Is the iPhone the greatest device in recorded human history?
** THE COUNTDOWN IS ON. The Apple iPhone launches on June 29th. It’s been getting a little bit of a … build-up. Will my BlackBerry feel as heavy and clunky as that backpack phone California Democratic operative Bob Mulholland used to shlep around?
I intend to get one, of course. (No, not a backpack phone.) But I think I’ll wait. Having been an early adopter in the past, I got the Apple Newton when it came out, a grand-daddy of the handheld computers of today. After spending three weeks trying to get it to read my handwriting — of course, I frequently can’t read my handwriting — I made it a small object d’art.
** HILLARY ADDS NEVADA ENDORSEMENTS. Senator Hillary Clinton’s campaign rolled out more endorsements in Nevada yesterday. Her campaign in the Silver State, as in California and elsewhere, is heavily emphasizing endorsements. Yesterday, after she showed up an hour late for her US Conference of Mayors luncheon address in LA, her campaign announced the endorsements of some 30 current and former California mayors, a number of them from quite small cities.
Clinton’s Nevada state chairman, Clark County (Las Vegas) Commissioner Rory Reid, son of Senate Majority Leader and former Nevada Gaming Commission Chairman Harry Reid, hailed the endorsements as more sign of Clinton’s success in the second-in-the-nation contest. Clinton currently has a strong lead in Nevada, with Barack Obama and John Edwards in a dead heat for second and Bill Richardson in fourth.
John Edwards has a big town hall meeting in Reno this afternoon, while wife Elizabeth Edwards appears at a rally at Edwards campaign headquarters in Las Vegas. Later this weekend, Elizabeth Edwards will make a little bit of history in San Francisco, where she will be the first spouse of a major presidential candidate to participate in the city’s Gay Pride festivities.
Of course, he is the Vice President of the United States, directly involved in running many White House operations. His Senate role is strictly ancillary to what he really does. Which again reminds that lawyers can be motivated to argue pretty much anything, and can find legal justifications … somewhere.
** SCHWARZENEGGER TO WALK INTO EURO CAULDRON. As he prepares for a brief trip to Europe, including meetings with outgoing British Prime Minister Tony Blair and new French President Nicolas Sarkozy, Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger is about to step into a very unsettled political situation. Tne European Union is struggling to organize itself. Will it be a loose-knit confederation of states bound largely by the euro and a few cultural preconceptions, or will it become more of a transnational super-state?
** HILLARY ANNOUNCES MORE CALIFORNIA ENDORSEMENTS. Senator Hillary Clinton was the luncheon speaker today at the U.S. Conference of Mayors convention in Los Angeles. Accompanied by her national campaign co-chairman, LA Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, Clinton and her campaign announced the endorsements of some 30 other current and former mayors of smaller California cities. Her speech was well-received, but appeared to break no real policy ground.
** PRISON GUARDS SEEK CONTRACT MEDIATION. The once all powerful California prison guards union is availing itself of mediation in its stalled contract negotiations with the administration of Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger. The union had briefly stalled the state Senate confirmation of Schwarzenegger’s nominee to head the state’s Department of Personnel Administration in effort to force contract concessions. But the Senate Rules Committee in the end unanimously confirmed him. Now the two sides are entering mediation on a new contract, which has been stalled since last year.
The union had brandished a multi-million dollar warchest, threatening to run a scorched earth independent expenditure campaign against Schwarzenegger as he ran for re-election. It had even test marketed a very hard-hitting TV ad, which I got ahold and ran as the first ever NWN video. But in the end, they backed away from the confrontation, as Schwarznegger swept to victory over the union’s endorsed candidate, Democrat Phil Angelides, 56% to 39%.
** A MISTAKE ON HEALTH CARE COVERAGE. Longtime Sacramento Bee columnist Dan Walters reported the following this morning: The Legislature’s legal office opined recently that the self-described “fees” that the governor’s plan would impose on employers and health care providers would be taxes under the state constitution and therefore would require two-thirds legislative votes. That would give conservative Republicans opposed to health care mandates a decisive political role.
Actually, that’s misleading. It didn’t happen. What did happen is that the legislative counsel’s office issued an opinion that the fees on health care providers would constitute a tax. It did not issue any such opinion with regard to mandates and fees on employers. The Schwarzenegger plan has fees and mandates on employers and doctors and hospitals. The plan from Democratic legislative leaders Fabian Nunez and Don Perata has fees and mandates on employers only. Their plan can be adopted without any Republican votes. As might Schwarzenegger’s, actually, since the leg counsel opinion is simply that, coming from an office that, while non-partisan, works for the Legislature.
Meanwhile, the Times panned a tough biography of Hillary Clinton written by two longtime Times reporters.
** EDWARDS SETTING LOW EXPECTATIONS FOR SECOND QUARTER FUNDRAISING. Here’s an e-mail I got yesterday from Joe Trippi, senior advisor to Democratic presidential candidate John Edwards. (Along with the rest of his supporter list.) “We’re about two-thirds of the way towards our goal of raising $9 million—double what we raised at this time in the 2004 race.” Trippi is exhorting the faithful to pitch in before the end of the month.
What he’s also doing is setting a low bar in the fundraising expectations game. Edwards raised $14 million in the first quarter of 2007, and still trailed leaders Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton by huge margins. Going from $14 million to $9 million — or less — would be a big drop-off for a candidate who is still trying to find a way to lever himself into the front rank of the first tier, the Iraq War not having worked in that way for him.
** PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATES IN L.A. TODAY. New York Senator Hillary Clinton, New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson, and Ohio Congressman Dennis Kucinich are all slated to address the U.S. Conference of Mayors convention today in Los Angeles. While it will be interesting to get more of a sense of their urban policies, they are of course primarily in California for fundraising purposes as the dash to the end of the second quarter of 2007 continues.
** AL QAEDA’S AMERICAN PRISONERS STILL NOT LOCATED. American troops are now in the midst of a 41st day of searching for the remaining two US soldiers captured by Al Qaeda in an ambush south of Baghdad. They have had no luck so far. A video put out by Al Qaeda forces in Iraq claims that all three men were executed after being captured. But, with the exception of the Californian found floating in the Euphrates River, that claim can’t be confirmed. The US command in Baghdad revealed over the weekend that ID cards for the other two American prisoners were found in an Al Qaeda safehouse on June 9th.
** Track global and national energy prices in near real time via Bloomberg. Most crude oil prices are are around $69 per barrel as the Nigerian oil workers strike continues. Nigeria is the world’s fifth largest oil producing nation. The strikers want the sale of two of the country’s oil refineries rescinded and a lowering of fuel prices in Nigeria.
Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, discussing the longstanding national health care crisis in this NWN video and vowing major action from California this year, addresses the national health insurance industry conference in Las Vegas today.
The drive for major health care legislation this year has reached a new level, with Democratic legislative leaders Fabian Nunez and Don Perata merging their not dissimilar bills and Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger in Las Vegas today for a lunchtime speech to the annual conference of the health insurance industry. There at The Wynn, Schwarzenegger will talk up the need for universal health care and urge the representatives not to join Blue Cross in opposing the efforts by he and Democratic legislative leaders to enact a comprehensive program.
As all this is developing, some who fervently oppose these moves repeatedly insist that they don’t matter because federal legislation automatically preempts these state efforts under ERISA (Employee Retirement Income Security Act). San Diego Union Tribune editorialist Chris Reed criticized an earlier piece of mine for not recognizing this “fact.” Another columnist writes today, dismissing the actions underway in a similar vein.
But these commentators don’t mention, unless prompted, that California has had very real world experience with the issue of employer mandates on health care in its very recent political history, and that it is contrary to their forecasts. SB 2, by then Senate leader John Burton, required most California businesses to provide health coverage to their employees or pay into a state pool for coverage.
Reed countered by saying: “The Burton bill was never enacted. So the fact it wasn’t thrown out because of ERISA means nothing.”
Actually, SB 2 was enacted. It passed both houses of the Legislature and was signed into law by then Governor Gray Davis in 2003.
Having failed to defeat the Burton bill in the Legislature and having failed to get the governor to veto it, did the California Chamber of Commerce then use this obvious ERISA preemption case against it to have it tossed out in court?
No, they didn’t. What they did is mount a a risky, multi-million dollar state ballot measure to have the Burton bill invalidated, a referendum which also had the effect of staying implementation of the law until the voters decided. They spent very big money organizing the ballot measure and campaigning for it. And found themselves losing. Until the late interventon of one Arnold Alois Schwarzenegger, now the governor, in the fall of 2004. The ballot measure then passed narrowly. And that is what invalidated the Burton bill. Not the sure shot legal preemption case.
The truth is that the ERISA preemption case really is not so strong in the real world of the law. After the Burton employer mandate bill was enacted by the California Legislature and Governor, its opponents chose to resort to a risky, multi-million dollar ballot proposition rather than pursue the purportedly obvious case.
The fact is that the only reason why they won, and very narrowly at that, is because of the late intervention of Arnold Schwarzenegger against the employer mandates. Had he not intervened, shocking the hell out of John Burton, they would have lost and the political mandate that some now say, explaining why no court case, they were seeking would have been all on the other side.
Nothing, incidentally, prevented opponents from going to court at the same time to have the Burton bill thrown out on the ERISA preemption argument.
The reality is that opponents are hanging their hopes for preemption primarily on a recent case from Maryland, which boasts one of the most conservative federal courts in the country. They won’t be hearing this case.
While Schwarzenegger did surprise Burton and others, including some of his own friends and advisors, with his late intervention on behalf of the referendum against the health care bill, it’s not actually a philosophical flip flop. He said in 2002 and 2003 that he liked what the Burton bill would do, but worried that the economy was still too weak to support it.
This is Hillary Clinton’s new theme song. You and I by Celine Dion. You may notice the repeated shots of large aircraft, female and male stewards, and airport scenes. It was also the theme song for Air Canada. “You and I were meant to fly.”
A little perspective is due. As institutions, legislatures are seldom highly rated. Individual members are. But Congress did much better in the poll after the Democratic takeover, the narrowness of which is now apparent. People’s hopes have been dashed. It’s not all the Iraq fiasco, though a whopping 73% now disapprove of Bush’s handling of Iraq. That’s a record. People simply aren’t buying the surge strategy, now underway since February. Bush gets poor marks on every major issue, including homeland security and the war on terror. Only 43% think he’s doing a good job on that.
** MOVING ON CALIFORNIA HEALTH CARE. Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger takes his health care road show to Las Vegas tomorrow, speaking a to health insurance industry conference, urging that they not join Blue Cross in opposing the efforts by he and Democratic legislative leaders to enact a comprehensive health care program this year.
For their part, those Democratic legislative leaders, Assembly Speaker Fabian Nunez and Senate President Pro Tem Don Perata, earlier today merged their not dissimilar bills. The new bill, AB 8, would cover most Californians, but not all, as Schwarzenegger’s proposal would.
There is no Schwarzenegger bill because this is an issue that will ultimately be worked out through high-level negotiation, as major issues usually are now in the term limits era. Unlike Schwarzenegger’s plan, the Democratic bill would not require individuals to have health insurance. But it would require most every business in the state to provide health insurance or to pay into a state pool for health care. The Democratic version would force businesses to spend nearly twice as much on providing health coverage. But it would not, unlike Schwarzenegger’s, impose a fee on medical practitioners and institutions.
Incidentally, are these taxes or fees? In my layman’s opinion, they’re all taxes. But from a legal standpoint, strong arguments can be made that they are fees, hence not requiring a two-thirds vote of the Legislature.
Although he wants to do something about people denied coverage due to pre-existing conditions, Assembly Republican Leader Mike Villines doesn’t like like either current plan much, and said so in a statement.
** BILL CLINTON SAYS HE’S BACK. BUT IN A LIMITED WAY. Perhaps concerned that his regular presence campaigning with wife Hillary Clinton might be a bit overpowering, former President Bill Clinton said today that he’s only going to do a few joint campaign appearances with her. It will be interesting to see how this plays out. The problem for the Clintons is that, if the former president were constitutionally allowed to run, he could definitely win back the presidency next year. But his wife the senator is not nearly so popular.
** “MONDAY MORNING QUARTERBACK.” I’m going to start a new weekly feature through my network partners at PJ Media. I’m calling it “Monday Morning Quarterback.” With that vehicle, I’ll be discussing the week ahead in American presidential politics. It’s the reverse of a traditional Monday morning quarterback, of course, who talks about Sunday’s game with the benefit of 20/20 hindsight. I’ll be shooting for a blurry foresightedness.
** FRED THOMPSON IN LONDON.Shadow presidential candidate Fred Thompson sat down yesterday for an interview with the Times of London. In Britain this week to shore up his foreign policy gravitas, the former Republican senator from Tenessee and Law & Order TV star delivered a hawkish-sounding policy speech on Monday and paid his respects with a visit to former British Prime Minister now Baroness Margaret Thatcher. Thatcher was Ronald Reagan’s Tony Blair, and remains a key conservative icon on both sides of the Atlantic.
Thompson sounded notably hawkish in his speech the other day, calling for regime change in Iran and raising the prospect of a US blockade of the Islamic republic. He sounded more restrained in the Times interview, saying that America will have to act with “realism” in the future. He nonetheless defended the Iraq War as the right thing to do, although he criticized the conduct of its aftermath, saying it is now clear in retrospect that a larger force was needed to secure the country’s infrastructure after the fall of Saddam’s regime and to maintain order. He also spoke of the failure to secure Iraq’s borders, seeming to agree with those who maintain that the trouble in Iraq comes from without, rather than within. The fact is there’s plenty of trouble within and without, and none of it was planned for.
Told by the Times interviewer that many Republicans in Congress are likely to view theater commander General David Petraeus’s September progress report as a watershed moment, Thompson allowed as how he thinks the “surge” should be given more time no matter what the progress or lack of same.
The Times, which, incidentally, is the first Times newspaper and in Britain is known simply as the Times, is owned by Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp empire. And, although activists believe they know all about the agenda of Fox News, which of course is owned by Murdoch, it is actually not at all clear who the billionaire media mogul favors for president.
The Times was historically a Conservative paper. But in the last two elections, it backed Labour and Tony Blair. Murdoch himself has recently become a convert to the cause of fighting greenhouse gases to stave off climate change, as I reported some time back, and his papers contain a great deal of criticism of current US foreign policy.
** SCHWARZENEGGER WILL MEET WITH FRENCH PRESIDENT SARKOZY NEXT WEEK. Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger ventures to London over the weekend to see his friend, British Prime Minister Tony Blair, before he steps away from office on June 27th. He will begin his public schedule across the English Channel on Monday in a meeting with new French President Nicholas Sarkozy in Paris. What’s on tap? Further getting to know one another, though Schwarzenegger and Sarkozy are already acquainted. And discussion of international trade and of climate change and the need to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
Sarkozy, along with German Chancellor Angela Merkely, pushed President George W. Bush to do more than he did on climate change at the recent G8 summit in Germany. Blair and Schwarzenegger signed a Britain/California climate change accord last year. It’s likely that Sarkozy and Schwarzenegger will lay the groundwork for a similar agreement between France and California. And for a full-on Schwarzenegger mission to France next year.
On Tuesday, the day before Tony Blair steps down as Britain’s prime minister, Schwarzenegger and Blair will convene a meeting of business executives and policy experts furthering the mission of reducing greenhouse gases. Then the governor and prime minister will tour an energy efficient school in London.
Schwarzenegger’s visit to Britain and France will follow on the heels of the European Union Summit in Brussels. There is talk of Blair becoming permanent president of the European Union.
** HERE WE GO AGAIN. Ralph Nader is talking up another run for president next year. Why? Because there’s no difference between the Democrats and the Republicans. Which would come as something of a surprise to most who have bothered to watch the two parties’ presidential candidates debate. But is very familiar to those who recall his rationalizing about George W. Bush’s narrow and hotly disputed 2000 victory over Al Gore.
At some point, I should do a column on my experience in 2000, when I was recruited by the nascent Nader for President campaign. In talking with Nader, it was apparent to me that he was talking himself into running no matter what.
** THE NEVADA CAMPAIGN. Mitt Romney just became the first Republican presidential candidate to open a headquarters in the second-in-the-nation contest state. The Republicans, who only recently moved their presidential caucus to January 19th, joining the Democrats, are just gearing up now for the early race in the Silver State.
The Democratic campaign is more developed, with Bill Richardson, Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, and John Edwards all having Nevada headquarters. All of them in Las Vegas.
Edwards, currently running in a tie for a distant second behind Clinton with Obama, has a big weekend coming up. While wife Elizabeth Edwards does a rally in Vegas, Edwards himself has a big town hall meeting in Reno Saturday afternoon.
** SCHWARZENEGGER HEALTH CARE WEBCAST THIS MORNING. As reported earlier, Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger is back on the trail pushing his universal health care proposal. (Yes, I know it’s not a bill. Whatever results will come about through negotiation, which will climax in the not terribly distant future, and then it will be a bill. That’s how big things actually get done now.) Schwarzenegger will appear with business owners and employees at a Sacramento business to discuss “job lock,” the phenomenon of workers feeling locked into the jobs they have because that is the only way in which they can be assured of health coverage. The webcast is at 10 AM.
** SAN FRANCISCO SOLAR INNOVATION. An intriguing innovation out of San Francisco. Mayor Gavin Newsom and the Denver-based engineering firm CH2M Hill have just announced a solar mapping service, at sf.solarmap.org. The new website enables users to visualize the potential environmental benefits and monetary savings as a result of installing solar energy panels on their property. The service uses Google Maps as its visualization platform. With it, San Francisco residents and business owners can enter their address and get an aerial view of their structure. Click on the image of the structure, and you are provided with number of pieces of information, including the amount of solar paneling that could be installed on the roof, the estimated amount of solar energy that could be generated, potential utility cost reducations from the solar panels, potential greenhouse gas reduction, rebate amounts from the State of California, case studies, and contact information for local solar installers.
** AL QAEDA’S AMERICAN PRISONERS STILL NOT LOCATED. American troops are now in the midst of a 40th day of searching for the remaining two US soldiers captured by Al Qaeda in an ambush south of Baghdad. They have had no luck so far. A video put out by Al Qaeda forces in Iraq claims that all three men were executed after being captured. But, with the exception of the Californian found floating in the Euphrates River, that claim can’t be confirmed. The US command in Baghdad revealed over the weekend that ID cards for the other two American prisoners were found in an Al Qaeda safehouse on June 9th.
Hillary and Bill Clinton deftly play at Tony and Carmela Soprano in this amusing take-off on the controversial series finale of The Sopranos. But they have bigger problems than a mob hit that isn’t. Or a new theme song that’s, eh …
** OBAMA WINS STRAW POLL AT NATIONAL PROGRESSIVE CONFERENCE.Barack Obama won narrowly over John Edwards in the straw poll at the Take Back America Conference today in Washington. Hillary Clinton was a distant third, though showing better than she does in online polls of left-liberal activists. (Which, like all online polls, continue to be unreliable.) Obama also was the first choice among second choices. The Illinois senator garnered some 60% of first and second choices, showing that his strategy to blunt Edwards’ attempt to consolidate a left-wing activist base around the Iraq War is succeeding. And that if Edwards were to fade away at some point, Obama has a strong hold on the left wing of the party in the nomination process.
** SCHWARZENEGGER HITS IT ON HEALTH CARE. Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger picks up his campaign for universal health care once again with public events Thursday and Friday. More to follow. Meanwhile, the Together for Health Care coalition of community, labor, and some business groups launches its third TV ad pushing for a comprehensive health care bill.
** SONG! GLORIOUS SONG! Ah, there is nothing quite like music. To lift one’s spirits, inspire one’s hopes, prompt one’s love, and drive one to the very pinnacle of power on Earth. Hillary Clinton has had, as you may know, this little campaign theme song contest. In which the winning song happened, by a terribly odd coincidence, to be the very one to which the senator from New York was seen shimmying during one of her videos promoting the, ah, vote. That would be Celine Dion’s “You and I.”
As it happens, Clinton already had a very good campaign song. It was used to great effect to herald her rally appearances and so forth. It’s called “Right Here, Right Now,” and it’s by the British group Jesus Jones. It’s propulsive, it’s uplifting, it’s knowing, it’s change-oriented, it works with large groups of people, helping build their sense of expectation as their hoped for maximum leader seizes the microphone and implores them on to victory.
It’s also, as fate would have it, the 1992 theme song of the Jerry Brown for President campaign. Now, the Clintons and former Governor-turned-Attorney General Brown get on, well enough, these days. (Bill Clinton and Jerry Brown met privately recently.) But in 1992, they did not.
The maverick Brown — who once tried to hire Bill Clinton as his chief of staff, following Clinton’s defeat for re-election as governor of Arkansas — created a lot of trouble for Clinton as the two vied for the Democratic presidential nomination. Brown ended up a distant runner-up to the future president, but he beat Clinton in a half-dozen states, and had a little roll going until … he was swept up in a brief and quite spurious drug scandal, fueled with just enough seeming fact and artful innuendo to cut momentum. Not long after, it developed that the Clintons had employed private investigators to, well, investigate Jerry Brown and Mario Cuomo, who did not run but looked for a time as though he might. (That’s the sort of chutzpah and will to power the Clintons had even then, coming out of Little Rock, a town which made Sacramento look like Paris, employing expensive private investigators on two coasts to poke around in the lives of the former governors of New York and California.)
Before the well-timed faux drug scandal, major sparks had flown between the Clinton and Brown camps, with Jerry Brown raising Hillary’s quite remarkable investment successes and Bill Clinton telling Brown he wasn’t “fit to stand on the same stage as my wife.”
Bygones, of course. Yet Hillary wanted her very own campaign theme song, one that was not the theme song of the candidate who first raised Whitewater as an issue. And so we have Celine Dion, whose song was also the theme for Air Canada.
Here, incidentally, are the lyrics for the two songs. You be the judge as to which makes a better campaign theme.
“Right Here, Right Now”
A woman on the radio talks about revolution
when it’s already passed her by
but Bob Dylan didn’t have this to sing about you
you know it feels good to be alive
I was alive and I waited waited
I was alive and I waited for this
Right here, right now, there is no other place I want to be
Right here, right now, watching the world wake up from history
I saw the decade in, when it seemed
the world could change at the blink of an eye
And if anything
then there’s your sign of the times
I was alive and I waited waited
I was alive and I waited for this
Right here, right now
I was alive and I waited waited
I was alive and I waited for this
Right here, right now, there is no other place I want to be
Right here, right now, watching the world wake up from history
Right here, right now, there is no other place I want to be
Right here, right now, watching the world wake up from history
Right here, right now, there is no other place I want to be
Right here, right now, watching the world wake up
“You And I”
High above the mountains, far across the sea
I can hear your voice calling out to me
Brighter than the sun and darker than the night
I can see your love shining like a light
And on and on this earth spins like a carousel
If I could travel across the world
The secrets I would tell
You and I
Were meant to fly
Higher than the clouds
We’ll sail across the sky
So come with me
And you will feel
That we’re soaring
That we’re floating up so high
Cause you and I were meant to fly
Sailing like a bird high on the wings of love
Take me higher than all the stars above
I’m burning, yearning
Gently turning round and round
I’m always rising up I never
Want to come back down
You and I were meant to fly
** NEW NEVADA POLL. HILLARY LEADS DEMOCRATS, ROMNEY AND GIULIANI IN DEAD HEAT AMONG REPUBLICANS.Here’s the latest Nevada presidential caucus poll from American Research Group. On the Democratic side, it’s Hillary Clinton 40%, Barack Obama 16%, John Edwards 16%, and Bill Richardson 6%. On the Republican side, it’s Mitt Romney 23%, Rudy Giuliani 21%, John McCain 16%, and Fred Thompson 16%.
A few thoughts on this poll, which was conducted from June 15-19. I’m somewhat leary of the ARG polls. Sometimes they seem on target, other times clearly outriders. On the Republican side, McCain’s lead in Nevada has dissipated, as has his standing most places, with the prominence of the immigration issue. He’s co-author of the controversial comprehensive immigration bill and it’s smothering his candidacy among Republican primary voters. McCain’s gone down, Romney’s gone up. The two campaigns are frequently scuffling now.
On the Democratic side, two things occur. First, the poll makes an assumption and includes what I think is a small sample of independent voters, only about 10%. The actual proportion of independents participating in the Nevada Democratic caucus could easily be much higher, given the Nevada party’s liberal voting rules. The second observation is that this poll has Clinton beating Obama 52% to 20% among independents. Since Obama runs better than Clinton among independents generally, that seems off. That said, Clinton does have a clear lead in Nevada.
** THE CLINTONS: THE BIG DOG MAKES IT A ROAD SHOW. On the one hand, Hillary Clinton has significant leads in most national polls for the Democratic presidential nomination. After an uncertain performance in the first Nevada presidential forum in February, she has generally shone in other joint appearances and debates. Most experts feel she won the two debates thusfar outright. She is extremely well-funded, highly experienced, polished, with a cast of high-powered advisors and a humming political machine around the country buttressed with more endorsements than anyone else in either party. She has a strong core base of support among female Democratic voters.
On the other hand, it’s likely that Barack Obama, the 45-year old freshman senator from Illinois, will again outraise her in the second quarter, just as he did in the first. Obama, not Clinton, draws historically large crowds this early in the campaign. She does not run as well as Obama, and in some cases, the third place candidate, John Edwards, in trial heat match-ups against Republicans. She has a high built-in dislike factor among the general electorate. Although she leads in national polls for the nomination, she is in serious trouble in three of the four earliest states: Iowa, New Hampshire, and South Carolina. The only state in which she holds a clear lead is Nevada, and I know from personal experience that that is a state which can be blitzed.
So she’s rolling out the big gun in her arsenal. Former President Bill Clinton. You see him acting with her in the clever Sopranos-style video above. As discussed on NWN yesterday, he will hit the road with her, campaigning side-by-side for the first time ever in her presidential campaign, on July 2nd to July 4th in Iowa.
I’ve learned that the unprecedented road show will continue this summer. Hillary and Bill Clinton will campaign together in New Hampshire on July 13th. And there are plans for more joint appearances of the two this summer and later this year.
America has never seen anything like this. A former president of the United States campaigning on the same stage with a spouse who is a frontrunning candidate for the presidency. I’m not sure this has happened in any other major country.
What will the effect be? I’m certain that, if the Constitution allowed it, Bill Clinton would be elected president again next year if he so chose. But Hillary Clinton is not as popular. The effect of seeing the two of them together in another drive for national power is going to stir up a lot of feelings, not all of them good.
** POLL FINDS LIMITED SUPPORT FOR THE BIG IMMIGRATION BILL.Buried towards the back of the new poll by the Democracy Corps of Democrats Stan Greenberg and James Carville is research indicating tepid to limited support for the comprehensive immigration bill now dangling in the Congress. According to this poll, most prefer to secure the border first. Legalizing the illegal immigrants already here is a lesser priority. Guest worker programs are very controversial.
In this regard, it’s interesting to note that the word I’ve heard is that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has told the White House she doesn’t want to bring the bill up — assuming it ever gets to her out of the Senate — unless there are 70 Republican votes for the bill.
** AL QAEDA’S AMERICAN PRISONERS STILL NOT LOCATED. American troops are now in the midst of a 39th day of searching for the remaining two US soldiers captured by Al Qaeda in an ambush south of Baghdad. They have had no luck so far. A video put out by Al Qaeda forces in Iraq claims that all three men were executed after being captured. But, with the exception of the Californian found floating in the Euphrates River, that claim can’t be confirmed. The US command in Baghdad revealed over the weekend that ID cards for the other two American prisoners were found in an Al Qaeda safehouse on June 9th.
A funny thing happened on the way to discussion of the impact of the post-partisan tendency on presidential politics. Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger’s fellow Time magazine cover boy, New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, dropped his Republican registration yesterday in the midst of a tour sounding for all the world like an independent presidential candidate.
In fact, Schwarzenegger had referred to Bloomberg as a Republican when the former action movie superstar keynoted the USC conference on bridging partisan divides to get things done late yesterday morning. And yet, Bloomberg promptly quit the Republican Party not long after, announcing that he will henceforth be “unaffiliated.” And thus free to run as an independent presidential candidate, which is what he is sounding like these days.
Team Arnold folks, on background, emphasized that they hadn’t known in advance of Bloomberg’s move and that the governor himself has no intention of leaving the Republican Party to become an independent.
Schwarzenegger’s speech touched on familiar post-partisan themes. He called for what he describes as a common sense solution on immigration, really securing the borders, providing a pathway to legalization for illegal immigrants already here, requiring that they learn English, and establish guest worker programs geared to actual demonstrated economic need.
Decrying the polarized and increasingly unpopular state of political debate in the country, Schwarzenegger noted: “There is such political divide out there that even just starting to talk about working together, it becomes news.”
And implicitly answering hyperpartisans who claim higher moral justification for their attitudes and tactics, he asked: “What is more principled than giving up some of your position in the interest of the greater good? Politics is about compromise. It is about give and take.”
Strikingly, Schwarzenegger was introduced with fulsome praise by the man he defeated in the 2003 recall election, former Democratic Governor Gray Davis. Davis gave Schwarzenegger full credit for the passage of the big stem cell research initiative in 2004 which, now that the legal challenges from the right have been defeated, has established California as the world center of stem cell research. Davis had made earlier moves on stem cell research, and on climate change legislation, for which he credited Schwarzenegger as the key popularizer of the issue.
Before letting it be known he’s changed his registration, Bloomberg had delivered a scathing assessment of the state of national politics in remarks at the USC conference, following a similar appearance Monday at Google headquarters in Silicon Valley. Four presidential candidates — three Democrats and a Republican — have already appeared at these Google town halls.
The original plan for this column was to analyze how the post-partisan tendency, which is proving, as predicted here, quite popular, plays out amongst the Democratic and Republican presidential fields. Bloomberg’s move puts that off a bit, though in the end may make the discussion even more relevant.
Bloomberg, of course, is still a long ways from an actual candidacy. Few people like to fail, and the hard fact is that an independent presidential candidacy has never worked. Such a candidacy can be leveraged to impact the debate. It can also play a spoiling role, which of course is what the various predictable partisans immediately jumped on, predictably coming up with scenarios to promote their partisan views.
It’s actually not clear which party, if either, would be especially helped by a Bloomberg candidacy. For one thing, it matters who’s nominated by either party. For another, the election is far off, and what seem like certain circumstances today simply haven’t happened.
Further reacting to Bloomberg’s departure, right-wing bloggers heaped scorn on the mayor. Hyperpartisans are about purity, placing themselves high atop the pantheons of their own constructions. It’s intriguing how alike the far left-wingers and far right-wingers are in pushing for exclusivity in “their” parties.
And how did the California blogosphere react to Schwarzenegger’s appearance on the cover of this week’s Time magazine with Bloomberg as practical, forward-looking exemplars of post-partisanship? In predictable ways. The daily newspaper blogs, which don’t say much, have said little. The hyperpartisan blogosphere is mostly critical. The lefties mostly hate it. So do the righties. The lefties grind their teeth because they know that Schwarzenegger is really a closet corporado. The righties grind their teeth because they know that Schwarzenegger is really a closet socialist.
As for most people, who are not represented by blogs or other forms of media — which themselves are increasingly dominated by sensationalism and superficial slapfests — I’d guess they like it a lot. To the extent they know about it.
Former President Bill Clinton campaigns for the first time with his wife the presidential candidate next month in Iowa. Clinton has been doing solo fundraisers for the past few months on behalf of Hillary Clinton’s campaign.
** BLOOMBERG LEAVES REPUBLICAN PARTY. Hmm, didn’t Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger call his friend, New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, a good Republican when the former action movie superstar keynoted the USC conference late this morning? Why, yes, he did. And yet, Bloomberg promptly quit the Republican Party not long after, announcing that he will henceforth be “unaffiliated.” And thus free to run as an independent presidential candidate, which is what he is sounding like these days.
** LABOR RALLY AT CALIFORNIA CAPITOL AGAINST INDIAN CASINO DEALS SEEN AS LOW-IMPACT. The noon rally today by labor against the proposed Indian casino deals pending in the state Assembly following their passage in the Senate drew 400 to 500 spirited protesters, mostly wearing red t-shirts. But there was a notable lack of legislative support on stage, and insiders say they don’t expect the rally to have made much impact. Labor wants to get something called card check. If a union collects enough signed cards, the union is then, not up for a secret ballot, but authorized to represent the workers. That’s unlikely to happen.
** WHAT I HEAR ABOUT PRESIDENTIAL FUNDRAISING. Talking with a variety of Democratic sources in and around the presidential campaigns, it sounds to me like Barack Obama will win the second quarter fundraising race over Hillary Clinton with John Edwards finishing a distant third.
** ATTORNEY GENERAL BROWN HAPPY WITH PELOSI’S SUCCESS. California Attorney General Jerry Brown is happy with U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s success in shutting down, so far at least, the effort to move legislation to preempt California’s landmark climate change legislation. Brown and Pelosi go way back. It was former Governor Jerry Brown who gave Pelosi a big start on the political ladder in California, making her Northern California chair of the Democratic Party after she used her contacts as the daughter and sister of Baltimore mayors to help Brown with the Maryland presidential primary in 1976 over Jimmy Carter.
** SCHWARZENEGGER, INTRODUCED BY GRAY DAVIS, TALKS UP POST-PARTISANSHIP IN U.S.C. ADDRESS. Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, introduced with fulsome praise by the man he defeated in 2003 recall election, former Democratic Governor Gray Davis, spoke of the virtues of a post-partisan politics in his keynote address this morning at the USC conference on briding partisan divides to get things done.
Davis gave Schwarzenegger full credit for the passage of the big stem cell research initiative in 2004 which, now that the legal challenges from the right have been defeated, has established California as the world center of stem cell research. Davis had made earlier moves on stem cell research, and on climate change legislation, for which he credited Schwarzenegger as the key popularizer of the issue.
Schwarzenegger made a series of remarks about post-partisanship that will be very familiar to NWN readers and will be covered in a broader, upcoming report.
The former senator and Law & Order star will meet with former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher tomorrow in hopes of forming an informal transatlantic alliance with the longtime conservative icon.
Which song did win? A tune by Celine Dion called “You and I.” It’s strictly MOR uplift. I rather doubt that it really won the poll. You see, in an earlier video, Hillary was happily bopping along listening to … that very song.
The former president has stepped up his campaigning for his wife of late, focusing on fundraisers featuring himself as part of the couple’s effort to hold off Obama’s fundraising juggernaut.
While Hillary Clinton leads in national Democratic polls, the only one of the first four states in the contest in which she has a clear lead is Nevada. In addition to trailing Edwards and Obama in Iowa, she is in a dog fight with Obama in New Hampshire and trails Obama in South Carolina. And Nevada, a state I’ve done in the past, is a state which can be blitzed.
** SCHWARZENEGGER U.S.C. CONFERENCE KEYNOTE LIVE WEBCAST AT 10 AM. Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger keynotes the conference at the University of Southern California on bridging the partisan divide this morning. The speech is webcast live.
The governor joined fellow Time magazine cover boy New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg at a party last night at the Getty House official residence of Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa. Bloomberg had just delivered a scathing assessment of the state of national politics in remarks at the USC conference, following a similar appearance at Google headquarters in Silicon Valley.
** CALIFORNIA CLIMATE CHANGE PREEMPTION BID DROPPED. Detroit Congressman John Dingell and West Virginia Congressman Rick Boucher yesterday agreed to drop language in a comprehensive energy bill that would have preempted California’s landmark laws to control the emission of greenhouse gases. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi had strongly opposed the move, which House Energy and Commerce Committee chairman Dingell once promised to move through his committee and on to the house floor. Dingell, a stalwart of the auto industry, and Boucher, a stalwart of the coal industry, say, however, that they may revive the idea later this year. Dingell has been fighting California air pollution control efforts since the 1980s.
** AL QAEDA’S AMERICAN PRISONERS STILL NOT LOCATED. American troops are now in the midst of a 38th day of searching for the remaining two US soldiers captured by Al Qaeda in an ambush south of Baghdad. They have had no luck so far. A video put out by Al Qaeda forces in Iraq claims that all three men were executed after being captured. But, with the exception of the Californian found floating in the Euphrates River, that claim can’t be confirmed. The US command in Baghdad revealed over the weekend that ID cards for the other two American prisoners were found in an Al Qaeda safehouse on June 9th.
** GAUGING THE TIME MAGAZINE COVER IMPACT.So far, the California blogosphere has reacted in predictable ways to Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger’s appearance on the cover of this week’s Time magazine with New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg as practical, forward-looking exemplars of post-partisanship. The daily newspaper blogs, which don’t say much, haven’t said anything. The hyperpartisan blogosphere is mostly critical. The lefties mostly hate it. So do the righties. The lefties grind their teeth because they know that Schwarzenegger is really a closet corporado. The righties grind their teeth because they know that Schwarzenegger is really a closet socialist. As for most people, which are not represented by blogs or other forms of media, I’d guess they like it a lot. To the extent they know about it.
** OH, YES, THE GALLUP POLL.The latest national Gallup Poll has Hillary Clinton a clear first in the Democratic presidential race, with Barack Obama a clear second, the unannounced but still flirtatious Al Gore farther back in in third, and John Edwards in fourth. Like most all other polls. Among Republicans, Rudy Giuliani still leads, but the soon to announce Fred Thompson — now in London to enhance his international standing and attempt to forge an alliance with former Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher — has surged to essentially a tie for a relatively close second with John McCain, with Mitt Romney sitting in fourth place.
At the beginning of June, Giuliani had a bigger lead in the Republican race. And in the Gallup sounding, Obama and Clinton were tied for first. But that poll, as it happens, had a much larger sampling of independents than other polls, fully one third of the sample, which is too much for a national poll. But it is not too much for some of the early states in the contest, such as Nevada, New Hampshire, and California, to name some very noteworthy ones. The vicars of conservative political correctness in the ranks of California Republicans, in their great wisdom, are barring independents from voting in their presidential primary. Which means all the independent action in the biggest presidential primary in the nation will be on the Democratic side.
** LABOR PLANS CAPITOL RALLY TOMORROW TO BLOCK CALIFORNIA CASINO TRIBE COMPACTS. Apropos of the item below on the likely passage in the state Assembly of those somewhat stalled Indian casino deals already passed by the Senate, some labor unions, notably UNITE HERE (mostly hotel and restaurant workers, trying to organize the Indian casinos), are planning a rally outside the Capitol tomorrow in a last ditch effort to convince Assembly Democrats to vote no on the compacts negotiated by Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger.
** HARRY REID CONTEMPLATES THE POLITICS OF IMMIGRATION. Here’s a fine profile of Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid’s moves on immigration in today’s Las Vegas Sun. There’s a lot of speculation about the Nevadan’s motives in allowing the winning, and potentially deal-breaking, vote on an amendment to put a five-year sunset on the big guest worker program.
Reid, whose wife is the daughter of a Russian immigrant, knows not only from the swirling crosscurrents at the national level, but also from the Nevada experience, that consensus is elusive. The Silver State has a big Latino constituency and a large labor presence. There’s little consensus there on guest workers. In either the Latino community or labor.
On the Democratic side, it’s Obama 34%, Hillary Clinton 25%, and John Edwards 12%. Obama has developed a decided edge over Clinton among African American voters. Edwards, who was born in South Carolina, won the primary in 2004.
On the Republican side, it’s Fred Thompson 25%, Rudy Giuliani 21%, Mitt Romney 11%, and John McCain 7%. Thompson’s emergence is confounding the plans of practically everyone. McCain, who had come back earlier from a rough start, is being shelled by the continued spotlight on the comprehensive immigration bill he co-authors. It’s controversial with groups across the spectrum, including many unions, but is especially controversial among Republican primary voters.
** OBAMA AND HILLARY HAVE SECRET SERVICE CODE NAMES.And here they are. Barack Obama is “Renegade.” Hillary Clinton is “Evergreen.” No other candidates have Secret Service protection yet. Clinton’s dates from her tenure as first lady. Obama’s is the result of security concerns about the first potential African American president.
One can only guess where the Obama codename comes from. An agent who was a fan of the old Lorenzo Lamas TV series, perhaps? As for the Clinton codename, I have heard it was inspired — ironically or not, you make the call — by the Barbra Streisand song of the same name, which she performed in A Star Is Born. Streisand is a great fan of President Bill Clinton’s. “Love, soft as an easy chair, Love, fresh as the morning air, One love that is shared by two, I have found with you …” The Secret Service can be quite sardonic, in its deadpan way.
** AL QAEDA’S AMERICAN PRISONERS STILL NOT LOCATED. American troops are now in the midst of a 37th day of searching for the remaining two US soldiers captured by Al Qaeda in an ambush south of Baghdad. They have had no luck so far. A video put out by Al Qaeda forces in Iraq claims that all three men were executed after being captured. But, with the exception of the Californian found floating in the Euphrates River, that claim can’t be confirmed. The US command in Baghdad revealed over the weekend that ID cards for the other two American prisoners were found in an Al Qaeda safehouse on June 9th.
** Track global and national energy prices in near real time via Bloomberg. Most crude oil prices have risen to $69 per barrel after Nigerian militants captured an oil pipeline switching center and abducted two dozen Nigerian soldiers and workers for the Italian state oil company.
Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger and New York Mayor
Michael Bloomberg, this week’s Time magazine cover subjects,
together last fall in Silicon Valley in this NWN video.
Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger is on the cover of another national news magazine, talking up his post-partisan theme in the same week he keynotes a conference at the University of Southern California on the theme. He and his friend, New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, both appear on the cover of Time magazine and at the conference.
Bloomberg and Schwarzenegger, on the cover of the current Time magazine — the story is called “Who Needs Washington?” and describes Bloomberg and Schwarzenegger as “the new action heroes” — are at USC today and tomorrow for a conference called “Ceasefire! Bridging the Political Divide.” Also headlining are Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa and Arizona Governor Janet Napolitano, who works with Schwarzenegger as part of the the Western states climate change pact. Other speakers include former Clinton White House chief of staff John Podesta and former George W. Bush and Schwarzenegger chief strategist Matthew Dowd. Bloomberg speaks at the conference today and Schwarzenegger keynotes on Tuesday.
While the pairing may seem new to a national audience, it really isn’t. It began, at least publicly, last fall when Schwarzenegger and Bloomberg — a media billionaire who switched his lifelong Democratic registration to Republican to avoid a crowded Democratic primary and is now exploring an independent candidacy for president in 2008 — toured an innovative alternative energy technology firm in Silicon Valley.
The former Ion America, backed by major venture capital investors and headed by a veteran of NASA’s Mars project, K.R. Sridhar, Bloom Energy seeks to pioneer a new fuel cell industry. Also on hand was the former president of software giant Oracle Corp., Ray Lane, now a senior partner with Kleiner, Perkins, Caufield, and Byers, the Valley’s leading venture capital firm. He extolled both the passage of California’s landmark global warming law, AB 32, as a forcing function for the development of new technology needed to avert climate change in a heavily urbanizing world, and the rise of Green Tech, which he sees as the next wave of massive innovation emerging from Silicon Valley.
After the tour and the preliminaries, Schwarzenegger and Bloomberg did their thing.
“We cannot sit around and wait for Washington do something,” Bloomberg said. “I’m trying to go around the country and support those who have the vision to take this country forward and not fall into the trap of partisan politics and the gridlock which I see throughout this country.”
Schwarzenegger agreed. “It is unbelievable,” he exclaimed. “They are frozen. They can’t do anything in Washington because it’s Democrats against Republicans, Republicans against Democrats. Rather than, ‘Let us solve the problems of this country,’” the governor said.
Bloomberg spoke at length about the Big Apple’s new climate change policies, including the announcement of plans to start a new office focusing on land use planning and environmental sustainability. He also said a major effort would soon be under way to inventory all greenhouse gas emissions in New York.
Of course there was more than one reason for Bloomberg’s trip to California, and one of those reasons was a possible independent presidential bid by Bloomberg in 2008. When asked by a reporter about the possible campaign, Schwarzenegger feigned surprise, winning big laughs.
“What? I can’t believe that. This is unbelievable,” the governor said.
The mayor had his own fun at the former Mr. Universe’s expense. “Nobody will ever accuse Arnold Schwarzenegger of being conventional, and that’s why he’s been a good governor,” Bloomberg said.
At one point, after going on about how partisan fighting in Washington is blocking all progress and the two of them are above that sort of thing, Schwarzenegger turned to Bloomberg and gushed, “He’s my soul mate. He’s the man.” He clasped him about the shoulders, nearly pulling him off balance.
This week’s Time cover story recycles all this.
While this is certainly a big plus for Schwarzenegger nationally and internationally, it is not an unalloyed blessing in California. This sort of national/international publicity, especially when linked to “coincidental” public appearances in its immediate aftermath, makes some of the state press and political communities sulky.
We certainly saw that earlier this spring, when Schwarzenegger appeared on the cover of Newsweek’s save the planet issue. That prompted plenty of potshots in the press and some in political circles. But Schwarzenegger figures it’s worth some local flak.
Does the message of bridging conventional partisan gaps to get things done in a way that Washington quite clearly can’t — even in the wake of last November’s Democratic victories — resonate strongly nationally? Of course. Polling shows that national voters are like California voters in their disdain for the usual hyperpartisan slapfests. They want important things to get done.
The end of the 24 Hours of Le Mans, in the Steve McQueen
film, Le Mans.
Several resounding resolutions in the just concluded Formula One US Grand Prix in Indianapolis and the annual running of the 24 Hours of Le Mans in France on this Fathers Day. And several non-resolutions, for the week ahead in politics.
First, the resolutions. At Le Mans, the pageantry of the world’s greatest endurance sports car race endured some showers yesterday afternoon before segueing into a dramatic set of night time duels in fog and mist, turning into a glorious sunrise in the French countryside before ending in a torrential downpour. The prototype cars, which are unlike any you will ever see on the street, seedbeds of future automotive technology, run fastest now at Le Mans, and Audi triumphed again in the top prototype class with its revolutionary diesel engine. But it was a near thing, as two of the three Audis entered in the race broke down, leaving only one car to hold off a fast rising Peugeot team.
In the top class for modified production cars, the Grand Touring 1 class, Aston Martin at last broke Corvette’s stranglehold at Le Mans. Aston Martins modified from the marque’s DB9 model finished first and third, with a Corvette modifed from the C6 model coming in second, about 10 miles behind the leading Aston Martin. (The principal Astons received double-oh numbers, befitting the marque’s long association with the Bond franchise. It was actually the 009 car that won, with the 007 vehicle, which led over half the race, finishing fourth after two off-course adventures led to substantial time in the pits.)
At the just-concluded US Grand Prix in Indianapolis, 22-year old rookie Lewis Hamilton continued his sensational climb to global fame, winning a close fought race with colleague on the British McLaren Mercedes team, Spain’s Fernando Alonso, a 25-year old who won the last two F1 world championships from German legend and former Ferrari great Michael Schumacher, now retired in his late ’30s.
Hamilton is the first black driver to compete in F1. He’s been on the podium, i.e., placed in the top three, in each of his first seven races, which is unheard of. And he’s really come to the fore with the global F1 circuit coming to North America, getting his first actual win in last week’s Canadian Grand Prix.
Hamilton, who is actually of mixed race, has many new fans, including golfing great Tiger Woods, who has a not dissimilar ethnic background and says he follows Hamilton on a daily basis. He’s clearly a phenom, and no less an authority than seven-time world champ Michael Schumacher says he could dominate F1 for years. (Hmm, who else does this sound like?)
Alonso, who is only a few years older than Hamilton, had expected to do that himself, having bested Schumacher two years running. Hamilton was brought on to McLaren Mercedes to be Alonso’s wing man. Which he was for the first few races, until it became apparent that he could have actually won the Monaco Grand Prix over Memorial Day weekend himself instead of finishing second. Since then, the duel has been on, and today was a great one, with Hamilton qualifying for the pole position and Alonso chasing him througout, losing out narrowly in several spectacular overtaking attempts, including a late drag race with Hamilton coming back onto the track after a pit stop. Now Hamilton has a sizeable lead in the points race for the F1 world championship over Alonso, with their British McLaren Mercedes team dominating over their biggest rivals, the Italian Ferrari crew.
From resolution, at least for now, we turn to non-resolution, if not irresolution, in the world of politics.
The presidential candidates in both major parties will be hustling very hard this week to raise money in advance of the end of the second quarter fundraising period on June 30th. The occasion may mark a sort of game over for some, a clear stalling out for others, and for one or two others, a realization that they are at least as strong as they are supposed to be. We may also start to some more detailed policy from the Republicans, who have been trailing the Democrats on that front, along with more criticism of President George W. Bush by Rudy Giuliani.
For his part, Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger will again raise the post-partisan banner high, sharing the cover of the new Time magazine with his “soulmate,” as he first put it in an appearance last fall in Silicon Valley, New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg. He’ll also be monitoring negotations on the state budget and pushing for universal health care program. He may also deal with some more flak on his comments last Thursday to a Latino media association, in which he urged immigrants in California to concentrate less on Spanish language media and more on speaking English. This issue came up during the campaign, and was decided pretty decisively on Schwarzenegger’s behalf after backers of the losing Phil Angelides campaign derided the melting pot concept of American history.
A Latino politician who’s required some brushing up on his Spanish, Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, will face continued fall-out over the ending of his marriage. The matter is now moving into a contest. Or, rather, a search. I’ve had a few people, in the media and not, ask me who Villaraigosa’s galpal(s) is/are. I don’t know if she or they exist, nor do I much care. But the chase is definitely on, and the LA Times is right in the thick of it.
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