New West Notes

** U.S. GOVERNMENT AGENCY SAYS THIS WAS WARMEST WINTER ON RECORD. The US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Agency reported today that this winter has been the warmest winter in more than a century of record-keeping.

** MOVING ON WITH PATAKI. Former New York Governor George Pataki, once touted as a prospective Republican presidential candidate, is allowing staffers to move on, even to other presidential campaigns. Pataki has solicited California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger to join with him in a new environmental organization, but it hasn’t happened.

** PELOSI WINS KEY COMMITTEE VOTE ON IRAQ. On a mostly party line vote, 36-28, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s plan to withdraw US combat troops from Iraq by the fall of 2008 passed the House Appropriations Committee today. The bill would appropriate some $125 billion for military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan. The total for Afghanistan, where things have been sliding for the last two years, is higher than requested by the Bush Administration.

** ROMNEY NAMES CALIFORNIA FINANCE CHAIRS. Former Governor Mitt Romney, the third place Republican presidential candidate, named 27 California finance co-chairs today. Some of the names have already been released. They include: former Assembly Republican Leader Scott Baugh of Orange County, LA developer Rick Caruso, Orange County medical entrepeneur Mark Chapin Johnson, former US ambasssador to France Howard Leach of San Francisco, LA investor Thomas Tellefsen, and eBay CEO Meg Whitman. The latter two are also national finance co-chairs of the Romney campaign

** SCHWARZENEGGER SIGNS EARLY PRIMARY BILL. Odd as it may seem to some, Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger has actually signed a bill he proposed a few months ago, which moves California’s 2008 Presidential primary from June 3rd to February 5th.

** CLINTON LEADS IN NEW HAMPSHIRE POLL, OBAMA A STRONG SECOND. In the new Franklin Pierce College poll for WBZ-TV in Boston, Hillary Clinton leads Baracka Obama, 32% to 25%. John Edwards is third with 16%. Obama’s surge of the past few months has brought him into striking distance, but not more than that. Edwards remains in a strong but distant third. He has recently fallen behind in his native South Carolina in private polling.

** DUNN CLEARED IN HEWLETT-PACKARD SPYING CASE. Former Hewlett-Packard CEO Patricia Dunn has been cleared by a Santa Clara County Superior Court judge of spying charges brought last year and pursued by then-state Attorney General Bill Lockyer. Dunn was looking into leaks from HP. In an interesting sidelight, the LA Times political blog says that current Attorney General Jerry Brown’s office said in a press release that Dunn would plead guilty to a single misdemeanor. I didn’t get that press release. The former governor and his wife (and special counsel) Anne Gust Brown, are vacationing this week in Mexico.

** Track global and national energy prices in near real time via Bloomberg. Crude oil prices are mostly around $58 per barrel as OPEC is eschewing calls to rein in production.

Welcome to the Hotel California.

Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger will sign the bill he advocated, state Senator Ron Calderon’s bill to move the 2008 California Presidential primary to February 5th, in a ceremony this morning at the Leland Stanford Mansion in Sacramento. The Stanford Mansion was the site of the first presidential visit to California, by then President Rutherford Hayes, in 1880. And yes, the LA area’s Calderon was one of the three state senators locked out of their offices by Senate leader Don Perata on Monday. From the outhouse to the penthouse, as someone once said.

The bill passed the state Senate on a bipartisan vote of 31 to 5. It passed the Democratic majority Assembly last week on a party-line vote of 46 to 29.

This will be the earliest California Presidential primary ever held. On the Democratic side, California will follow only Iowa, Nevada, New Hampshire, and South Carolina. On the Republican side, California will follow only Iowa, New Hampshire, and South Carolina. The combined population of all those states is less than one-third that of California. California possesses one-fifth of the Electoral College votes needed to select the next occupant of the White House. As Don Henley and the Eagles put it: You can check out any time you like, but you can never leave.

At first, the event was set for the West Steps of the State Capitol. Which was fitting, in a sense, given the motto engraved on a giant logo nearby: “Bring me men to match my mountains.” But of course, there’s a woman coming, too — in the form of U.S. Senator and former First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton — and in some respects she is the frontrunner. Now the signing event will be at the Leland Stanford Mansion.

Schwarzenegger and Assembly Speaker Fabian Nunez have released some of their remarks in advance.

Says the former action superstar: “Making California important again in presidential nominating politics is an important step toward restoring voters’ confidence in government. And it means our issues will get their due respect along the campaign trail, and then in Washington.

“Let me add that we should reimburse our counties for their election costs just as this bill intends.

“Now it’s time to build on this momentum and move ahead with other important political reforms. We need an independent body to draw legislative and Congressional districts so voters can have real choices in their elections.

“This bill is a fantastic step forward for our state, and I am confident that by working together with my partners in the Legislature we will soon be taking more great action for the people of California.”

And Speaker Nunez chimes in: “It’s rare to have a bill already start working before it’s even signed into law. But that’s what happened with the early primary bill.
 
“Clearly this bill is why Senators Clinton, McCain and Obama and Governor Romney and Mayor Giuliani have been making increased visits to the state lately — and not just for fundraisers. And what’s great about this democracy we live in, they are even being welcomed to the districts of members who didn’t vote for the bill.
 
“This bill gives 16 million Californians – the most diverse electorate in the nation – a stronger role in the process and it gives our issues like climate change, and health care, and coastal protection and immigration reform more prominence with the contenders.
 
“With so much at stake for California this bill is not just about the calendar, it’s about time.”

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is being whipsawed on Iraq.

** SCHWARZENEGGER WILL SIGN EARLY CALIFORNIA PRESIDENTIAL PRIMARY BILL TOMORROW. Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger will sign legislation moving the 2008 California Presidential primary from June 3rd to February 5th tomorrow in Sacramento, according to a well-informed source.

This will be the earliest California Presidential primary ever held. On the Democratic side, California will follow only Iowa, Nevada, New Hampshire, and South Carolina. On the Republican side, California will follow only Iowa, New Hampshire, and South Carolina. The combined population of all those states is less than one-third that of California. California possesses one-fifth of the Electoral College votes needed to select the next occupant of the White House.

You can check out any time you like, but you can never leave.

** RUSSIANS SAY “IRREVERSIBLE DAMAGE” TO IRANIAN NUCLEAR POWER PLANT LIKELY DUE TO DELAY. Which they say is due to Iran’s falling behind on payments to the Atomstroiexport firm. (Iran says that’s not true.) And so they refuse to provide nuclear fuel — prone to enrichment both for nuclear power and nuclear weapons — and it becomes clear that President Vladimir Putin has decided to block the program. Iran has three other major facilities that could be used in the production of a nuclear weapon. But they are not terribly relevant to nuclear power, so moving forward in those facilities would remove the electric power fig leaf draped over the nascent Iranian nuclear weapons program, something Iran has been reluctant to do.

** REGARDING THE CALIFORNIA STATE CAPITOL LOCKOUT. State Senate leader Don Perata’s press secretary, Alicia Trost, told NWN in the wake of that highly controversial lockout of three senators from their offices that they had been invited to yesterday’s Senate Democratic caucus meeting and had attended.

** FEINSTEIN SAYS U.S. ATTORNEY OUSTED FOR PROSECUTION OF DUKE CUNNINGHAM. Senator Dianne Feinstein said today she believes that U.S. Attorney Carol Lam was fired for her successfull corruption prosecution of former San Diego area Congressman Randall “Duke” Cunningham. Lam had indicted two others linked to the corruption scandal before being fired. They are defense contractor Brent Wilkes and former CIA Executive Director Kyle Foggo.

** ANOTHER NEVADA POLL, CLINTON AND GIULIANI WITH BIG LEADS, BUSH UNPOPULAR. In another Nevada poll, conducted last week by Voter Survey Service, Republican Governor Jim Gibbons and President George W. Bush were both decidedly unpopular, bith Gibbons’ scanty 29% approval rating actually lower than Bush’s 34%. 46% of Nevadans said the state is on the wrong track. Nevada’s Republican Senator John Ensign has been lashing Bush of late for the firing of a U.S. attorney. The state’s other big political figures, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and Las Vegas Mayor Oscar Goodman, rated much more highly, at 55% and 50%, respectively.

In the Democratic contest in second-in-the-nation Nevada, Hillary Clinton has 32% to Barack Obama’s 17% and John Edwards’ 16%. New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson has begun coming up, to 7%. On the Republican side, Rudy Giuliani has a big lead, with 34% to John McCain’s 19% and Mitt Romney’s 19%.

** REFORMING THE BUREAUCRACY. Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger appears at a press conference at 2 PM this afternoon where the California education report mentioned below is unveiled. The focus today will be on reforming the education bureaucracy so that funds are more effectively used. There will be a press conference tomorrow that he will not participate in in which the massive cost figures contained in the sprawling 1700-page report are discussed.

** PELOSI WHIPSAWED ON IRAQ. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is being whipsawed on Iraq. She recently had anti-war protesters outside her house in San Francisco. One rang her doorbell. Old friends in the pro-Israel lobby are critical, calling her insufficiently attuned to the threat from Iran. According to several sources, she got into a “heated” exchange with LA Congresswoman Maxine Waters in a Democratic caucus meeting on her bill to withdraw troops by the fall of 2008. Waters and others on the left want the troops out sooner, and want to begin moving to cut off funding. Pelosi and her allies, mindful of more conservative Democrats in the Congress, don’t want to do that. They also want to increase funding for the war in Afghanistan beyond what the Bush White House is calling for. It remains to be seen if Pelosi can get the bare majority of 218 votes in the House for her Iraq proposal.

** SCHWARZENEGGER WEBCAST ON HEALTH INFO TECH AT 11 AM. Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger meets with U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Mike Leavitt and signs an executive order promoting the further diffusion of health information technology and access to health information in a live webcast.

** SHRUM “HELPS” EDWARDS. Veteran Washington Democrat Bob Shrum, a top advisor to almost all the Democratic presidential nominees of the last few decades — not Bill Clinton — who almost always gives the same sort of advice, no matter who the candidate is, says in a new book that John Edwards wanted to vote against the Iraq War but was persuaded by his advisors (including Shrum) to vote for it. Edwards says he has no idea what Shrum is talking about.

** HOW MUCH??!! The Governor’s Committee on Education Excellence will release a 1700-page report today on the state of education in California. According to various sources, including the AP, the report, which cost $3 million in foundation money and was coordinated by Stanford professors following the committee’s formation in 2005 by Schwarzenegger and legislative leaders, gives no clear direction although it does have some rather alarming assessments in it. One of them is a panoply of predictions on how much it would cost to fix the school system, ranging from $23 billion a year to $1.5 trillion a year. It’s not clear that such a sprawling report will have any serious impact on policy in California, especially since it reportedly contains no clearcut policy prescriptions.

** Track global and national energy prices in near real time via Bloomberg. Crude oil prices are in the $58 to $61 per barrel range.

How damaging will this be to Rudy Giuliani? Here the presidential frontrunner
speaks in 1989 of his support for publicly-funded abortions for low-income women.

** FEINSTEIN CALLS FOR WIDESPREAD SUBPOENAS IN FIRINGS OF U.S. ATTORNEYS. With “evidence mounting,” as she put it, that there was a political plan at work to get rid of eight and possibly many more U.S. attorneys around the country — including the U.S. attorneys in San Diego and San Francisco — California’s senior Senator, Dianne Feinstein, has called for some of the biggest players in the Bush Administration to be subpoenaed and questioned under oath on the firings. One memo surfacing today by former White House counsel Harriet Miers, President Bush’s unsuccessful U.S. Supreme Court nominees, reportedly called for the firings of all U.S. attorneys. They were to be replaced under a provision of the Patriot Act that would not require Senate confirmation.

** A SOLID GIULIANI LEAD? So there is the Republican presidential frontrunner in the video above, then very much a grownup running for mayor of New York, saying he wanted public funding of abortion for poor women, a position that is historically anathema in Republican presidential primaries. And as I reported yesterday, his top people seemed relatively unconcerned. Are they whistling past the graveyard or is the dynamic different in this extraordinary time and this accelerated campaign?

Meanwhile, he picked up some more support in California, a state central to his plans. A couple of members of Congress, two former state party chairmen, the Board of Equalization member wife (Michelle Steel, the nation’s leading Korean-American elected official) of a third (Shawn Steel, a prominent conservative), former Assembly Speaker and Anaheim Mayor Curt Pringle, and comedian/commentator Dennis Miller, who will perform tomorrow night at a big Giuliani fundraiser in New York.

** POLLS, POLLS, POLLS. The new CBS/New York Times poll has a great many numbers. Although the Democratic presidential frontrunners trail the Republican frontrunners in most polls, in a striking twist, most respondents in this poll nonetheless expect a Democrat to be the next president. By about a two to one margin. Even half the Republican respondents think that. Democrats are much happier with their crop of candidates than Republicans. George W. Bush is still mired in the low 30s in job approval, his new Iraq policy is still very unpopular, most have low expectations there and three-quarters think the president isn’t doing enough for Iraq War vets.

** BRITAIN MOVING TO STRONG GREENHOUSE GAS LIMITS. Britain set forth legislation to cut greenhouse gas emissions 60% by 2050. The draft bill also sets a legally binding interim target for carbon cuts of 26 to 32 percent by 2020.

** Track global and national energy prices in near real time via Bloomberg. Crude oil prices are at $59 to $61 per barrel on reports of falling stockpiles in developed nations around the world.

In addition to the new February 5th California presidential primary, which Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger will soon sign, there is the question of what if anything else will be on the ballot. In addition to a possible term limits change, there is also redistricting reform. While prospects remain uncertain, there is progress on a few fronts.

The plan is to take redistricting — after the Census every decade yields new population data — out of the hands of the state Legislature and place it in the hands of an independent commission, however that is defined. All previous attempts have failed, including last year when a bill somehow became mishandled at the last minute in transit from the state Senate to the Assembly. Though Democratic legislative leaders denied it, many in the press and elsewhere suspected that the mishap, or miscommunication, or whatever it was confusingly described as, was intentional, as politicians have long been loathe to give up the power to select their own voters. Notwithstanding their pledge to pass such reform last year as they worked to defeat Schwarzenegger’s ill-starred redistricting initiative of 2005.

This year, once again, it is supposed to be different. It may yet be. While nitty gritty details need to be worked out, the principal issue, at least at this moment, is the nature of the reform. Namely, will it include congressional districts, as well as state legislative and Board of Equalization districts?

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi doesn’t want any change to redistricting for Congress, currently done by the Legislature and governor. She clings to the Democrats’ narrow, hard-won majority in the House. While a more competitive redistricting could actually increase Democratic chances for more seats in California, it would also cost Pelosi more campaign money both to win new seats and to hold on to existing seats. A big part of the job of a speaker, who is also a political boss as well as a legislative leader, is raising and allocating money around the country. Further altering the battlefield by placing California seats in question is not viewed as a plus. The word is that Pelosi and her Democratic allies would come in with $10 million to defeat a redistricting initiative that includes Congress.

There is a debate around Schwarzenegger now about what the governor can accept. Can Schwarzenegger live with less reform? That’s being discussed. What about legislative Republicans, whose votes, unless an expensive petition gathering drive is mounted, are actually needed? A redistricting bill requires a two-thirds vote of both houses of the Legislature.

That remains very unclear. However, a ranking legislative Republican source indicated openness to the idea of doing redistricting without the congressional districts, saying: “There is room to talk about it.”

As these considerations unfold, Assembly Speaker Fabian Nunez is moving forward on the issue. Yesterday he held a meeting with leaders of the Mexican American Legal Defense Fund (MALDEF), which has frequently raised legal objections to various redistricting plans. They were, as Nunez strategist Steve Maviglio, a top aide to former Governor Gray Davis, notes, “The final legal roadblock to redistricting last time.”

The meeting, according to released audio files from participants went well. MALDEF, incidentally, would accept redistricting with congressional districts.

Later this week, Nunez will meet with leaders of the Urban League, also a major “stakeholder,” as he puts it, in the redistricting process. He has also been meeting and consulting with several reform groups, such as the bipartisan Voices of Reform coalition, the League of Women Voters, and Common Cause.

Nunez expects to produce a redistricting reform bill in two weeks. This coincides with the time when he and many Assembly members, roughly 30 from both parties, will go to Washington to lobby members of Congress and various agencies. While this is the first such trip of the Nunez speakership, they were once a regular annual occurrence back in the days of longtime Speaker Willie Brown.

Speaking of the storied, self-proclaimed “Ayatollah of the Legislature,” it was ’80s throwback jersey day yesterday in the California state Senate. There Democratic leader Don Perata did his best Willie Brown impression by locking three moderate Democratic senators out of their offices for hours.

What led to this seemingly strange move? Perata was said to be enforcing discipline on Orange County’s Lou Correa (who Perata went to a lot of trouble electing last fall) and the LA area’s Ron Calderon and Gloria Negrete McLeod. Their grave offense? Attending a fundraiser for the Moderate Caucus last week. Perata and Senate Democrats established a caucus policy — not to be inaccurately confused with a Senate rule, as reported elsewhere in the press and by a few Democrats — that Democratic senators could not belong to caucuses which “vote in blocs.” In other words, which sometimes go against the majority wishes of the Democratic caucus. There is no such policy in the Assembly under the kind and benevolent leadership of the ever calm Nunez.

This was said to be the lightest of the considered punishments, actually, considered in a somewhat lengthy discussion about the three last Friday. “An inconvenience only,” said one source. It’s certainly less drastic than a car bomb. Or killing a senator’s bills. The three are uninvited to today’s Senate Democratic caucus meeting. But their ears will be burning, because they are the topic of discussion.

John Edwards, speaking in an Iowa union hall on Saturday, explains that he is doing
plenty of forums in Nevada and didn’t want to give Fox News a “special platform.”

** GIULIANI LEAD BUILDS. Rudy Giuliani’s lead over John McCain for the Republican presidential nomination increased somewhat in the new CNN poll. He’s up 34% to 18%, with Newt Ginrich at 9% and Mitt Romney at 9% If you remove Gingrich, Giuliani’s lead builds to 38% to 19% over McCain with Romney essentially unchanged at 10%. All others are in the low single digits. Intriguingly, Giuliani and McCain both dropped about 5 points in favorability among all voters — Giuliani to 56% and McCain to 47% — since last November. There was no polling done on the Democrats.

Giuliani also picked up his first backer in the U.S. Senate today, where McCain, with nine, has more than doubled his haul of 2000. Lousiana Senator David Vitter, a major Southern conservative, though not a famous Senate figure, announced his endorsement and will head up Senate efforts.

** VANISHING CALIFORNIA VOTERS AND THROWBACK JERSEYS IN THE STATE SENATE. It was ’80s throwback jersey day today in the California state Senate, where Democratic leader Don Perata did his best Willie Brown impression by locking three moderate Democratic senators out of their offices for a few hours. What’s up with this seemingly strange move? Perata was said to be enforcing discipline on Orange County’s Lou Correa (who Perata went to a lot of trouble electing last fall) and the LA area’s Ron Calderon and Gloria Negrete McLeod. Their grave offense? Attending a fundraiser for the Moderate Caucus last week. Perata and Senate Democrats established a caucus rule — not to be confused with a Senate rule, as some described it — that Democratic senators could not belong to caucuses which “vote in blocs.” In other words, which sometimes go against the majority wishes of the Democratic caucus. There is no such rule in the Assembly under the kind and benevolent leadership of the ever calm Speaker Fabian Nunez.

This was said to be the lightest of the considered punishments, actually, considered in a somewhat lengthy discussion about the three last Friday. “An inconvenience only,” said one source. It’s certainly less drastic than a car bomb. Or killing a senator’s bills. The three are uninvited to tomorrow’s Senate Democratic caucus meeting. But their ears will be burning, because they are the topic of discussion.

In other seemingly wacky developments, new California Secretary of State Debra Bowen removed a million people from the California voter rolls today. Because they didn’t exist. Duplicates, phonies, deceased, moved away. Which should certainly help those anemic turnout figures. Yet Bowen also reported that voter sign-ups among the eligible pool of voters are down 5% in the last two years.

** GIULIANI CONFIDENCE. The frontrunning Rudy Giuliani for President campaign held a mid-day conference call featuring pollster Ed Goeas (who’s been doing the highly regarded bipartisan Battleground poll) and strategy director Brent Seaborn (one of the architects of microtargeting). They seemed unconcerned about the new video clip of Giuliani on YouTube showing him endorsing publicly-funded abortions during his campaign for mayor of New York.

Goeas says the candidate has “near 100% name ID” and is already very well-defined for voters as “center-left on social issues and center-right on fiscal issues.” His and Seaborn’s theory of the race is that Giuliani, with his acclaim from 9/11, is uniquely centered as the best president for the Terror War era, my phrasing, not his. My take is that Giuliani has an unusually large heat shield, but it’s heating up for him with his family issues prior to this. The video probably takes another tile or two off. But he is also running against candidates whose own campaigns are problematic. Giuliani is one of six or seven candidates in both parties who could be the next president. For now at least, he leads everyone.

** REPUBLICAN PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATES TO CALIFORNIA. Senator John McCain, former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney, and former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee all journey to California this week for private fundraisers.

McCain is here now. He had a fundraiser last night in Sacramento at the home of Bob White, the former chief of staff to former Governor Pete Wilson and campaign chief in Arnold Schwarzenegger’s 2003 recall victory, who is a sort of superconsultant (as in he’s not a registered lobbyist). Tonight McCain has a fundraiser in Orange County, hosted by billionaires George Argyros, Donald Bren and Jerry Perenchio and developer William Lyon. Argyros, a former ambassador to Spain, is in real estate. Bren controls the powerful Irvine Company, with many-faceted interests though founded on real estate. Perenchio is a media mogul who formerly owned Univision. On Tuesday, McCain has a luncheon at the Beverly Hilton. He’s in California till Wednesday, all for fundraisers and private meetings.

The other two Republican candidates will also be in Orange County. Mitt Romney has a fundraiser on Friday in Dana Point. Mike Huckabee has a fundraiser on Thursday in Newport Beach.

** NUNEZ HOLDS REDISTRICTING REFORM MEETINGS. Assembly Speaker Fabian Nunez brings the Mexican American Legal Defense Fund leaders into his office today to go over potential California redistricting reform plans. It’s the first of several meetings he has on tap with “stakeholder” groups. Nunez and others will come up with a legislative proposal later this month.

** HAGEL ANNOUNCES HE WILL ANNOUNCE ANOTHER TIME. Nebraska Senator Chuck Hagel, the anti-war Republican conservative, had said he was going to announce his future plans, including a possible presidential bid, today. Instead he announced that he is still considering his plans, which he will now announce sometime in the months ahead, and wants to focus attention the Middle East crisis and Iraq War.

** RUSSIA DELAYS IRANIAN NUKE PROGRAM. The Russians aren’t providing the goods and the Iranians were already behind providing the payment. A stand-off with major geostrategic implications.

** SIGNIFICANT CLINTON LEAD IN NEVADA. Senator Hillary Clinton leads the Democratic presidential field in Nevada, the second-in-the-nation contest next year. The New York senator and former first lady has 32% in a new poll of Nevada Democrats. Senator Barack Obama is second with 20%. Former Vice President Al Gore and former Senator John Edwards each have 11%. The rest of the field is in single digits. On the Republican side, Rudy Giuliani has a big lead over John McCain. Nevada’s Republicans will caucus on February 7th, well after the Democrats on January 19th.

** BRIT HUME CALLS EDWARDS “SHREWD.” Fox News anchor Brit Hume says John Edwards is “shrewd,” at least in the short term, in how he played the Fox Nevada controversy. He notes that while right-wing commentators will not doubt tear into Edwards, he’ll continue to cover him straight. Edwards has appeared on Fox News dozens of times in the last few years and his campaign says he will continue the relationship. Edwards trails by a large margin in Nevada and nationwide, but gained more attention with left/liberal activists with the move.

** OBAMA SAYS HE WASN’T REALLY OFFENDED. Senator Barack Obama says he didn’t take real offense at Fox News chief Roger Ailes’s joke last Thursday night. This is the fateful joke: “And it is true that Barack Obama is on the move. I don’t know if it’s true that President Bush called Musharraf and said, ‘Why can’t we catch this guy?’”

** KUCINICH CRITICIZES CANCELLATION OF DEBATE ON FOX. Congressman Dennis Kucinich took great exception to the decision to pull the August Nevada Democratic presidential debate from Fox News. “If you want to be the President of the United States, you can’t be afraid to deal with people with whom you disagree politically,” Kucinich said. “No one is further removed from Fox’s political philosophy than I am, but fear should not dictate decisions that affect hundreds of millions of Americans and billions of others around the world who are starving for real leadership.”

** ANOTHER REPUBLICAN PRESIDENTIAL PROSPECT, FRED THOMPSON. The former US senator from Tennessee, now a star of NBC’s Law and Order, says he may run.

** THE NEW FOSSIL FUEL POWER ELITE. The Financial Times identifies the new power elite in fossil fuels. Increasingly, state-owned oil and gas enterprises in Russia, the Middle East, Venezuela, and elsewhere are gaining the power edge.

** CMR SAYS NO EMBARGO BROKEN. California Majority Report co-publisher and Fabian Nunez strategist Steve Maviglio says he didn’t know there was a press embargo on the list of presidential candidates confirmed for the California Democratic Party convention. The embargoed press release was sent out by fellow CMR co-publisher Roger Salazar, but Maviglio says he’s not on the distribution list. Okay then! Readers may recall that the launch of CMR was accompanied by a column here and NWN videos of the splashy launch party and the launch press conference.

** Track global and national energy prices in near real time via Bloomberg. Crude oil prices have dropped below $59 per barrel on word that there will no further OPEC production cuts.

Can the initiative to change California’s term limits law win? Many doubt it, but a private poll for the initiative’s backers indicates that it can.

After Friday’s column, which expressed doubt about the prospects of the initiative, ace Democratic consultant Gale Kaufman, who’s running the campaign, sent the results of a private poll to me. This poll, by David Binder & Associates, has the initiative well ahead, 59% to 33%. After respondents are read a series of arguments pro and con, support dips but remains high, with the initiative still ahead, 54% to 35%. “We’re optimistic,” notes Kaufman’s communications consultant Robin Swanson.

The initiative would allow lawmakers to serve 12 years in either the Senate or the Assembly. The current term limits law, passed in 1990, places a six year limit on service in the Assembly and eight years for the Senate, for a total of 14 years.

A year ago, Binder says he found only 43% support for the term limits change. What accounts for the change? A much more upbeat assessment by voters of the state of California politics, an assessment keyed to the bipartisan successes of Republican Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger and the Democratic majority Legislature.

A year ago, Binder’s polling had only 35% of California voters saying the state was headed in the right direction. Now his number in that category is 58%, the highest level in his poll since Schwarzenegger was elected in the 2003 recall election.

“People notice the successes we’re having working together and are for them,” says Steve Maviglio, a top strategist for Assembly Speaker Fabian Nunez. “Climate change, the infrastructure bonds, raising the minimum wage, lowering prescription drug costs, it’s going well.”

Schwarzenegger’s job approval rating was up sharply, to 68%. The Legislature’s approval rating was up as well, to 49%.

These numbers are higher than in some other polling. The Public Policy Institute of California (PPIC) poll in early January also had the approval ratings for the governor and the Legislature up, but not as high. Schwarzenegger was at 58% and the Legislature was at 40%.

So the poll might be a tad optimistic, although polling results certainly vary and Maviglio argues that the public is “getting the word.” Nunez and Senate President Pro Tem Don Perata have proved to be effective leaders, yet under the current system, legislators find themselves on their way out the door just as they are becoming highly skilled.

Still, proponents will probably do better if the term limits measure is joined on the February presidential primary ballot next year by a redistricting reform initiative.

Prospects there remain uncertain. There is a debate around Schwarzenegger now about what the governor can accept. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi doesn’t want any change to redistricting for Congress, currently done by the Legislature and governor. She clings to a narrow, just won majority in the House.

While a more competitive redistricting could actually increase Democratic chances for more seats in California, it would also cost Pelosi more campaign money both to win new seats and to hold on to existing seats. A big part of the job of a speaker, who is also a political boss as well as a legislative leader, is raising and allocating money around the country.

The word is that Pelosi would come in with $10 million to defeat a redistricting initiative that includes Congress. So can Schwarzenegger live with less reform? That’s being discussed. Can legislative Republicans (a redistricting bill requires a two-thirds vote), including new Assembly Republican Leader Mike Villines? I talked with Villines for 90 minutes last month. He’s a very smart, likable man. But I don’t know the answer to that question.

Did Ronald Reagan jump into all wars?

A few years before he died, my former wife and I vacationed in Sun Valley (not the one near LA) with a group that included former Governor Pat Brown and his brilliant wife, Bernice. Governor Pat, as he was known, was still quite hearty, if not especially hale. He was fascinating to listen to.

I’d talked with him before, but this was a little different. Brown, of course, was the man who ended the seeming Republican stranglehold on the California governorship and became widely acclaimed as the great builder of modern California. He beat Richard Nixon when he ran for his second term as governor. And lost to Ronald Reagan when he tried for a third term.

Although he’d expected Reagan to be a shallow right-wing actor as governor — he’d actually preferred running against Reagan, proving again that it’s best to be careful about what one wishes for — he said he’d been pleasantly surprised by his relative moderation as governor. He saw Reagan’s governorship, like his own, as being a continuation of a continuum of constructive centrism going back to Earl Warren. Reagan he saw as being on the right side of that continuum while Brown saw himself as being on the left side.

Warren, a moderate Republican who became a liberal chief justice of the U.S. Supreme Court, actually helped Brown win his first statewide election. Then San Francisco’s district attorney, Brown won the Democratic nomination for state attorney general in 1946 — readers may remember the NWN video in which his son, former Governor Jerry Brown, shows off a handbill from that election — but lost the general election. But in 1950, Warren tacitly supported Brown, who was handlily elected as attorney general, the post his son now holds.

We may well be in another Earl Warren period, a fitting topic for another time.

Gone With The Wind. Like true stars in the era of disposable “reality” celebrity,
Premiere magazine and its once considered coverage has dispersed with the breeze.

** AMERICA AND IRAN TALK ONE TO ONE TODAY IN BAGHDAD. Shocking, positively shocking. Remember that NWN predicted months ago that the most important of the right wing-reviled-Iraq Study Group recommendations would be implemented.

** HASTA LA BYE BYE, PREMIERE. Another slice of an era ends with the announcement that Premiere magazine is about to cease publication. There is much to say about this. But it’s the Net age, not to mention the weekend, and I am still tired from the 24/7 last election, after which there was no break. Suffice it to say for now that Premiere ebbed and flowed. It flowed in pioneering the Hollywood power lists, which have since become such a cliche that no one really bothers with them now, though not long ago some offered serious favors to get on one of the proliferating versions. It ebbed in promoting a new era of celebrity in the form of the vastly expanded roster of TV stars, mostly stemming from “reality” TV. (Much of that is actually semi-scripted — or “scenarioed,” to use the term of art — and utterly dispensable, as is the age of pseudo-celebrity in which Anna Nicole Smith’s not exactly untimely death, since it could have happened at any time, is a weeks-long event.)

** CALIFORNIA MAJORITY REPORT BREAKS EMBARGO ON PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATES COMING TO NEXT MONTH’S CONVENTION. In yet another unpromising sign that anything goes, the professional hyperpartisan Democratic blog called the California Majority Report broke the embargo on the identity of the Democratic presidential candidates coming, so far, to the April state Democratic convention in San Diego. Here is the header of the press release (with appropriate editing, although why should I bother?): California Democratic Party

Pelosi, Edwards, Clinton, Dodd and Richardson to Speak At CDP Convention

** HERE IS A FANCIFUL RENDITION OF THE FOX/HYPERPARTISAN BLOGGERS/NEVADA DEBACLE FROM ROBERT GREENWALD. The hyperpartisan filmmaker, who, needless to say, gives himself a lot of credit, checks in with a fanciful version of events on the hyperpartisan Huffington Post. This is not what happened. As you will see.

** AND HERE IS AN HYSTERICAL STATEMENT FROM FOX NEWS. News organizations will want to think twice before getting involved in the Nevada Democratic Caucus which appears to be controlled by radical fringe out-of-state interest groups, not the Nevada Democratic Party. In the past, Moveon.org has said they ‘own’ the Democratic party — while most Democrats don’t agree with that, it’s clearly the case in Nevada’ — David Rhodes, Vice President I don’t believe that grownups thought that statement through before putting it out. There is plenty of immaturity and lack of perception on both sides. Fox News had a very rugged, shall we say, week, after the Ann Coulter disaster and their continued seeming promotion of her vile and errant nonsense in its wake.

** ONE WEEK TO F1. And on a more pleasant note, it’s only a week till the beginning of the new season of NWN’s official sport, Formula One. The season kicks off with the Australian Grand Prix in Melbourne, and runs round the world until wrapping up next October in Brazil. The end of last season ended up getting short shrift here, for two reasons. One is that the great duel for the world championship between the veteran champion, Ferrarri’s Michael Schumacher, and the new young champ, Renault’s Fernando Alonso, was short-circuited just before the final race by Schumacher’s engine failure. The other reason is that I was nearly exhausted by the end of last season, which nearly coincided with the end of a very long campaign.

Driving in Baghdad.

** DEMOCRATS PULL OUT OF DEAL WITH FOX NEWS. Here is text of the letter just sent to Fox News from Nevada Democratic Chairman Tom Collins and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid:

March 9, 2007

Marty Ryan

Executive Producer
Fox News Political Programs
(address and number deleted by NWN)
DELIVERED VIA FAX AND EMAIL

Dear Marty,

A month ago, the Nevada Democratic Party entered into a good faith
agreement with FOX News to co-sponsor a presidential debate in August.
This was done because the Nevada Democratic Party is reaching out to new
voters and we strongly believe that a Democrat will not win Nevada
unless we find new ways to talk to new people.

To say the least, this was not a popular decision. But it is one that
the Democratic Party stood by. However, comments made last night by FOX
News President Roger Ailes in reference to one of our presidential
candidates went too far. We cannot, as good Democrats, put our party in
a position to defend such comments.

In light of his comments, we have concluded that it is not possible to
hold a Presidential debate that will focus on our candidates and are
therefore canceling our August debate. We take no pleasure in this, but
it is the only course of action.

Sincerely,

Tom Collins Harry Reid
Chairman, Nevada State Democratic Party U.S. Senator (D-NV)

** THE ROGER AILES SPEECH. Link to the transcript. Here is the Ailes joke about Obama (or, perhaps, Bush): And it is true that Barack Obama is on the move. I don’t know if it’s true that President Bush called Musharraf and said, ‘Why can’t we catch this guy?’

** RENO DEBATE UPDATE. The debate is not yet pulled from Fox. More to follow. The controversy, which has many facets, centers around a Roger Ailes joke last night about Senator Barack Obama.

** DEMOCRATIC PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATES CONFIRMED FOR CALIFORNIA DEMS CONVENTION. Several Democratic presidential candidates are among the speakers already confirmed for the convention set for San Diego on the last weekend of April.

** UPDATE: FOX AND THE DEMOCRATIC PRESIDENTIAL DEBATE: A SPEECH TOO FAR. There is a big backstory to this, and no official decision at the moment, but it looks like the Democrats will dump Fox News as the cablecaster for the August 14th debate in Reno. The straw that broke the camel’s back, although it’s significantly heavier than that, was an impolitic speech last night by Fox News chief Roger Ailes, in which he made a few too many jokes about Democrats and seemed to many to implicitly threaten Democratic presidential candidate John Edwards. Ann Coulter is a factor, too. Unsurprisingly. More to follow, obviously.

** UPDATE: FIREFIGHTERS UNION V. GIULIANI. A few developments in the last few hours. It turns out that, contrary to what the letter linked to below says, the International Association of Fire Fighters did invite Rudy Giuliani to their bipartisan presidential forum next week. The letter below is officially a “draft,” with the names of union leaders affixed, that just happened to turn up in Firefighting News. Nevertheless, the union stands behind the charges in the letter.

Giuliani cited a scheduling conflict as his reason for not attending the event held by the organization with which he has been at loggerheads for years. Giuliani’s campaign has countered by releasing the names of a hundred members of a pro-Giuliani firefighters committee in South Carolina, a key early primary state, and a statement of support from a longtime New York firefighter.

** “NETROOTS” VOW TO CONTINUE NEVADA DEBATE FIGHT. There is a long version of this for another time, but here’s the short version. MoveOn.org rejected the adjustment in the August debate cablecast from Reno on Fox News, which they had inspired, actually, saying having Air America heavily involved would not be good enough. Now Fox must be totally out. The Nevada Democrats say no, and local party leaders around the state back up the state party, as do the top labor leaders in the state and Democratic National Chairman Howard Dean. But Fox News chief Roger Ailes added fuel to the fire last night in a speech to broadcasters in which he made a few too many jokes about Democrats.

** SCHWARZENEGGER: ENEMY OF DETROIT. No, really. There is a Republican congressman from Michigan named Joe Knollenberger — barely re-elected with 51% of the vote though he spent three million bucks in his district — who has started an outfit called big3defense.com and says Arnold Schwarzenegger wants to shut down the auto industry in Detroit. (The Big 3 being Ford, General Motors, and Chrysler.) He’s even put up a billboard featuring the governor. Schwarzenegger, he says, is a Republican Al Gore. He and Nancy Pelosi and Barbara Boxer are out to destroy the auto industry. Then it gets a little more out there as you examine the web site because, well, George W. Bush is in on it, too. I wonder how much Schwarzenegger is paying this fellow to help with his environmental props. Looks like a desperate politician trying to hold on to an auto industry-derived electorate in a district in which Bush is unpopular and he can make a media splash using Schwarzenegger’s image.

** MIDDLE EAST CONFERENCE ON IRAQ SET FOR THE WEEKEND. Diplomats are gathering in Baghdad for the regional conference on stabilizing Iraq, including representatives of the US, Iran, and Syria, nations which until recently the Bush White House said would not speak.

** CONGRESSIONAL APPROVAL UP, BUT STILL LOW. The new Democratic majority Congress, under the leadership of California’s House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Nevada’s Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, is doing better in the latest Wall Street Journal poll, completed March 5th. Approval has doubled from what it was with the Republicans in charge. But to only 31%. 52% disapprove. Ideologically, the Democrats are doing better. 52% say that government should do more to help people. Only 40% say government already does enough or too much, and that businesses and individuals should lead the way.

** EVERYBODY DOESN’T LOVE RUDY. The International Association of Fire Fighters sure doesn’t. The IAFF is holding a bipartisan forum on March 14th with presidential candidates from both parties, including Republicans such as John McCain, Chuck Hagel, and Duncan Hunter. But they deliberately snubbed Giuliani, refusing to invite him, attacking him for his leadership on recovery of the remains of their members killed in 9/11. His actions post 9/11 rise to such an offensive and personal attack on our brother and sisterhood — and directly on our union — that the IAFF does not feel Rudy Giuliani deserves an audience of IAFF leaders and members at our own Presidential Forum.

** SCIENTISTS GAGGED ON POLAR BEARS AND CLIMATE CHANGE? Two scientists with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service have been prohibited from speaking in public about climate change, polar bears, and sea ice. The federal government is considering declaring the polar bear a threatened species due to the shrinking of the arctic ice cap and consequent decline in the sea ice and numbers of polar bears. The scientists believe this is the result of the greenhouse effect.

** Track global and national energy prices in near real time via Bloomberg. Crude oil dipped to $60 to $61 per barrel on milder weather leading to lower demand for heating oil.