New West Notes

Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger at the Council on Foreign Relations
in New York City. *

Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger had such a good week last week on the national and global stage it’s almost a pity he has to return to finish the prison reform deal, re-light his health care package, and contemplate revenue shortfalls for the May revise of his proposed state budget.

Back in 2002, when Schwarzenegger was on the shakedown cruise for his honest-to-goodness political career known as Prop 49, the after school programs initiative, his strategists Bob White and George Gorton scheduled him into a series of speeches to the preeminent public affairs forums in San Francisco, Los Angeles, and Orange County, the Commonwealth Club, Town Hall Los Angeles, and the Orange County Forum.

The notion of a bodybuilder-turned-action movie star with a thick Austrian accent delivering addresses to crowds used to hearing from serious public policy figures seemed to more than a few to be at least faintly preposterous, so I attended each speech to see how it went. As it happens, Schwarzenegger had no problems with any of the speeches, and the crowds at each venue were very positive about him.

So it should have been no surprise that, following two landslide elections as governor of California, in a week in which he was on the cover of Newsweek’s save-the-planet issue balancing the globe on his fingertip, that Schwarzenegger would be very well received in Washington and New York.

I’ve already written about his keynote address at Newsweek’s global environmental leadership conference at Georgetown University in Washington. But there’s more. Accompanied by, among others, First Lady Maria Shriver, state Environmental Protection Secretary Linda Adams, and former LA Assemblywoman Fran Pavley, the author and co-author of California’s two principal climate change laws, Schwarzenegger highlighted each of their roles and gave special plaudits to Pavley.

“She has been such a great, great warrior,” Schwarzenegger said of Pavley. “Let me tell you something,this is the real deal. This woman has been fighting for the environment way before I ever became governor, and she has really been the author of these very important legislations, and she has worked with our office, and she is a team player.”

Schwarzenegger had also invited both Assembly Speaker Fabian Nunez and Senate leader Don Perata to join him in Washington. Neither did, on account of, reportedly, legislative business.

But Speaker Nunez nearly did go. In fact, he scrapped his trip so late that top Nunez strategist Steve Maviglio was already in the Chicago O’Hare Airport, en route to Washington, when he got word that the trip was off.

That things went well for Schwarzenegger on a college campus at a conference sponsored by a media organization that featured him on its cover was hardly a surprise, except perhaps to his most hyperpartisan opponents. His reception at the Council on Foreign Relations board meeting in Manhattan was a bit more of a stretch.

Introduced by former Massachusetts Governor William Weld as “a man who, literally, sees the future,” it was not exactly downhill from there. While he gave much the same speech as he did in Washington, there was a bit more emphasis on the new technology and emerging economy side of fighting against climate change.

When asked by Council on Foreign Relations chairman and former U.S. Commerce Secretary Pete Peterson, a leading banker and philanthropist, about imposing a carbon tax as a more efficient means of altering behavior and funding needed changes, Schwarzenegger slipped the question by referring to tax credits and got back on message about new technologies.

Aside from that, he was pretty forthcoming. The NWN video is of the Q&A session.

Here are some excerpts of his speech to the Council on Foreign Relations:

California may be doing more to save US automakers than anyone else, because what we are doing is we are pushing them to make changes, to make the changes so they can sell their cars in California.  And we all know — let’s be honest — that if they don’t change, someone will.  The Japanese will, the Chinese will, the South Koreans will, the Germans will, they all will.  So what I want to do is, I want to prevent that from happening.  I want them to sell their cars in California.  I believe strongly in American technology, and I think in the end it will be technology that will ultimately save Detroit. 
 
Now, California, for instance, has already a car company that’s called Tesla Motors.  Tesla Motors has just designed and produced a car that’s called the Tesla Roadster.  It’s 100 percent electric.  Now, why is it that a car company that has never produced a car before is already producing a car with zero emissions — zero emissions — and Detroit is still lagging behind?

Now, this car, let me tell you something, is a very sexy looking car.  It’s really cool.  I mean, I test drove it.  It goes from 0 to 60 in 4 seconds.  It drives 130 miles an hour, and it has 250 miles on a charge, and then the recharging only takes 3 1/2  hours.  Now, that’s what I call cool.  And the car cost 100,000 dollars — to be exact, 98,000 dollars — and it is so popular, it sold out immediately.  And now the second version is being produced, and that car, the cost will drop down to 50,000 dollars. 
 
So we can see where that is heading, economics tells us where this is heading.  It’s like the cell phones.  I remember when I bought a cell phone, the first cell phone, which was kind of a radio phone, 20 years ago.  It was 1,600 dollars.  The next version I bought a few years later was 1,200, and the next one was 750.  I just recently bought a cell phone for my daughter and it was below 90 dollars.  Now, because of the costs that have dropped down, almost everyone can afford a cell phone, and the same thing is going to happen to the environmental technologies in cars.  Government can give a push by setting standards, so California is giving the nation and the world a push. …
 
California is the leading edge of what I call ‘the environmental economy’.  The aerospace industry built the modern economy of southern California.  The computer industry and the internet built the economy of Silicon Valley.  And now the green clean technology, along with biotech, will be the next wave of California’s economy. 
 
Right now in California’s university labs, corporate research parks, even in plain looking offices and in strip malls, something very exciting is happening — something very exciting.  The nation’s brightest scientists and the smartest venture capitalists are all racing to find alternative or new technologies for alternative energy.  It is a race that is fueled by billions and billions of dollars.  Capitalism, interestingly enough, which was the alleged enemy of the environment, is today giving new life to the environmental movement. 
 
Daniel Yergin, the famous oil analyst, says that if this all-out activity continues, expect dramatic results.  And the head of PG&E, California’s largest utility, says that the energy industry is on the brink of a revolution.  And you know something is up when General Electric says that it’s selling its plastic business because it sees more potential in growth and profits in environmental goods and services. 
 
In an environmental economy the great thing is that we can do both; we can protect the environment and protect the economy, and that’s what I’ve been saying for years. 

* NOTE: I shot the video above, captured off a webcast on one of my laptops, using advanced cinematic techniques. I propped my pocket video camera on a pen, placing the Arnold Schwarzenegger bobblehead doll next to the screen for scale. (And, naturally, irony.) The doll also points up how poorly lit the Council on Foreign Relations webcast was. I had to edit out the portions of the appearance in which the audience asks questions. They were very dark.

Russian President Vladimir Putin, shown here being kind to children on a typical
newscast, orchestrated a crackdown on pro-democracy demonstrators in
Moscow yesterday, arresting former world chess champion Garry Kasparov.

** NEW NATIONAL POLL ON THE PRESIDENTIAL RACES. I’ll delve into this more tomorrow, but a new CBS poll on the presidential campaigns nationally shows, among the declared candidates, Hillary Clinton adding a bit to her lead on the Democratic side and Rudy Giuliani holding a strong lead among Republicans.

On the Democratic side, it’s Clinton 39%, Baracka Obama 24%, John Edwards, 21%. On the Republican side, it’s Giuliani 47%, John McCain 25%, Mitt Rommney 10%. Republicans are less satisfied than Democrats with their candidates. There’s some sentiment for Fred Thompson or Newt Gingrich, but it doesn’t seem overwhelming. Clinton’s favorable rating has gone up among Democrats and all voters, while Obama’s has slipped a bit. Giuliani’s favorable rating is up among Republicans but down among all voters.

** JACKIE ROBINSON DAY. Sixty years ago today, Jackie Robinson, a multi-sport star from UCLA, broke the color barrier in major league baseball by taking the field for the Brooklyn Dodgers. And so it’s Jackie Robinson Day in California, proclaimed by Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger. Robinson, a controversial figure who not infrequently supported Republicans, was the first UCLA student to play on four varsity teams, becoming an All-American halfback, national champion long jumper, conference-leading scorer in basketball as well as a baseball player before serving as an Army officer in World War II where he, nonetheless, was nearly court martialed after being accused of public drunkenness after refusing to go to the back of, yes, a bus. He is, of course, in the Major League Baseball Hall of Fame. He died at 53 of a heart attack.

It’s a good thing we’re not still discussing what you can call people on a nationally syndicated radio show.

** MOSCOW CRACKDOWN. Former world chess champion Garry Kasparov, now a leader of the political opposition to Russian President Vladimir Putin, was one of nearly 200 people arrested yesterday in Moscow as a few thousand people attempted to demonstrate in Pushkin Square. The Putin administration, massing some 10,000 police and security personnel for the purpose, banned any demonstration in Moscow this weekend. Russia, re-emerging on several fronts as a world power, has become essentially a one-party state.

Reports Moscow News: Activists had planned to gather at a city centre square about one km (half a mile) from the Kremlin to protest at what they say is Putin’s trampling of democratic freedoms and demand a fair vote to choose a new president in 2008.

Lines of riot police had earlier linked arms and forced pedestrians off the streets into Moscow’s subway system.

Several journalists were also arrested, then released.

Meanwhile, new reports this morning are that protesters in today’s demonstration in St. Petersberg were beaten by baton-wielding Russian security forces.

** A FURTHER THOUGHT ON THE L.A. OLYMPICS LOSS. I think San Francisco was a much stronger contender than Los Angeles turned out to be for the 2016 Olympic Games nomination from the US Olympics Committee.

Why? Several reasons. More enthusiasm in the Bay Area than LA, which is more than a bit jaded about sports, witness it lacking an NFL franchise. LA was at a disadvantage against Chicago because LA has hosted two Olympics, in 1984 and 1932. Like Chicago, San Francisco has never had an Olympics. And the sports venues for the LA proposal were spread, literally, over hundreds of miles, all the way San Diego in the east and Las Vegas — which is, of course, in Nevada, not California — to the east. Finally, San Francisco has more popularity and political acceptability around the world than does LA. I think San Francisco would have won the Games. Chicago might.

What went wrong with San Francisco? It had to pull out, due to an erratic 49ers ownership pulling out of a stadium refurbishing deal at precisely the wrong moment for the city’s bid.

** MCCAIN MONEY. Well, he has more money than rumors had it, but not a whole lot more. Republican presidential candidate John McCain, after raising $13 million in the first quarter — half a million more than was initially said — has less than half that left. He spent $8.4 million in the first quarter as he slid out of frontrunner status, and had $5.2 million cash on hand at the end of March. (He’s also carrying $1.8 million in debt.) This means he had less than half as much cash on hand at the end of Q1 as did Rudy Giuliani and Mitt Romney.

** WAS IMUS THE WRONG TARGET FOR SUCH CONCERTED IRE? Karen Hanretty thinks so, arguing in today’s Washington Post that while it’s obvious Imus was far too offensive for his comments to be acceptable, there are more insidious, regular influences. The Republican commentator and former California Republican Party communications director is making a move east.

** THE BLACKWATER CONTROVERSY. San Diego Congressman Bob Filner may move against the big private security contractor’s bid to open a new training center in rural San Diego County.

Blackwater USA is the powerful, controversial outfit playing a big role in Iraq. Presently, it has only one big training center, in North Carolina. The site outside San Diego, nearly a thousand acres, would be a second.

The global Formula One racing circuit hits the Middle East this weekend, with
the Grand Prix of Bahrain. Hopefully, Al Qaeda doesn’t object.

** L.A. LOSES OLYMPICS BID. Los Angeles just lost out to Chicago to be the US candidate city for the 2016 Summer Olympic Games. LA had the advantage of having most facilities in place and a recent history in the 1980s of having done a successful Olympics.

But Chicago had the advantage of having the facilities much closer together — LA’s Olympic events would have taken place in around Los Angeles, Orange County, San Diego, and even Las Vegas — and of being fresh to the process, never had hosted an Olympics. (In addition to 1984, LA had the 1932 Games. And there seemed to be more enthusiasm in Chicago, which had a much bigger media contingent on hand for the announcement in Washington than did LA.

** A NEW DEATH CHAMBER. Some anti-death penalty legislators are quite upset to learn that a new death chamber is being fashioned at San Quentin State Prison, across the bay from San Francisco, where the state’s death row has long been maintained. They’re angry that they weren’t informed by the Schwarzenegger Administration that the work is underway. The job was pegged at $399,000, just under the $400,000 figure at which legislative approval kicks in.

I only learned of it yesterday when a reader asked my opinion in the NWN forum section. However, it all comes about because of an order by a federal judge last December that the state must revamp its procedures in order to carry out the capital punishment repeatedly approved by the state’s voters. A specific part of that in the judge’s order, in addition to various procedures surrounding lethal injections, concerned the death chamber, described as cramped and inappropriate. Schwarzenegger replied to the judge in mid-January, saying that his administration would follow the advice of the court. While he didn’t say he would have the death chamber redone, getting that done was clearly part of the judge’s requirements. He has another month to revamp death penalty procedures.

Perhaps the legislators are upset because they hoped for a chance to block the death penalty by blocking the fashioning of a new chamber. Anti-death penalty sentiment is strongest in the Bay Area. But it’s also the home base of the anti-death penalty legal establishment. Moving the death chamber somewhere else in the state could actually hurt the legal defense efforts. But this is a very emotional issue for many.

** FORMULA ONE GRAND PRIX TOMORROW IN BAHRAIN. The F1 circuit, having started in Australia before moving to Malaysia last week, is in Bahrain this weekend for the Grand Prix of Bahrain. It looks to be another highly competitive duel beween Ferrarri and McLaren-Mercedes. The race begins at 2:30 AM Pacific time. But it will replay on Speed TV at a more civilized hour tomorrow. Hopefully, Al Qaeda doesn’t think it just the sort of cosmopolitan globalist sporting event totally unsuited for the Middle East.

** SIDNEY BLUMENTHAL DECONSTRUCTS MATTHEW DOWD. The well-known journalist-turned-White House operator for the Clintons re-tells the former Bush pollster’s “conversion story.” Dowd, the former senior strategist for President Bush and Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, caused a big stir when he publicly turned away from the president, saying he had failed and coarsened the political culture and needed to listen to the country and pull US troops out of Iraq.

Writing in Salon, Blumenthal recounts Dowd’s role in making the Bush operation more and more harshly partisan after early feints in the bipartisan direction. He calls on Dowd to complete the conversion story by telling what he knows.

Of course, Blumenthal is one of the most partisan of all journalists. In fact, he left journalism to work for the Clintons in the White House, defending them in hardball, although usually quite eloquent, ways. Then he returned to journalism. But his story is well known.

** HILLARY’S MIXED GIANT FUNDRAISER. As we wait for the un-spun details on the presidential candidates’ fundraising and spending, due to be disclosed tomorrow, here’s an interesting take on that huge Hillary Clinton fundraiser at the end of March in LA, which raised $2.6 million, twice Barack Obama’s big take at the Beverly Hilton in February which caused such a stir. Says one source: “Of the 650 expected guests, they’d planned to have 300 at the $2,300 primary limit and 350 at the $4,600 limit for both.” And it may have ended up more in the latter direction. That would make, as the source points out, perhaps $800,000 in money that can only be used in the general election, a third of the take.

** MO’ MONEY. Rudy Giuliani and Mitt Romney have released more of their fundraising numbers. You already know the basics, that Romney led the Republican presidential field with about $20.5 million raised in the first quarter, plus another $2.4 million he loaned his own campaign for start-up funds. California, where he is backed by the Orange County conservative machine, was Romney’s biggest fundraising state. Giuliani raised $16.6 million, $14.7 million for the primary. Of that, he has $10.8 million cash on hand that can be used for the primary. Which is about the same as Romney (who had about a million more at the end of March), who has yet to make a very serious dent in Giuliani’s lead in early states, notwithstanding the fact that Romney alone has been advertising in early primary and caucus states like Iowa and New Hampshire. (Romney appears to have a made a move in New Hampshire, but he must do very well there because he was governor of neighboring Massachusetts and Boston dominates the media market there.) The late-starting Giuliani raised $11.5 million of his total in March.

We’ll have all the numbers for all the candidates in a couple of days, absent the spin with which these piecemeal releases are inevitably accompanied. Remember that fundraising per se is not the be-all/end-all of the process. The key is to have enough money, fame, and the right positioning for the contest. Or, if you are a dark horse candidate, to have the right operation and strategy in an early state. (Hello, Governor Richardson.)

** CLINTON AND GIULIANI WITH BIG LEADS IN NEVADA POLL. A new Zogby telephone poll of likely Nevada caucus voters (not the unreliable Internet poll) shows Hillary Clinton and Rudy Giuliani with big leads on the Democratic and Republican sides, respectively. The Democrats have already made Nevada the second-in-the-nation contest on January 19th, following Iowa and before New Hampshire. Nevada Republicans are in the process of matching the move, and are likely to formally take the step at their state convention in Carson City on April 21st.

On the Democratic side, Hillary Clinton leads with 35% to Barack Obama at 21%, John Edwards 15%, and Bill Richardson 5%. On the Republican side, Rudy Giuliani has 37% to John McCain at 15%, Mitt Romney 15%, and Fred Thompson, yet unannounced but supposedly second nationally in an LA Times poll, at 7%.

** ANGELIDES’ IRAQ FUNDRAISING SEQUEL. Remember that odd fundraising effort by Phil Angelides, the Democrat who lost in a landslide last November to Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger? He was trying to raise $10,000 for an advertising effort against Republican members of Congress to get them to vote to withdraw US troops from Iraq. Which was weird in a couple of senses. (Aside from him trying to raise some of it from his fierce critic, Democratic strategist Garry South.) First, they were never going to vote that way. Second, the real task was getting Democrats to vote that way (the measure carried with no votes to spare in the House). Third, the fundraising deadline was April 1st, and the actual vote was way before that.

Well, in any event, it seems that the $10,000 wasn’t raised in time, so Angelides came back with a new spin on getting the money from his supporters. Here it is. This, incidentally, went to a senior staffer of … Schwarzenegger.

Dear H.D.,
Don’t let Bush block us now.
Help us reach $10,000 by April 1st.
We have great news! You spoke out, and Congress listened. Today the House voted to set a firm timeline for troop redeployment from Iraq, to give our troops the resources they need to protect themselves on the warfront, and to provide the care they deserve when they come home.
Despite resounding messages from the American people that they want an end to this senseless war, President Bush has promised to veto this bill if it reaches his desk. He even dismissed today’s bold vote as “political theater.”
Click here to help us raise $10,000 by April 1st so we can fight back.
We’re going to keep the pressure on President Bush until he realizes it’s time to put politics aside and put our troops first. In order to do that, we must reach our goal of $10,000 by April 1st – and we still have $8,500 to go!
Help us tell the President to support the U.S. Troop Readiness Act, which would:
Make sure troops get upgraded equipment and supplies;
Allocate funds to care for injured soldiers and veterans; and
Set a timetable for redeployment and an end to the war in Iraq.
Click here so we can meet our goal and make sure President Bush hears our voices – loud and clear.
Your donation will help us raise $10,000 by April 1st. You can get us there even sooner by forwarding this message to your friends and family and encouraging them to contribute, too.
Thank you for your support!
Sincerely,
Phil Angelides
Standing Up For California

** DEMOCRATS CAN’T LOSE! The latest polling/strategy memo from pollster Stan Greenberg and advisor/commentator James Carville has Democrats running eight points ahead of Republicans nationally, over twice the margin they say existed before the Democratic takeover of Congress in November — actually, I remember other, different numbers — and total disillusionment with President George W. Bush. Well, that certainly checks with what I know. Greenberg and Carville advocate a bipartisan stance for the next Democratic presidential candidate, emphasizing withdrawal from Iraq, energy independence, and a focus on a comprehensive health care plan.

Only a quarter of all likely voters think the country is heading in the right direction. A big majority want a candidate who will oppose the policies of Bush.

** CALIFORNIA COASTAL COMMISSION REJECTS L.N.G. PROJECT. No surprise here. Following on the 2 to 1 vote by the state Lands Commission against the BHP Billiton project 14 miles off the California coast between Malibu and Oxnard, the state Coastal Commission has voted 12 to nothing to deny the project.

“The Lands Commission has spoken, the Coastal Commission has spoken, and the public has spoken. It’s time for the governor to listen and say goodbye to LNG and send Billiton home,” says Pierce Brosnan, star of five James Bond films from the mid-1990s to the early 2000s.

** HERCULES IN NEW YORK. An early Schwarzenegger picture, the one he initially thought would make him a star. In this case, the governor once again endorsed his friend British Prime Minister Tony Blair’s call for a new Kyoto accord, i.e., a global agreement to limit greenhouse gas emissions. NWN will have a full report Monday.

Meanwhile, on Good Morning, America, Schwarzenegger says this morning that of course, he dreams about being President, just as he dreams about winning the Olympic gold medal in the shot put or being Bill Gates. But his role now is to influence state, national, and global policy.

Incidentally, the LA Times has a predictable negative piece on Schwarzenegger today. Ironically, the same reporter wrote a very glowing front page piece in 2005 on the Schwarzenegger chief of staff who worked hard to block all these environmental moves the former action superstar has been making.

** TECHNICAL PROBLEMS. Power adapter problems have knocked out my morning column and video for today, mentioned yesterday. Those will come next Monday, in somewhat altererd form. Hey, NWN is owned by me, not a giant corporation. If it doesn’t happen with me, it doesn’t happen.

** Track global and national energy prices in near real time via Bloomberg. Most crude oil prices are in the $63 to $64 per barrel range. Gasoline prices are coming down around the country. But not so much in California. There are some intriguing excuses for that.

** A CASINO TRIBE BET KEEPING THE SAME TERM LIMITS? Some of California’s Indian casino tribes, with their new proposed casino compacts languishing in the Legislature, are talking about spending millions to defeat the likely inititiative on next February’s presidential primary ballot to change the state’s term limits law. Know what they call that in Vegas? Blackmail, baby.

** ARNOLD SAYS “GOOD MORNING, AMERICA.” Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger appears tomorrow morning early in the seven o’clock hour on ABC-TV’s Good Morning, America.

** IMUS OUT. Well, here’s a non-surprise. After MSNBC fired radio show host Don Imus from his televised simulcast of his radio New York-based radio show on the cable network, his home base operation CBS Radio fired him this afternoon. Imus, as you may have heard, ignited a firestorm of controversy when he called the Rutgers women’s basketball team “nappy-headed hos.”

I’m no Imus expert. Have never watched him and only listened to him a few times years ago. But it should be pretty obvious you can’t say things like that. In an increasingly coarsened culture, it’s bullshit. So to speak. Seriously, that stuff belongs nowhere, not even in an Internet chat room, much less the blogospheric extremes and outlier nitwit radio shows it sounds like. It’s wrong, stupid, all of the above. Which doesn’t mean that Al Sharpton gets to be America’s new media arbiter. We might have to get into his remarkably irresponsible history.

** OUR SAUDI ALLIES. Two weeks after he told a Middle Eastern conference that America’s involvement in Iraq amounts to an “illegal foreign occupation,” Saudi King Abdullah has not withdrawn the remarks and some US officials reportedly remain perplexed. Saudi Arabia is asserting itself as the leading nation in the Arab world, in part to counter the further emergence of Iran in the Middle East.

** GIULIANI LEADS MCCAIN, CLINTON LEADS OBAMA AND EDWARDS, IN NEW TIME MAGAZINE POLL. A new poll for Time Magazine, completed on April 9th, compresses the Democratic and Republican fields, for purposes of evaluating the top tier candidates’ respective strength, to three Democrats and five Republicans, respectively. (The five Republicans, two of them not declared, reflecting the more unsettled nature of the Republican field.)

On the Democratic side, Hillary Clinton leads Barack Obama and a closing John Edwards, 33% to 26% and 25%, respectively. On the Republican side, Rudy Giuliani leads John McCain, 35% to 20%, with undeclared Newt Gingrich at 11% and undeclared Fred Thompson at 10%, and declared Mitt Romney at 10%.

In good news for Democrats, 65% of respondents expect a Democrat to be the next president. When pressed, an eight-point plurality identifies more with the Democratic Party than the Republican Party, 46% to 38%. In not so good news for Democrats, their candidates don’t run as well against Giuliani.

That’s especially true in terms of drop-off for Hillary Clinton, though she’s competitive, trailing Giuliani by only five points. There is a slight majority of registered voters that say they are generally not inclined to support her. But the truth is that none of the candidates, including Giuliani, do all that well on that thermometer measure, though Obama does the best.

** SCHWARZENEGGER IN NEW YORK. Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger wrapped up his session with the Council on Foreign Relations about a half-hour ago. He gave much the same speech there as he did yesterday at the Newsweek conference in Georgetown, with a slightly different spin. He then took questions from the CFR crowd, dismissing nuclear power as an anti-greenhouse effect option until the waste problem is solved and shying away somewhat from banker/philanthropist Pete Peterson’s question about imposing a carbon tax to work the demand side of the equation as well as the supply side, which Schwarzenegger’s emphasis on new technology speaks to. I shot the Q&A session with my video camera and will have a video for you tomorrow, as well as a morning column.

The former action movie superstar is doing the Charlie Rose Show on PBS stations around the country tonight, and taping an edition of Hannity & Colmes for airing on Fox News on Sunday.

** MORE TEAM RUDY LEADERS FOR CALIFORNIA. Rudy Giuliani’s presidential campaign announced several more leading Republican politicians as part of their leadership team for the California campaign. Former Assembly Republican Caucus chairman Greg Aghazarian and Assemblywoman Sharon Runner, author of the Jessica’s Law initiative, as well as LA County Supervisors Mike Antonovich and Greg Knabe joined the existing group, which includes former House Rules Committee chairman David Dreier, Congressmembers Mary Bono, Devin Nunes, Jerry Lewis, 2007 Republican attorney general nominee Chuck Poochigian, and former LA Mayor and state education secretary Dick Riordan.

** SUCCESSFUL ATTACK IN HEART OF BAGHDAD’S GREEN ZONE KILLS TWO IRAQI PARLIAMENTARIANS. It’s a good think that John McCain was much more circumspect yesterday in discussing how the surge is going. (See discussion below.) A lunchtime attack in the heart of the US-protected Green Zone, seat of the Iraqi government, killed two members of the Iraqi Parliament. This jihadist attack, humbling to claims of US success with the new strategy — American casualties are up quite a bit, incidentally — may actually further spur American-Iranian clandestine talks on Iraq. Neither country actually wants Iraq to descend into chaos.

** NEW WHITE HOUSE CONTROVERSY: MISSING E-MAILS. The White House, under pressure to produce more information about the firings of eight US attorney around the country, two in California, that has already resulted in the resignations of three of Attorney General Alberto Gonzales’s top aides, says that many key e-mails may be missing. Why? Because they were sent as part of a private, parallel e-mail system used by top Bush/Cheney aides provided by the Republican National Committee. And the RNC doesn’t have the same standard for retaining data. This, of course, raises the obvious question of why the firings were being discussed on a political party e-mail system.

** RUSSIA DOUBTS IRANIAN NUCLEAR CLAIMS. Russia, which should know, given its central role in Iran’s nuclear project, doubts that the Islamic republic is anywhere near what it claimed this week.

** MCCAIN CAMPAIGN CUTS BACK. In the wake of somewhat disappointing fundraising results, and months of concern about campaign spending, Senator John McCain’s campaign is cutting back on jobs not in the political and communications divisions and on some consulting contracts. The full spending reports for all the candidates will be out in a few days.

** Track global and national energy prices in near real time via Bloomberg. Most crude oil prices have risen to the $62 to $63 per barrel range.

Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, seen in this NWN video signing California’s
landmark climate change act last fall on Treasure Island in San Francisco
Bay, had a successful day in Washington.

From the obvious response of the crowd, Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger was a big hit at Newsweek’s global environmental leadership conference at Georgetown University in Washington. In an upbeat, funny, not infrequently hard-hitting speech at wife Maria Shriver’s alma mater, the Newsweek cover boy denounced greenhouse deniers and pressed his view that environmentalism is at a “tipping point,” on the cusp of transitioning from something of a hairshirt movement at times to a more positive, technologically sophisticated and very much mainstream venture. And that the fight against the greenhouse effect is at a tipping point of becoming a consensus issue even as the environment itself approaches a tipping point with respect to the impact of the greenhouse effect.

This morning at 10 AM Pacific time, he addresses the Council on Foreign Relations in Manhattan on “21st Century Environmentalism: How Protecting Our Environment Will Create Economic Growth.” The speech is viewable by webcast on the Council on Foreign Relations website. However, you must register first.

Yesterday was a good day for Schwarzenegger. In the morning, Schwarzenegger and former LA Assemblywoman Fran Pavley, the Democrat who authored California’s tailpipe emissions law and co-authored the omnibus global warming act with Assembly Speaker Fabian Nunez, met with US Environmental Protection Agency chief Stephen Johnson to urge him to issue the long-delayed waiver needed to implement the state’s law. Last week, the US Supreme Court terminated the Bush Administration’s previous excuse that the EPA could not do do so because greenhouse gases were not pollutants under the Clean Air Act.

In the afternoon, Schwarzenegger met with Senator Dianne Feinstein. California’s senior senator endorsed the next phase of the former action superstar’s infrastructure bonds plan on water resources, including some dam building, which Schwarzenegger and others say is needed to store water that would otherwise be lost with the accelerated melting of the Sierra snowpack due to the greenhouse effect.

Legislative Democrats, influenced by environmentalists who for decades have not liked dams, have proved balky, so the backing of the state’s senior Democrat will prove helpful to Schwarzenegger.

Here are excerpts from Schwarzenegger’s speech:
 
“Like bodybuilders, environmentalists were thought of as kind of weird and fanatics also.  You know, the kind of serious tree huggers. Environmentalists were no fun; they were like prohibitionists at a fraternity party. …
 
But I believe that this is about to switch over from being powered by guilt to being powered by something much more positive, much more dynamic, something much more capable of bringing about major change.  You know the kind of guilt I’m talking about; the smokestacks belching pollution that are powering our Jacuzzis and our big-screen TVs, and in my case powering my private airplanes.  So it is too bad, of course, that we can’t all live simple lives like the Buddhist monks in Tibet.  But you know something?  That’s not going to happen. …
 
So ladies and gentlemen, I don’t think that any movement has ever made it and has ever made much progress based on guilt.  Guilt is passive, guilt is inhibiting, and guilt is defensive. 

Now, I believe in free trade, and I believe that it lifts everyone’s standard of living.  But eventually, we will look at the countries that produce goods without regard to the environment the same way as we look at countries that produce goods without regard to human rights — and that means that those countries, of course, that I’m talking about are the ones that have sweat shops.  My guess is that within the next decade or so if an economy ignores the damage that it’s doing to the environment, the civilized world will impose environmental tariffs, duties, and other trade restrictions to those countries.  This is a matter of fair trade.  Nations cannot dump products, nations cannot dump anything, and in the future they will not be able to dump carbon or greenhouse gases either, because this is an unfair trade advantage. …

The ever fascinating Don Imus controversy …

** JOHN MCCAIN ON DEFINING SUCCESS OR FAILURE IN IRAQ. Having come under sharp criticism for characterizing Baghdad as now having safe neighborhoods after touring one accompanied by a company of infantry and helicopter gunships, and with his campaign for president off to a rather disappointing start, Senator John McCain began rebooting today with a major address on Iraq at the historic Virginia Military Institute. Later, I asked him how and when he would define success or failure in Iraq.

“I watched with regret as the House of Representatives voted to deny our troops the support necessary to carry out their new mission,” McCain, a highly decorated Vietnam War veteran, declared to the assembled cadets in Lexington, Virginia. “Democratic leaders smiled and cheered as the last votes were counted. What were they celebrating? Defeat? Surrender? In Iraq, only our enemies were cheering. A defeat for the United States is a cause for mourning not celebrating.”

“Democrats,” he noted, “argue we should redirect American resources to the ‘real’ War on Terror, of which Iraq is just a sideshow. But whether or not Al Qaeda terrorists were a present danger in Iraq before the war, there is no disputing they are there now, and their leaders recognize Iraq as the main battleground in the War on Terror.”

During a conference call after his speech, I asked McCain how and when he would define success or failure for America in Iraq. He gave a thoughtful answer.

“There was too much loose talk about ‘dead-enders,’ and ‘mission accomplished,’” McCain said of the aftermath of the successful American-led invasion of Iraq in 2003.

“It’s hard to ascertain success or failure,” he said. “Militarily, there are many nuances. Politically, we will know fairly soon if the Maliki government is taking the needed steps.”

Those steps McCain sees as threefold: Sharing oil revenue with the Iraqi people. Allowing former Baath Party members to take on substantial roles. (The earlier de-Baathification policy proved disastrous in terms of the provisional government’s level of competence.) And holding elections in the provinces.

That’s the political side. What about the military side?

“On the military side,” said McCain, “it’s very mixed. The most spectacular and tragic aspect is the suicide bombers. Ask the Israelis about that. The suicide bombers still get through even with Israel sealing its borders.”

“I’ve talked to General Petraeus several times about this. He is a man of honor and a man of his word. If he thinks this is not succeeding, I’m sure he’ll tell the President and the American people.”

** CALIFORNIA TERM LIMITS REVISION INITIATIVE BALLOT DESCRIPTION FROM ATTORNEY GENERAL JERRY BROWN. If the proponents, led by Assembly Speaker Fabian Nunez are successful in gathering enough signatures, this will appear on the February 5th presidential primary ballot: LIMITS ON LEGISLATORS’ TERMS IN OFFICE. INITIATIVE CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENT. Reduces the total amount of time a person may serve in the state legislature from 14 years to 12 years. Allows a person to serve a total of 12 years either in the Assembly, the Senate, or a combination of both. Provides a transition period to allow current members to serve a total of 12 consecutive years in the house in which they are currently serving, regardless of any prior service in another house. Summary of estimate by Legislative Analyst and Director of Finance of fiscal impact on state and local governments: This measure would have no direct fiscal effect on state or local governments.

** SCHWARZENEGGER HITS IT AT GEORGETOWN. I’ll have a full report continuing with Arnold’s big green week tomorrow morning — and a little later today on John McCain, who I spoke with this morning, and Iraq — but for now, as some of you saw on C-SPAN, Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger hit an inside the park home run with his appearance at the Newsweek conference. He was funny, upbeat, and hard-hitting.

Schwarzenegger actually took a very tough stance against greenhouse deniers as he pressed his view that environmentalism is at a “tipping point,” on the cusp of transitioning from something of a hairshirt movement at times to a more positive, technologically sophisticated and very much mainstream venture. And that the fight against the greenhouse effect is at a tipping point of becoming a consensus issue even as the environment itself approaches a tipping point with respect to the impact of the greenhouse effect.

** SCHWARZENEGGER NEWSWEEK KEYNOTE ADDRESS AT 10:45 AM ON C-SPAN. Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger’s keynote address at today’s Newsweek global environmental leadership conference at Georgetown University in Washington will be cablecast on C-SPAN at 10:45 AM Pacific time this morning.

It will not be available via live webcast. However, I’ll have a link to archived video of the Schwarzenegger speech later today.

This morning Schwarzenegger and former LA Assemblywoman Fran Pavley, the Democrat who authored California’s tailpipe emissions law, met with US Environmental Protection Agency chief Stephen Johnson to urge him to issue the long-delayed waiver needed to implement the state’s law. Last week, the US Supreme Court terminated the Bush Administration’s previous excuse that the EPA could not do do so because greenhouse gases were not pollutants under the Clean Air Act.

** ROMNEY ANNOUNCES CALIFORNIA CAMPAIGN LEADERSHIP TEAM. Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney named a group of California campaign chairs and co-chairs. The campaign chairmen are state Senate Republican Leader Dick Ackerman of Orange County and former Assemblyman Tony Strickland of Ventura County, the 2006 Republican nominee for state controller. The state co-chairs are Assemblyman Anthony Adams of Monrovia, former Assembly Leader Scott Baugh of Huntington Beach, former Assemblyman and Republican Caucus Chair Russ Bough of Yucaipa, Congressman John Campbell of Newport Beach, Fresno City Councilman Jerry Duncan, state Senator Bob Dutton of Rancho Cucamonga, Assemblyman Doug LaMalfa of Richvale, Senator Bob Margett of Glendora, Congressman Buck McKeon of Santa Clarita, former California Republican Party Chairman Mike Schroeder of Corona del Mar, Assemblyman Jim Silva of Huntington Beach, Assemblywoman Audra Strickland of Moorpark, and Senator Mark Wyland of Carlsbad.

Romney has raised millions in California, most of it in Orange County. Readers will note that there is a heavy accumulation in that leadership group of politicians associated with the Orange County conservative machine and the Flash Report.

** DON IMUS AND “A TEACHABLE MOMENT.” Well, this story is impossible to avoid, try as I might. By now you must know what happened, but on the off chance you don’t, the popular New York radio show host referred to members of the Rutgers University women’s basketaball team, who’d just played in the national collegiate championship game, as “nappy-headed hos.” This created a firestorm of controversy, which included the bizarre spectacle of Imus, who looks like an 80-year old version of Don Henley after a long weekend bender, going on to Al Sharpton’s radio show (who knew he had a show?) to spend an hour apologizing. Which he couldn’t quite pull off, adding fuel to the flames. What Sharpton, who shamelessly promoted a non-existent rape as part of his racialist agenda in the infamous Tawana Brawley episode, is doing as a moral arbiter now is really something.

Anyhow, one pundit, whose name escapes me, helped justify the endless coverage of this by describing it as “a teachable moment.”

Yes. Important point. You can’t call people things like that. It’s wrong. It’s hurtful. And it’s really stupid. There. Don’t you feel so much more knowledgeable now?

** TWO BIG SPEECHES TODAY, MCCAIN AND SCHWARZENEGGER. Senator John McCain jump-starts his campaign with a speech on Iraq at the Virginia Military Institute. He speaks at 8:30 AM Pacific time and his speech can be viewed here.

I’ve read his speech, which is embargoed, and it will come as no surprise that he reviews some signs of progress in Iraq, links Iraq into the larger war on terror, and firmly plants the flag of his candidacy in the winning of the Iraq War.

Also speaking today is Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, on climate change at the Newsweek conference at Georgetown University in Washington. That’s at 10:45 AM Pacific time. I’ll have a link to that speech later.

** FRED THOMPSON HAS CANCER. Fred Thompson, the prospective Republican presidential candidate and Law and Order star, tells Fox News personality Neil Cavuto today that he has non-Hodgin’s lymphoma, a form of cancer. He says he is in remission and that the cancer is treatable with drugs if need be. He says he’s had no symptoms.

** L.N.G.’S FUTURE IN CALIFORNIA. Barring a successful legal challenge, the vote of the state Lands Commission has likely killed the project 14 miles off the Malibu coast. It’s tough to get the gas onshore without the pipeline that has to cross state-owned property. The Coastal Commission may well deal the project a second death blow tomorrow. But are all LNG projects in California dead? This was one of four or five in the pipeline, as it were.

A bill by Bay Area state Senator Joe Simitian would have the state assess the need for LNG in California and look at various options all at once, rather than one at a time. Despite intense lobbying around the LNG issue, the facts are still very murky to most people. There was supposed to have been a big statewide PR campaign on behalf of LNG, and some of the daily newspapers have reported this as though it happened. I’ll tell the story of that another time.

** Track global and national energy prices in near real time via Bloomberg. Most crude oil prices have dropped down around $61 per barrel in the aftermath of the Britain-Iran hostage crisis.

New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson’s delegation to North Korea is making
progress. He discussed the bristling would-be nuclear power last fall.

** OBAMA RETREAT TOMORROW. Fresh from his amusing appearance last night on the Letterman show, Barack Obama will hold a retreat tomorrow in Washington with top fundraisers and strategists to begin mapping out his second, third, and fourth quarter fundraising and political plans. The freshman Illinois senator outraised frontrunner Hillary Clinton in the first quarter, with some key numbers — like cash on hand — still to come.

Obama will have another big Hollywood fundraiser at the end of the month hosted by super-agent Ari Emanuel, model for the Ari character on the hit HBO series Entourage. Ari Emanuel is the brother of Congressman Rahm Emanuel, head of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee in last year’s elections during the Democratic takeover of the House. Rahm Emanuel was also the political director for President Bill Clinton. After the fundraiser, Obama will appear at the California Democratic Party convention in San Diego. Party officials are making sure that Obama and Clinton appear on separate days.

** CALIFORNIA COASTAL COMMISSION VOTES ON LIQUEFIED NATURAL GAS PROPOSAL THURSDAY. Following its defeat last night at the hands of the California Lands Commission, the BHP Billiton LNG project goes before the Coastal Commission on Thursday. While the Lands Commission staff recommended approval, the Coastal Commission staff recommends rejection. Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger is flying east for his climate change star turns in Washington and New York, first revealed here on NWN at the end of last week. Ruper Murdoch will also host a fundraiser for him in New York. While the Lands Commission decision and likely Coastal Commission decision could be overturned in court, and Schwarzenegger himself has yet to weigh in, prospects for the project are looking decidedly down, needless to say.

There are some more things on the LNG matter I’ve yet to report. Which I think I’ll get into tomorrow.

** BIG POLL, SMALL POLLS. The new Gallup Poll of national Democratic voters has Hillary Clinton continuing with a big lead in the race for the Democratic presidential nomination. In fact, despite Barack Obama’s besting her in fundraising in the first quarter and all sorts of press slings and arrows, not to mention the hatred of much of the blogosphere, Clinton’s lead has actually gone up. Clinton leads with 38% of the vote to Obama’s 19%, Edwards’ 15%, and Al Gore’s 14%.

When you take Gore out, it’s Clinton 43%, Obama 19%, Edwards 18%. Gore, the Academy Award-winning former vice president who actually won the national popular vote for president in 2000, says he’s not running.

In the first four states, Edwards leads in Iowa, Clinton leads in Nevada, Clinton leads in New Hampshire, and Obama leads in South Carolina. Advice for Barack Obama. Find a way to win in Nevada or New Hampshire.

** BIG SPEECH. Senator John McCain gives a big speech tomorrow, on the Iraq War at the Virginia Military Institute, that is key to his revival in the presidential race. NWN will participate in McCain’s conference call prior to the speech. Notwithstanding his problems, McCain is running first or a very close second in all of the early state contests for the Republican presidential nomination.

** SCHWARZENEGGER SIGNS L.A. OLYMPICS BILL. Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, as anticipated, this morning signed the bill by Assembly Speaker Fabian Nunez to authorize up to $250 million in insurance for any cost overrun incurred by a 2016 LA Olympic Games. LA is down to the wire with Chicago for the US candidate slot for the 2016 Olymic Games. The US Olympics Committee is scheduled to pick America’s nominee this Saturday. “The Golden State,” declared Schwarzenegger, “is an ideal setting for an event that epitomizes the glory of sport and physical achievement and I can think of no better home for the 2016 Olympic Games than Los Angeles. It is no coincidence that California is home to more Olympians than any other state. We have long been a global center for the health and fitness movement, and the Games hold a special place in the hearts of all Californians.”

** BIG FIREFIGHT IN BAGHDAD. Despite most of the insurgents having dispersed, per the historical pattern of unconventional warfare, there’s been a massive firefight in Baghdad today between US forces and insurgents. The acknowledged casualties on the US side include 16 troopers wounded and two helicopters forced down by enemy fire but not destroyed.

** COLDEST APRIL IN 113 YEARS. It’s beginning to shape up as the coldest April in 113 years. This is just the sort of thing that reflexive deniers of the greenhouse effect use as part of their last ditch, radio talk show-like tactics. And yet, if they bothered to know anything of greenhouse and climate change theory, they would know that such unusual/extreme weather events are actually part and parcel of the scenario.

** RICHARDSON DELEGATION ACHIEVES BREAKTHROUGH IN NORTH KOREA. in addition to winning the release of the remains of at least six Americans killed in the Korean War, the bipartisan, White House-endorsed mission to North Korea headed by New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson, the Democratic presidential candidate and former UN ambassador and US energy secretary, has achieved a breakthrough on the shutdown of North Korea’s nuclear reactor, which the Hermit Kingdom and “Axis of Evil” member threatens to use to develop nuclear weapons.

A promised payment to the North Korean regime of $25 million from the US has been hung up in a Macau bank, on account of the US declaring the bank a player in money-laundering and counterfeiting activities. (North Korea is the biggest source of counterfeit $100 bills in the world. Think of Pyongyang as cashiers hold your $100 bills up to the light and draw on them with magic markers.) One member of the Richardson delegation is the Bush Administration assistant secretary of state handling North Korean matters. He and Richardson have apparently found a way to unstuck that promised payment.

** JEANNE KIRKPATRICK THOUGHT IRAQ WAR WAS A MISTAKE. The godmother of the neoconservative tendency in American politics, former UN Ambassador Jeanne Kirkpatrick, thought the Iraq War was a mistake. So reports Nation columnist David Corn from a reading of her posthumous book. Kirkpatrich, who famously, or infamously, depending upon your perspective, found a distinction between authoritarian (yay!) and totalitarian (boo!) regimes, thought at the end that Iraq was a disaster for the US.

** CALIFORNIA LANDS COMMISSION SEEMINGLY KILLS LIQUEFIED NATURAL GAS PROJECT. Meeting well into last night, the state Lands Commission seemed to kill the proposed LBG project 14 miles off the Southern California coast between Malibu and the Ventura County city of Oxnard. Not at all surprisingly, the vote was 2 to 1, with Lieutenant Governor John Garamendi, my long ago boss, and state Controller John Chiang voting against and Anne Sheehan, representing Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger’s state Finance Department, voting for. While the Lands Commission staff endorsed the project, which needed approval for in-shore pipelines over more than four miles of state-owned property.

Garamendi, as I expected, led the fight against the project. In addition to raising environmental concerns regarding the carbon footprint of processing natural gas in Australia, chilling and liquefying it, and transporting it across the Pacific, he discussed the need to focus on solar and wind first that is implicit in the state’s Renewable Portfolio Standard, and referenced the much bigger LNG project in Baja California which can also provide LNG to fire California’s existing natural gas electric power plants.

For his part, Controller Chiang raised these points: “I remain concerned about the people this pollution will affect, especially children and seniors. As I understand it, the prevailing wind currents will blow the majority of the project emissions directly on communities in and south of Ventura County. I also have major concerns about approving an LNG terminal off of our beautiful California coast, upon which our $50 billion statewide coastal economy depends. The Governor and the Legislature have enacted statutes to reduce California’s carbon footprint and move us from fossils fuels toward cleaner, renewable alternatives. I do not think this project is something that carries out the spirit of our new, groundbreaking laws.”

The California Coastal Commission takes up the project later this week. Coastal Commission staff has already recommended a no vote, in contrast to Lands Commission staff, which unsuccessfully urged a yes vote.

** JOHN MCCAIN GETS MAJOR NEEDED BOOST FROM FOUR FORMER SECRETARIES OF STATE. Senator John McCain, under fire for being the only major presidential candidate to consistently articulate a pro-Iraq War point of view, has just received needed help in the form of the endorsements of four former US secretaries of state. They’re all Republicans, but a couple of them are known as realists. Including Henry Kissinger, who has declared Iraq “unwinnable” from a military point of view, George Shultz, Lawrence Eagleburger, and Alexander Haig. None, with the possible exception of Haig, is aligned with neoconservatives.

** Track global and national energy prices in near real time via Bloomberg. Crude oil prices have dropped to around $61 per barrel in the wake of the resolution of the UK-Iran hostage crisis. In addition, some experts doubt the Iranian claims of major advances in nuclear enrichment.

** NORTH KOREA TELLS U.S. DELEGATION HEADED BY RICHARDSON TO UNBLOCK FUNDS. North Korea today told the official US delegation headed by New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson, the former UN ambassador and Democratic presidential candidate, that $25 million in payments to the Hermit Kingdom presently stalled in the mainland Chinese gambling mecca and former Portugese colony of Macau (not far from the former British colony of Hong Kong) must be unblocked if the country is to follow through on moves to end its nuclear weapons program. Richardson, a notable international troubleshooter, is officially in Pyongyang on a mission sanctioned by the Bush Administration, heading up a bipartisan delegation, to retrieve the remains of US troops lost in the Korean War.

** 2016 L.A. OLYMPICS BID GETS STATE BACKING. The California state Senate today passed a bill earlier adopted by the Assembly which would place the state in a contractual partnership with the L.A. Olympic Committee guaranteeing up to $250 million of any deficit resulting from the Olympic Games of 2016 if they are hosted by Los Angeles. LA is fighting it out with Chicago to be the US candidate for the Olympics. Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger appeared earlier this year with LA Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa pledging his all-out support for the LA Olympics bid. When the 1984 Olympics were held in LA, they turned a profit, and most all of the facillities are already in place though they will need revamping, so this is an important political signal to the U.S. Olympic Committee.

** ARNOLD’S FRIENDS OF THE COURT. Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger has picked up all but one of the other living governors of California as people willing to file friend of the court briefs on behalf of his legal battle to solve part of the prison overcrowding crisis by moving some prisoners to facilities out of state. Former Democratic Governor Gray, defeated by Schwarzenegger in the 2003 recall election, is on board with the plan, along with Republicans Pete Wilson and George Deukmejian. The other former governor, Attorney General Jerry Brown, represents the state. The move is opposed by public employee unions.

** CONSERVATIVE REPUBLICANS SIGN NO NEW TAX PLEDGE. As NWN reported last week would happen, 46 of the 47 Republican state legislators in California today joined termed-out state Senator Tom McClintock and controversial long-time Beltway right-wing leader Grover Norquist in a pledge to oppose any new taxes in California this year. However, the “taxes” at issue this year will almost certainly be judged to be fees.

** PERATA CALLS FOR CROSS-NATION REFERENDUM ON IRAQ WAR. California Senate President Pro Tem Don Perata introduced his bill today to place an advisory referendum on California’s February 5th presidential primary ballot. He also sent letters to a host of states that might hold presidential primaries on that day urging that they do the same. Included in the group was Nevada, which of course is holding its presidential caucus on January 19th. Here is a portion of one letter:

I am writing to ask you and the people of New Mexico to join the citizens of California in making our February 5th primaries a national referendum on the war in Iraq. Like New Mexico, California moved up its primary to make our votes count in the selection of our next President. I propose we also use this opportunity to tell the current President where we stand on this fundamental issue of the day.

Today, I am introducing legislation that will place on California’s ballot an advisory vote calling for President Bush to immediately and safely withdraw all U.S. forces from Iraq, and to urge the President and the Congress to provide the nonmilitary assistance necessary to foster peace and stability in Iraq and the Middle East. …

More than 330 California soldiers have died in the Iraq conflict. Hundreds of our local police officers and public safety personnel remain deployed in the Middle East. As war costs mount, federal support for California’s schools, heath systems and other services continues to lag, hurting our economy and shortchanging our taxpayers.

I’m sure your state has paid an equally heavy price in this conflict. That’s why I’m asking you to consider placing a similar measure on the ballot in New Mexico, making a clear and unambiguous statement that it’s time to bring this costly and deadly war to an end.

** OBAMA AND CLINTON PULL OUT OF CONGRESSIONAL BLACK CAUCUS DEBATE TO BE CABLECAST BY FOX NEWS. Following John Edwards’ move last week, Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton today pulled out of the debate scheduled for Detroit in September. The Congressional Black Caucus will also do a debate on CNN.

** RIGHT-WING MAGAZINE SAYS FRED THOMPSON MADE PRO-CHOICE STATEMENT AS U.S. SENATE CANDIDATE. According to the American Spectator, Fred Thompson told a libertarian newsletter while he was running for the Senate in Tennessee that the decision to have an abortion or not was ultimately up to the woman involved. Thompson had an anti-abortion record during his sole term in the Senate and professes anti-abortion views now.

** NEW YORK GOVERNOR SIGNS EARLY PRIMARY. New York Governor Elliot Spitzer today signed legislation moving the erstwhile Empire State’s presidential primary to February 5th, same day as California and several other states. California surpassed New York’s population in 1962.

Were it not for the fact that the Democratic and Republican primaries in New York will almost certainly be won by the favorite daughter and favorite son, respectively, Hillary Clinton and Rudy Giuliani, thus discounting the effect of the widely expected victories, this would be a very significant move.

** OBAMA AND HALLE BERRY ON LETTERMAN TONIGHT. Senator Barack Obama, the top-rung Democratic presidential candidate, and Oscar-winning actress Halle Berry will both be featured on tonight’s Late Show With David Letterman. Berry, the first African American to win the Academy Award for best actress, for the grim Monsters’ Ball, has also starred in the three X-Men movies, Die Another Day, and Bulworth.

** ASSESSING CALIFORNIA ISSUE PROSPECTS. With the California Legislature back from its latest break, longtime Sacramento Bee columnist Dan Walters today assessed the prospects for Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger to reproduce last year’s successes on this year’s issues of the prisons, health care, infrastructure phase two, and political reform. He rated the prospects for each as poor. I think there is actually a very good chance on prisons, a decent chance on health care, mixed on infrastructure so long as dams are included, and very good on political reform, namely the main outstanding issue of redistricting.

** HARDLY ANY VETS IN PRESIDENTIAL RACE. Desperate the centrality of the Iraq War and the Terror War to the 2008 presidential race, hardly any veterans are running for president. Of the top tier candidates in both parties, only Republican John McCain was ever in the military. His service, of course, was more than substantial, as NWN readers are well aware.

** IRAN CELEBRATES “NATIONAL DAY OF NUCLEAR ENERGY.” Iran announced today that it has begun using 3000 centrifuges to create nuclear fuel, something talked about for months but not actually begun. Prior to this, only 328 centrifuges were known to be in use. The devices are a critical element of the nuclear fuel cycle, and can be used both for nuclear power and nuclear weapons. How many are actually in full use and how far along the process is are not known. Yet church bells pealed across the country today and millions of celebratory text messages were sent to mobile phones.

And Iran rather gleefully announced that a top official on the UN Security Council’s watch list just returned from an unimpeded six-day trip to Moscow, citing it as an example of the toothlessness of UN sanctions against the country’s nuclear program. Iran insists that its nuclear program is for peaceful purposes, while hundreds of students demonstrated, chanting “Death to America” and “Death to Britain.”

** Track global and national energy prices in near real time via Bloomberg. Most crude oil prices have fallen below $64 per barrel.

A star not named Arnold Schwarzenegger discussses climate change. (He is
not actually the President.)

It’s a big green week for Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger. He’s on the cover of Newsweek magazine’s save the planet issue, is the keynote speaker of the magazine’s global environmental leadership conference in Washington, and addresses the Council on Foreign Relations in New York. And the British Conservative Party chose the week of his Newsweek cover status to announce that he will headline their annual party conference this fall.

Here’s a link to the brand-new Newsweek and its special environmental issue, featuring Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger on the cover. And, no, I’m not sure how he got the world to balance on the tip of his finger.

The colorful Newsweek cover story touches on Schwarzenegger’s tepid relationship with and quite different environmental stance from President George W. Bush — Schwarzenegger had a much closer relationship with the first President Bush — and emphasizes his approach of mixing a baseline of regulation with the flexibility of the market and technological innovation. (The carbon trading system ramping up in Europe has some problems that need to be fixed for American application.) It also posits Schwarzenegger as providing a sunnier ecoglobalism than that of former Vice Presidenti Al Gore. Nevertheless, Schwarzenegger is an admirer of Gore, privately touting his movie, An Inconvenient Truth, last spring, later dropping in on a Gore bookstore appearance to congratulate him.

This kicks off a big week for the former action movie superstar on the environment, which I revealed on Friday. It comes also on the immediate heels of the more than sobering Phase II report by global climate scientists on the greenhouse effect, which spells out likely effects around the world. I’ll have full reports during the week.

After starting off the week with private meetings in Los Angeles, Schwarzenegger travels East. He’s the keynote speaker for Newsweek’s conference in Washington, which includes Intel Corp. chairman Craig Barrett and other technology figures among its speakers. Then the former action movie superstar goes to New York, where he addresses the nation’s leading private forum on foreign policy and geopolitics, the Council on Foreign Relations, on climate change and other global environmental issues.

The week is also big on greenery for Schwarzenegger for another reason. State regulatory bodies are taking up a proposed liquefied natural gas (LNG) terminal, which would be located 14 miles off the California coast between Malibu and Oxnard. LNG has been controversial in California for a long time, since then Governor Jerry Brown tried to bring it nearly 30 years ago. A few accidents decades ago couple with concern that it might blunt the drive for renewable power as conventional natural gas — the dominant power plant fuel in California, selected by the Brown Administration as the cleanest-burning fossil fuel bridge to a renewable future — runs short in the U.S. Several of Schwarzenegger’s former associates are lobbying for the project, while almost his entire LA social set, following the lead of former 007 Pierce Brosnan, is opposed.

Schwarzenegger’s emergence on the global stage as a leading environmental figure would have appeared confounding not all that long ago. Even when I predicted in 2002 that he would be the next governor — in 2006, not having anticipated the recall of Gray Davis before he was actually re-elected — this did not appear to be on the menu. Though it was logical, since even then Schwarzenegger was talking privately — and in his campaign of 2003, quite publicly — about his desire to do more than others were doing to combat the greenhouse effect and promote renewable energy.

Yet, even though he made major environmental moves in his first two years as governor, early last year he was rated no more highly by California voters than Bush on the environment. That’s because his previous political team did nothing to promote any public awareness of what Schwarzenegger was doing. So he got no more credit than anyone else with the Republican brand. Something which was repeatedly pointed out and then quite dramatically turned around last year.

So his going to Britain in the fall makes perfect sense. Schwarzenegger will deliver the keynote address at the British Conservative Party conference in October. The annual conference of Britain’s opposition party, which now styles itself as “centre-right” rather than strictly conservative, will be held at the Winter Garden in Blackpool.

Schwarzenegger was selected because of his role on global environmental issues. The new leader of the Tories, 40-year old David Cameron, is moving his party into the British consensus established by Schwarzenegger’s friend, British Prime Minister Tony Blair, the leader of the Labor Party — who participated by live satellite TV hookup last fall in Schwarzenegger’s signing in San Francisco of California’s landmark global warming bill — around the need to combat the greenhouse effect and consequent climate change.

A product of Eton and Oxford, Cameron changed the Conservative Party’s logo from a torch to a tree. Cameron sometimes bicycles to work, though in an early episode London journalists observed a car shadowing him carrying his stuff. He was first elected to the British Parliament in 2001. Polling in Britain indicates that he has a pretty good chance of becoming the next prime minister after Blair steps away.

Britain has great sentimental value for the former bodybuilding champion. Schwarzenegger’s first plane trip, at age 19, was to London, for the Mr. Universe contest, in which he finished second. He returned to Britain the following year where he won his first Mr. Universe title.

He didn’t speak much English then. (Some critics say he doesn’t speak all that much now.) But he was always struck by how friendly the English were to him. And that first Mr. Universe title was the key element to his master plan. “First I win Mr. Universe, then I come to America …” So it shouldn’t be a surprise that Britain figures prominently in Schwarzenegger’s life once again.