seeking $2.5 million in civil penalties for allegedly using money from a political action committee for their personal use. According to court documents, Justice PAC allegedly paid Chad and Cadee $226,000 for work on a documentary, and more than $6,000 for so-called Christmas bonuses. A court conference is scheduled for next month to set a trial date.
Where are they now? Cadee is running a massage therapy business in the Pine Creek Village Shopping Center in Colorado Springs. According to the Colorado Springs Business Journal, Cadee "deals in the healing power of touch" and employs 35. Chad Condit, the Sacramento Bee reports, lives in Arizona and started GC Farms and Excavation Inc., which the company declared "would be in the business of horse, bulls, rodeo training, land development." The newspaper said the Condits "avoid the press, and frankly loathe reporters."
I don't blame them.
(Photos: Stephen J. Boitano / AP; Evan Agostini / Getty Images)
Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger is giving special access to private donors supporting his Jan. 5 inauguration. In 2003, after the turbulent recall, Schwarzenegger held a monumental swearing-in ceremony on the West Steps of the state Capitol, complete with a presidential-sized media platform and celebrity guests. Now, the event has been moved indoors to the gilded Memorial Auditorium, where Schwarzenegger held his first press conference after being sworn in three years ago. More parties are planned as well.
The Governor's 2007 Inaugural Committee — a "California nonprofit corporation" — is selling access to two days of events. (Donations are not tax deductible.) For $50,000, financial supporters receive 10 tickets to a Jan. 4 cocktail reception; four VIP seats at the ceremony, plus six additional seats in the general admission section; a table for 10 people at a 1 p.m. "legislative lunch" in the Capitol rotunda after the ceremony; and 10 tickets to an evening gala in the "ballroom" of the Sacramento Convention Center.
Julie Soderlund, spokeswoman for the inaugural committee, said the names of donors will be publicly disclosed and the events, including the swearing-in ceremony, will be covered by contributions instead of the public coffers. "There will be no cost to the taxpayers," she said.
Bipartisanship is sort of like religion — believing in it relies on a bit of fantasy — er, faith. Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has made bipartisanship his new theology, and he's planning an evangelical tour next year to bring enlightenment to political heathens in Iowa and New Hampshire with a few so-called policy speeches.
 "When you have a Republican who won a large victory in a Democrat state in a very Democrat year, clearly he's identifying issues that represent what many voters are concerned about," Adam Mendelsohn, the governor's communications chief, tells Mark "The Z" Barabak today.
Like Constantine on the Milvian bridge, Schwarzenegger made a miraculous conversion when he discovered that California was populated with Democrats. No more joking about just "sleeping" with a Democrat — his wife, Maria Shriver — he set out on a mission to actually become a Democrat. This he called "bipartisanship," and saw that it was good.
Bipartisanship is a negotiating position, not a political philosophy. It creates government by backroom, closed-door Kabuki, where the ultimate goal is getting something done. This is where the fantasy comes in. Schwarzenegger may call it bipartisanship and praise the value of working together with Democrats, but it's really about power. Democrats have power here, and he's yielding to it. Indeed, Schwarzenegger signs the vast majority of Democratic bills in Sacramento.
Steve Schmidt, the governor's campaign manager, told Barabak that the "environment, global warming, immigration, renewable energy, are all issues that he would like to see discussed by candidates of both parties." Three of those things actually come under the heading of "environment," and Schwarzenegger's environmental record is decidedly Democratic. Perhaps Schwarzenegger can change the political atmosphere in the U.S., but as conservative activist Grover Norquist said: "If people wanted you to go and agree with the Democrats, they'd have elected a Democrat."
UPDATE: Schwarzenegger has already convinced one conservative. Over at Townhall.com, Chairman Doug Wilson, author of "Getting America Right: The True Conservative Values Our Nation Needs Today," writes that "there is much that President Bush can learn from our movie star-turned-politician leader; namely, that a change in strategy can lead to major political victories."
But his readers weren't so convinced. One called him a Neville Chamberlain, and another summed it up this way: "Arnold has gone to the Left. Arnold could easily be in the Democratic Party."
(Photo: Marcio Jose Sanchez / AP)
Loss pervades the atmosphere in Sacramento these days. As we previously discussed, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has declared the capital to have been "death" until his arrival. The incredibly talented singer-songwriter Dan Bern came to the same conclusion during a concert in Sacramento on Sunday that Political Muscle attended. (Yes, Political Muscle does get out, especially when Political Muscle Jr. is asleep.) When Bern asked the audience which sacrament Sacramento was named after, a woman in the audience (not Maria, BTW) yelled out "death!"
But morbidity is not the only form of loss befalling our fair capital. With the election done, the Schwarzenegger administration is leaking staffers like, well, any number of decrepit levees on the Sacramento San-Joaquin Delta. Going, going or soon to be gone are:
- Chief administration lobbyist Richard Costigan.
- Beloved press secretary Margita Thompson, whose departure leaves few Latinos in Schwarzenegger's administration, excepting Rosario Marin, secretary of the State and Consumer Services Agency; Henry Renteria, director of the Office of Emergency Services, and Fabian Nunez, Speaker of the California Assembly.
- Sunne Wright McPeak, the governor's secretary for business, transportation and housing.
- Education adviser Alan Bersin (whose tenure was complicated by being frequently confused with the star of "The Exorcist," Ellen Burstyn).
- Longtime FOA (Friend of Arnold) and senior adviser Bonnie Reiss.
- Joe Desmond, undersecretary for energy affairs, who left because his office was getting inexplicably warmer and warmer.
- Cabinet Secretary Fred Aguiar.
That's not all, however. An "Associated Press investigation" discloses a prior "purge" of staffers: "Half the administration - or 92 employees - left the governor's payroll, most within a six-month window after the November 2005 special election," says the AP story, which it says was published "after months of record-gathering and written requests to public agencies" (known within some newspapers simply as news gathering).
That's a lot of turnover.
-- Jordan Rau
Update: To the relief of many -- particularly the editors of the Los Angeles Times -- Bob Salladay returns Monday to take back the helm of what is left of this blog. Have a good weekend.
He may have promised to stop saying snarky things about lawmakers, but Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger hasn't given up dissing the city where all the state's legislative magic happens.
He is quoted saying "Sacramento was death — until I got there!" in the December issue of Men's Journal. (Brief tangent: Why do magazines always put dates on their issues that have no correlation with when the issue is actually on newsstands? Is it some sort of industry in-joke that just got out of hand?)
Anyhoo, back to Schwarzenegger. So the capital's hometown paper, the Styx News — we mean the Sacramento Bee — issued this spirited defense, impressive in the tenacity of its sarcasm, on its editorial page today: "Dear Gov. Schwarzenegger:
"We, the citizens of Sacramento, want to thank you for breathing life into our once-corpse-like city. You, alone, have enlivened this moribund metropolis making its heart beat and its muscles bulge. Without you, Gov. Schwarzenegger, we would be as dead as a dog in a drainage ditch.
"Some might have forgotten what it was like in the BS — Before Schwarzenegger — era. The streets were empty. There was darkness everywhere. Vultures perched on trees, and we all dressed in black hoods, carrying our scythes.
"But then you came, Gov. Schwarzenegger, and it all changed. The skies parted. The flowers bloomed. The sun shone down on the city. Everyone was happy.
"Some might take offense at your comments in the current issue of Men's Journal. The interviewer asked you: 'What about living in Sacramento. A lot of Angelenos would rather be dead.' You replied: 'Sacramento was death — until I got there!'
"You were only speaking candidly. True, you never spent much time here in the BS era, since you were busy making all those fantastic movies. But now, like the Maloofs, you have really become part of the community.
"During the few days a week you spend in Sacramento, we often see you mixing with the little people, dining at Lucca or the Esquire Grill. For that, we are so thankful.
"Our only fear is what happens in the PS — Post Schwarzenegger — era. It will be a grim time. Oh, the horror. The horror."
—Jordan Rau
Gee, who woulda guessed? The gubernatorial election is over and suddenly, big budget problems are on the horizon.
The Legislative Analyst's Office — which I recently learned to my disappointment does not offer psychotherapy — this morning released its grim forecast about the state's fiscal outlook. "Following a year in which major revenue increases were allocated to education and other state programs, California policymakers will face a much tougher budget in 2007-08. According to our updated forecast, the state's budget faces operating shortfalls in excess of $5 billion in both 2007-08 and 2008-09, which will require significant actions to eliminate."
There is some good news in here: the state is collecting more money in this current fiscal year than the LAO anticipated, and will end the year with $3.1 billion in reserves. But, as the The Times' Evan Halper reports this morning, closing the budget gap is not so easy. Five billion dollars amounts to the state subsidy for the University of California and California State University systems.
Where, oh where will lawmakers turn for help, especially since Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger said the state should "definitely" be able to cut the ranks of the state's 6 million people without health coverage by at least half. The Sacramento Bee reports on a speech by the governor: "'We feel we shouldn't have 6 million people uninsured,' he said. 'We maybe cannot solve the whole problem, but we definitely can cut it in half and do something that really is impressive and show the rest of the nation that it can be done.'"
— Jordan Rau
This election is soooooo over (except for Joe Dunn's Orange County state Senate seat), but the autopsies will continue Wednesday evening in L.A.
The USC Unruh Institute of Politics is hosting its own coroners' convention. Reception starts at 6:30 p.m. and talking starts at 7 p.m. at Taper Hall Auditorium, Room 101, on the USC campus. If you are an Angelides supporter, heavy drinking begins at 7:01 p.m.
Here's the list of participants on the state and national panels:
—Jordan Rau
The Times' Nancy Vogel just returned from an election analysis session at the Sacramento Press Club with leaders of the state's two big public polls: Mark DiCamillo of the Field Poll and Mark Baldassare of the Public Policy Institute of California. The highlights:
The Schwarzenegger Straddle: "He held on, according to the exit polls, to 93% of the GOP base," said DiCamillo. "And while he was able to hold on to that base he was winning over swing voters — he won 59% of independents, 58% of moderates — and making inroads in traditional Democratic constituencies. He won 39% of the Latino votes according to media exit poll, 27% of blacks, 55% of women. Those are impressive numbers for a Republican."
Every Reep for Himself: "Yet the governor's reelection win was more a personal win for the party of Arnold Schwarzenegger than for the GOP," DiCamillo said. "The governor chose not to campaign with other GOP candidates and by design distanced himself from the president at almost every opportunity. This resulted in an election with no real coattails, the Democrats winning all statewide down-ballot races except insurance commissioner and the reason for their winning insurance commissioner had more to do with the Democratic candidate than the Republican candidate."
Craptacular Turnout: "Another way that California distinguished itself from the U.S. in this election was voter turnout," DiCamillo said. "While turnout was up nationally, interest was high, here in California we probably set an all-time low for a statewide election in turnout. It's hard to believe that we would have a lower turnout than the [Gray Davis-William Simon gubernatorial] race of four years ago, but it seems that way, all the votes are not yet counted but it will probably be somewhere in the 50% of registered voters as a turnout. We're probably looking at a structural, long-term factor of low turnout. In primary elections we're looking at 1 out of 3 registered voters turning out. In general elections we're looking at about 1 out of 2. I think that's going to carry on for the foreseeable future."
Really Absentee Voters: "A lot of this has to do I think with the changing demographics of California voters," DiCamillo said. "If you look at the two fastest-growing voter registration groups...they're Latinos and nonpartisans. Both of those voting groups are much less frequent voters than older voters, white voters, partisans. In the primary, for example, 89% of all voters were Democrats or Republicans. So even though we have this massive increase in nonpartisan registration, they don't show up at the polls. They're infrequent voters."
The Parties Over: "The absolute number of Democrats and Republicans have declined since the recall, as have the Greens, Peace & Freedom, Natural Law and libertarians," Baldassare said. "Independents grew by about 484,000 while the overall voter roll grew by 400,000. The lack of party loyalty explains why, in a state like California, Phil Angelides can lose, Schwarzenegger does not have coattails, California has returned a divided government to Sacramento and partisan appeals fail to sway voters on state propositions."
The Man is Still The Man: Exit polls show the majority of voters are white, 45 and older, college-educated and homeowners, said Baldassare. "Voters do not come close to reflecting the ethnic, racial and economic diversity of the state and the GOP and Democratic parties show a lack of ability and interest to expand the size and composition of the state's electorate."
Bad News for Red (and Orange) California: Baldassare said both parties seem to be struggling with low turnout across the Central Valley, Orange County, Riverside and San Bernardino — "all growing regions that are undergoing significant demographic and economic changes in the voting age population."
—Jordan Rau
Most pols can shoulder accusations of hypocrisy over little things like the Iraq war or taxes, but the Times' Duke Helfand hits Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa right where it really smarts with this piece on his avoidance of Los Angeles' public transit. A sample: "Just about any morning, the mayor could catch a bus on Metro Rapid route 720 at Wilshire and Crenshaw boulevards, transfer to the nearby Red Line subway and arrive at City Hall in about the time it takes to shower, shave and eat a bowl of cereal.
"To gauge the trip, a Times reporter caught the 8:31 a.m. bus Monday down the street from Villaraigosa's official residence in Windsor Square.
"The time to City Hall was 44 minutes. Along the route, bus riders and subway regulars sounded off about the mayor's commuting habits.
"'Get out and ride the transit like you tell everyone else — not just a day, but a week or two,' scolded Jackie Sanders, 39, as she bounced around the crowded Metro Rapid 720. It was the last of three buses she rides every morning from Baldwin Village to Koreatown, where she is studying to become a pharmacy technician."
We here at Political Muscle are equally appalled. Now, if you'll excuse us, we have to hop into our company car — the standard issue eight-cylinder Bentley Arnage LWB — and drive over to a conference on global warming two blocks away. Pray for us to find parking!
—Jordan Rau
The Sacramento Bee has a detailed transcript of a roundtable it held with consultants involved in the gubernatorial election. The participants included Steve Schmidt, who directed the Schwarzenegger campaign and Bill Carrick, who advised Angelides. Carrick does a nice job explaining the tough box Angelides was in, and Schmidt gives a lot of credit to Chief of Staff Susan Kennedy, who's been overlooked in a lot of the public kudos about Schwarzenegger's reversal of fortune. Schmidt also offers this great anecdote as a lesson in why you can never take for granted what candidate you are going to run against: "There was a very instructive lesson in my political career, sitting on my couch in Alexandria, Va., with my dog sitting next to me, surrounded by piles of Howard Dean research information, and I remember when Dean did his scream, I tossed one of my 4,000-page books on the ground, the dog woke up barking, jumped up on the couch, and in the morning I said what do we have on John Kerry? You get who you get. You don't spend a lot of time thinking about it."
Or, as Donald Rumsfield might have said, you go to the polling booth with the candidates you have, not the candidates you want.
—Jordan Rau
Update: Here's another, older Angelides postmortem from campaign strategist Katie Merrill.
Despite state Senate President Pro Tem Don Perata's admonition to his fellow senators not to jump the gun on internal campaigning to replace him when he terms out in 2008, the race is already underway.
Two incoming senators, Los Angeles City Councilman Alex Padilla and former Sacramento Assemblyman Darrell Steinberg, have been sizing up the terrain. Here's the early conventional assessment: Padilla's a smooth operator and the tougher pol (perhaps he has his own "mother of five" voice like Nancy Pelosi?) but he may be too much of a Sacramento neophyte to run the joint; Steinberg is well-liked around Sacramento and passionate about policy but might be too nice to corral the troops (insert "herding cats" cliché here).
Both are trying to improve their backhands: Padilla is bringing council aide Bill Mabie — who spent 12 years as one of former Majority Leader Richard Polanco's main operators — to be his chief of staff. Steinberg did some fund-raising for Perata to help one of the infrastructure bond campaigns this fall, and perhaps will strangle a kitten to prove he's up to the job.
Two current state senators, San Francisco's Carole Migden and L.A.'s Gloria Romero, are also said to be interested in the job, and have the advantage of already serving in the Senate. That's a disadvantage too: familiarity breeds contempt, and both have developed reputations in the Senate for sharp elbows. Romero is the majority leader, the No. 2 spot, which gives her some institutional clout, but despite that role she has not always been considered a team player. She can also be known to fly off the handle sometimes, and neither she nor Migden — especially Migden — are near the top of the list of staffers' favorite lawmakers. (Before you knock the power of the hired help, remember how staffers assisted the political suicide of Secretary of State Kevin Shelley.)
Migden is a talented legislative strategist and among the best money-raisers in the $enate. But she has pushed her colleagues' buttons repeatedly, both metaphorically and literally, such as last year when, during a close fight over one of her bills, she pressed the electronic voting button of an Assembly member in his absence. That was a big taboo in Capitol protocol and led Perata to strip her of her chairwomanship on the Senate Appropriations Committee and put her on double secret probation. Still, did we mention she can raise $$$$?
Geography may play a role too: If Romero or Padilla ran the Senate, both chambers of the Legislature would be led by Angelenos, something that wouldn't go over well in Northern California. Bottom line: It's too early to count anyone in or out.
—Jordan Rau
Update: Sources have spotted Darrell Steinberg eating adorable, uncooked Romanian orphans.... Also, documents obtained by Political Muscle reveal Steinberg, during long committee hearings in the Assem | |
One of the best Reiss stories comes from well before Schwarzenegger entered politics. It was Maria Shriver and Reiss who used Schwarzenegger for their political ends, not the other way around. Times staff writer Joe Mathews had this description of the Reiss-Schwarzenegger relationship in a recent story:
