It should be perfectly obvious following the debacle of the dot-com bubble, in which legislators of both parties pushed then Governor Gray Davis and California’s budget off a cliff with demands for unsustainable spending and tax cut programs, that California needs two modern, competitive political parties in order to thrive. Right now, it might have one, but certainly not two.
When my longtime acquaintance Arnold Schwarzenegger came in as governor, I wrote publicly and said privately that he needed to rein in the ultra-government faction and the anti-government faction in California politics. He’s done a bit of the former and hardly any of the latter. Patronizing and ignoring is not the same as reining in and modernizing.
Two things should have happened in 2004 that did not. The development and long-term implementation of the California Performance Review to identify and, over time, create new governmental efficiencies that would streamline programs while continuing to deliver services that people want. And a temporary tax increase to avoid the ongoing structural budget deficit caused by Schwarzenegger’s adoption of the most popular idea termed-out state Senator and four-time statewide loser Tom McClintock will ever have; namely, the big cut in the state’s car tax.
But the California Performance Review fell victim to internal fights in the Schwarzenegger circle, killed, ironically, by early leaks to the two daily newspapers which most strongly opposed Schwarzenegger’s election in the first place, the Los Angeles Times and San Francisco Chronicle. And Schwarzenegger decided not to push a temporary tax increase of a few billion dollars in a $1.5 trillion economy which would have eliminated the ongoing structural deficit.
Those were errors which the faction now stalling the adoption of a state budget for kaleidoscopic reasons over the past few months — the state’s anti-government faction, centered in a small electoral minority of California on the far right of the Republican Party — did little if anything to identify, much less rectify, in 2004.
So today we are in a situation in which the budget is hanging — in the two-thirds legislative vote requirement which California shares with only two other states — one vote shy of passage more than six weeks overdue.
That one vote could be a fellow named Jeff Denham, a Republican senator who represents the Merced area in the state’s Central Valley. After all, he has voted for far more unbalanced budgets than the one before him, which Schwarzenegger publicly pledges through line-item vetos to bring down to a zero operating deficit.
But Denham, who like quite a few term limits politicians I have met but don’t know, wants to run for lieutenant governor of California. Sources tell me he has been generally despised by the state’s minority far right. Which nonetheless has influence over nominations in the Republican Party. He’s taking a hard line this year, saying he’s not intimidated by Schwarzenegger coming into his district this week to urge the adoption of the budget. Right.
And Denham, who claims he is thoroughly unintimidated, is spending a reported $150,000 to shore up his position in his own district.
Which does not make for a very opportune start to a statewide campaign, since he represents only 2.5 percent of a mostly Democratic state.
Which leads us to a political reality check.
There is already a highly credible lieutenant governor, Democrat John Garamendi, a two-time former state insurance commissioner, deputy interior secretary in the Clinton Administration, and former state Senate majority leader. There is no way that Denham can beat John Garamendi. Now, Garamendi says that he intends to run for governor in 2010. But I know Garamendi, and that may never happen. While he’s an attractive candidate, he trails other likely rivals in fame and fundraising capability.
But let’s say, for the sake of argument, that Garamendi actually does vacate the office. How is Jeff Denham creating the circumstances in which he can win a statewide election?
It’s not surprising to see that Republican voters view Schwarzenegger’s budget performance more favorably than that of the conservative holdouts in the state Senate. Schwarzenegger was elected by Republican voters around the state. The holdouts represent gerrymandered legislative districts. (Stalling the budget makes it harder to get a deal on a redistricting reform initiative before the session ends.)
What is particularly striking is how poorly the holdouts are faring with independent voters. Only 9% of California’s independent voters think legislative Republicans are doing a good or very good job. 37% think they are doing a poor or very poor job.
While a politician like Denham — who otherwise seems attractive, though my experience in statewide and national campaigns tells me he will need to take on a physical fitness program — may be finding a way to win a party nomination, he is almost certainly crafting a losing future in a general election.
But that is the question for the California Republican Party as a whole, which at the moment has been narrowly seized by a far right faction much like those which were dominant during the party’s pre-Arnold irrelevancy, and is raising far less money than it needs to continue its basic operations, much less make serious aggressive moves. Does it want to be a party of the 21st century, or a party of the 19th century?
Today is the 62nd anniversary of V-J Day, Victory over Japan Day. The Japanese government instructed its forces to stand down, effectively ending World War II and the brutal Pacific War component of that global conflict. This is actual color footage of the Marines fighting on Iwo Jima, including the Mt. Suribachi flag-raising.
** GIULIANI IN IOWA. Though he skipped the Iowa straw poll, Rudy Giuliani hit the Iowa State Fair today. The ex-New York mayor, running first in national Republican polls, is second in Iowa and New Hampshire behind Mitt Romney, who won the straw poll over the weekend. Today he also launched a new radio ad in Iowa and New Hampshire, saying that he will make American safe from illegal immigration. It’s something the Romney campaign isn’t buying, noting Giuliani’s pro-immigrant stance in New York. Of course, Romney, has past moderate issues of his own to deal with.
** CALIFORNIA BUDGET UPDATE: A SLOW AFTERNOON. After the Schwarzenegger action this morning in Southern California with San Bernardino County’s district attorney, discussed below, very quiet. The California blogs and newspapers have very little, although the right-wing Flash Report — which has garnered only one comment all day from its legions of supporters — published more complaints about how mean the governor is.
These may be trial balloons, or the thinking out loud of contending factions within the administration.
** SCHWARZENEGGER IN INLAND EMPIRE. Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger took his budget road show to the Inland Empire this morning, appearing at a threatened care center in Riverside. There he was joined by San Bernardino County District Attorney Michael Ramos, who joined Schwarzenegger in calling for the immediate passage of the California budget proposal which passed the state Assembly on a bipartisan vote and hangs one vote short in the Senate.
San Bernardino County is the only locality sued to date by former Governor-turned-Attorney General Jerry Brown for failing to account for greenhouse gas emissions in local planning. Brown is negotiating with San Bernardino County to settle the suit. Changing state environmental law to prevent Brown from acting on climate change is one of the biggest of the late-breaking demands by holdouot conservative senators. But it really didn’t come up in the press conference this morning.
** EDWARDS REDEPLOYS SOME NEVADA STAFF TO IOWA AND OTHER STATES. Running a distant third in second-in-the-nation Nevada, with his once solid lead in the first-in-the-nation Iowa under siege and falling further behind the fundraising leaders, Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton, Democratic presidential candidate John Edwards has redeployed an undisclosed number of staffers to Iowa and other early states. Meanwhile, Obama, who increased his Nevada staff to 30, is hiring on more, and Clinton, who currently has a big lead in Nevada, is maintaining her staffing levels there.
Edwards, as I reported the other day, is now in the midst of a week-long bus tour of Iowa in attempts to regain the lead he has long enjoyed there.
Bush’s job approval stands at 26% favorable, 65% unfavorable. The latest Iraq policy stands at 24% approval, 72% disapproval. A plurality of Republicans disapprove of the Iraq policy. Two-thirds of California voters want a complete or partial withdrawal of US troops from Iraq. Nearly 60% want troop withdrawal to begin next spring.
While Bush’s dreadful rating is not the lowest ever recorded for a president in the Field Poll — that would be Richard Nixon’s 24% prior to his forced resignation during the Watergate scandal — his time in the trough is the most sustained of any president. Only 19% of independent voters approve of Bush or the Iraq policy.
** SCHWARZENEGGER BUDGET TOUR HITS INLAND EMPIRE TODAY, LIVE WEBCAST THIS MORNING. Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger tours a community care and rehabilitation center on Riverside impacted by the California budget stall. Then at 10 AM, he holds a press conference with San Bernardino County District Attorney Michael Ramos to discuss the delay and call again for passage of the budget, adopted by the Assembly in a bipartisan vote and hanging one vote short in the Senate due to a holdout by conservative senators. The event will be webcast live.
Ramos is district attorney of San Bernardino County, the only locality sued by former Governor-turned-Attorney General Jerry Brown for failing to address greenhouse gas emissions in local planning processes. Changing state environmental law to block Brown’s moves emerged as a late-breaking demand of the right wing for passage of the budget.
** AL QAEDA’S AMERICAN PRISONERS STILL NOT LOCATED. American troops are now in the midst of an 93rd 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 high command in Baghdad has revealed 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 up $73 to $74 per barrel on fears that powerful storms will threaten output and refinery capacity in and around the Gulf of Mexico.
Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger in action at a spring town hall meeting in this NWN video. Schwarzenegger is campaigning now around the state to move the stalled state budget, now six weeks late and one vote shy of passage.
** CONSERVATIVE BUDGET HOLDOUT PLAYING BADLY WITH CALIFORNIA’S INDEPENDENT VOTERS. Going through the new Field Poll, which is linked below, it’s not surprising to see that Republican voters view Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger’s budget performance more favorably than that of the conservative holdouts in the state Senate. Schwarzenegger was elected by Republican voters around the state. The holdouts represent gerrymandered legislative districts. (Stalling the budget makes it harder to get a deal on a redistricting reform initiative before the session ends.)
What is particularly striking is how poorly the holdouts are faring with independent voters. Only 9% of California’s independent voters think legislative Republicans are doing a good or very good job. 37% think they are doing a poor or very poor job.
** SCHWARZENEGGER TO RIVERSIDE/SAN BERNARDINO AREA TOMORROW ON CALIFORNIA BUDGET STALL. Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger goes to the “Inland Empire” tomorrow to push for passage of the stalled state budget. San Bernardino County, of course, is the one locality sued by former Governor-turned-Attorney General Jerry Brown for failing to address greenhouse gas emissions in its planning process. Live webcast information will follow in the morning.
** CONSERVATIVE BUDGET HOLDOUTS FARING POORLY IN MEDIA CONTEST. Not surprisingly, Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger is getting by far the best of the debate as he travels around the state to end California’s budget stall. Looking at transcripts from TV news stories, it’s clear that Schwarzenegger’s message of ending the stalemate to prevent harm is getting through. Holdout conservative senators make a show of defiance which barely figures in the weight of the stories.
Senate Republican Leader Dick Ackerman had this ill-considered rejoinder last night on Sacramento’s NBC affiliate, KCRA: “Lives are not in danger. I understand that the facility at his press conference was actually still in operation. Sometimes people may cry wolf a little early.”
This, in a story in which the director of that birthing center said: “I don’t know if we can go another week or two, we don’t even have time to buy what we need far our day-to-day operations.”
** FLASH REPORT APOLOGIZES FOR FALSE CLAIM. AGAIN. In a puffy profile in Sunday’s Contra Costa Times, part of the Media News chain, conservative Republican operative Jon Fleischman, proprietor of the hyperpartisan Flash Report web site, claimed that he broke the story in late November 2005 of Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger’s controversial hiring of Democrat Susan Kennedy as his chief of staff. The article went on to say that this was the key moment for the Flash Report’s development.
Which was interesting, because it didn’t happen. New West Notes broke that story several hours before it appeared on the Fleischman site. The NWN column on Kennedy’s appointment, which included a full analysis of its meaning, along with that of the massive infrastructure bonds Schwarzenegger had also proposed, was sent out to thousands of people on my e-mail list.
The following day, Fleischman acknowledged that NWN had broken the story, but said he’d been unaware since he was not on my list. Although certainly people who are his sources received the flash NWN report.
Since Fleischman publicly acknowledged on his site at the time that there was no such Flash Report scoop, it’s especially odd he would repeat the same false claim just a few days ago. Yet there it was.
And Fleischman has again had to correct his false claim. With the apology you see below.
Below that, you will see Fleischman’s acknowledgement from November 2005 that there was no Flash Report scoop. Along with my column which did scoop the Kennedy appointment. The analysis of the political situation for 2006 — which went well beyond the simple fact that Schwarzenegger was appointing a new chief of staff — holds up well in retrospect.
8-13-2007 5:16 pm
In the great profile piece on the FlashReport in the Contra Costa Times yesterday, there was a factual error. While we did cover extensively the unfortunate and ill-advised appointment by the Governor of former Democratic Party Executive Director Susan Kennedy to be his Chief of Staff, that story first broke a few hours before we reported on it over at New West Notes. I have been told that this error will be fixed in other NewsMedia papers that run the profile piece, and that a correction will run in the CC Times. My sincere apology to any offended parties.
11-30-2005 8:30 am
Props go to William Bradley for e-mailing out the news a couple of hours before me. Ironically, I didn’t know it because I wasn’t on his email list. I am now. Perhaps, if you want to be in the loop, you should be… To get on it, email Bill. Bill gets all of the credit/blame if you do or don’t like what he says in his columns. But he gets an “A” for aggressive reporting.
NEW WEST NEWS
November 29, 2005
SHAKING OUT ARNOLD’S BIG SHAKEUP
If one stands on the moon and looks down at Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger’s big moves after the debacle of his special election agenda — his call for a $50 billion infrastructure bond measure and impending appointment of Democrat Susan Kennedy as his chief of staff — they look good. They signal that he gets that his partisan Republican course was leading him to, at best, a dispirited re-election in a a nasty, tactical campaign. And that he needs to at least appear to return to the bipartisan/non-partisan centrist ways which led to his dramatic 2003 election and record popularity in his first year as governor.
Closer up, the moves look more problematic.
The Kennedy appointment has its dicey sides. A longtime liberal activist before becoming a moderate, pro-business member of the Public Utilities Commission, the capable Kennedy is best known for working with big-time Democrats like Dianne Feinstein and Gray Davis (for whom she was cabinet secretary) and for serving as executive director of the California Democratic Party. The party chairman then? One Phil Angelides, now Democratic frontrunner for governor. That should make for interesting meetings during Arnold’s re-election campaign. It’s already making for plenty of hard feelings among Kennedy’s Democratic friends.
Will the Republican base accept Schwarzenegger bringing in a chief of staff who is a lifelong advocate of lesbian/gay rights and abortion rights, who served as a top official in the regime of the Democratic governor they thought they’d just gotten rid of? How will they feel as they see their fellow partisans departing Team Schwarzenegger, or having their influence lessened? (Strategist Mike Murphy had a key alliance with chief of staff Pat Clarey, who helped diminish other voices in the Arnold circle.)
The Big Bang Bond idea is not fleshed out. (Is it a good idea for the governor himself to float a trial balloon, with gigantic dollar numbers attached? Isn’t that what you have a staff and a cadre of appointees and associates for?) Big James Bond fan Arnold’s very big bond is too shaky to be stirring at the moment and may be too expensive for the state to undertake now. It’s not clear what, if any, revenue sources it would have. It’s not clear that the right list of projects would be put together with every interest in the state seeing it as a political Gold Rush. It’s not at all clear that the governor can get fellow Republicans to go along.
Yet if, and it is a large if, Schwarzenegger can work all these things to some satisfactory resolutions, he will be in markedly better shape. These moves will go a substantial way to dealing with one of his meta-problems; namely that a year and a half of empty campaigning has left him looking disturbingly like a celebrity who happens to be governor. Then he can hope that his other meta-problem, over which he has much less control — the one named George W. Bush — doesn’t do him in.
Copyright 2005 by William Bradley and N2. All rights reserved.
** CLINTON BEGINS AIRING FIRST TV AD OF CAMPAIGN. Locked in a close race in Iowa with Barack Obama and John Edwards, Hillary Clinton today begins airing this TV ad, the first of her campaign for the Democratic presidential nomination. A soft-focus 60-second spot called “Invisible,” which you can view via the link, the ad argues that Clinton will be the one best suited to champion the people who’ve been “invisible” to President Bush.
** SCHWARZENEGGER IN BAKERSFIELD. Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger appeared in Bakersfield this morning as part of a tour around the state to shake loose support for the stalled state budget. After touring the Kern County Independent Living Center, which serves disabled people in the farflung southern San Joaquin County community, with Bakersfield’s Republican mayor, Harvey Hall, Schwarzenegger, the mayor, and the head of the independent living center appeared in a press conference which some of you saw via the live webcast. They all called for the prompt passage of the budget, which cleared the state Assembly last month on a bipartisan vote but is currently stalled in the Senate by a group of conservative holdouts.
“Right now,” said Schwarzenegger, “there is politics done on the backs of very very vulnerable people. That’s not right.”
Schwarzenegger again pledged to bring the budget down to a zero operating deficit, by using his line item veto powers to eliminate an additional $700 million in state spending. When Schwarzenegger took office in late 2003, following his landslide victory in the California recall, the state’s operating deficit was $16.5 billion.
Bakersfield Mayor Hall urged constituents to contact the area’s state senator who is among the holdouts, Roy Ashburn, and tell him to vote for the budget. The conservative local newspaper, the Bakersfield Californian, has already editorialized for passage of the budget.
This afternoon, Schwarzenegger will do satellite TV interviews urging passage of the budget in several markets around the state.
Over 200 people have been killed since President Pervez Musharaff shut down the extremist Red Mosque in Islamabad last month in a military operation which resulted in the deaths of over 100 people. Musharaff seriously considered attempting to rule under a state of emergency, before apparently rejecting the idea last week. And fresh international attention is being directed to the existence of safe havens for Al Qaeda and Taliban leadership cadre in remote portions of the only Islamic nation known to possess nuclear weapons.
Although Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger has been dinged in a number of stories for being disengaged from the issue, voters give him much higher marks than Republican legislators. 33% say Schwarzenegger is doing a very good or good job in the standoff. Only 18% say that of legislative Republicans. 22% say it of legislative Democrats.
On the downside numbers, 24% say Schwarzenegger is doing a poor job on the budget stall. 32% say that of legislative Republicans, while 29% have that view of legislative Democrats. The remainders of the respondents give fair grades, or have no opinion.
While Schwarzenegger is well to the plus side in public assessments of the issue, the legislative Republicans stalling the budget are well to the minus side. And that was before Schwarzenegger began what is this week a statewide tour on the issue.
** SCHWARZENEGGER TALKS BUDGET STALL IN BAKERSFIELD IN LIVE WEBCAST THIS MORNING. Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, who campaigned to end the California budget stalemate yesterday in the Central Coast district of state Senator Abel Maldonado, who voted for the budget, and the Central Valley district of Senate Dave Cogdill, a conservative holdout, is in Bakersfield this morning, home to another holdout, Senator Roy Ashburn. Schwarzenegger was joined yesterday in Fresno by Fresno Mayor Alan Autry, one of the Central Valley’s most prominent Republicans.
In Bakersfield, where the conservative Bakersfield Californian has editorialized against the budget stall, Schwarzenegger will tour a vocational rehabilitation facility and discuss the impact being felt by people in rehabilitation and assisted living programs. The live webcast is at 10:15 AM.
** AL QAEDA’S AMERICAN PRISONERS STILL NOT LOCATED. American troops are now in the midst of an 93rd 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 high command in Baghdad has revealed that ID cards for the other two American prisoners were found in an Al Qaeda safehouse on June 9th.
So why am I sitting on my butt in California when I should be incorporating and exploring a claim to this last frontier? (Well, not counting the South Pole, which is still cold as, um, something, notwithstanding its warming.)
By the way, for those greenhouse deniers who claim the experts from the Russian Academy of Science as sources — be advised of the obvious, that resurging Russia under Vlad Putin is exercising its fossil fuel might throughout Euro energy markets and, obviously, sending the expedition to the North Pole to mark out future climate change-based claims there — it’s really time to abandon the pose that climate change is due to sun spots, or whatever you’ve been clinging to.
This is quite interesting, and worrisome for those who take it seriously as a source of information, because this hyperpartisan Flash Report outlet had to be aggressively corrected for its repeated misstatements on the exact same false claims twice in less than two years.
** DUSTING OFF AN ERRONEOUS CLAIM. Incidentally, following the gentlemanly 24 hours, I have been dealing with a wildly erroneous and knowingly false claim by a hyperpartisan right-wing outlet. It is being corrected, as you will see, in the mainstream media. If it is not corrected shortly at the source, you will see the result.
As I pointed out at the time, that was an essentially empty threat. For two reasons. The California Republican Party is raising very little money, as I’ve previously reported and will further illuminate this week. The second reason is that Mr. Spence does not really raise money for Republican Party activities. Nor do a number of other personalities who have interjected themselves for the benefit of the credulous.
Some key points presented by Greenberg: Right now, the Democrats enjoy an average lead of 12 points in the generic presidential race (51 to 39 percent) and 9 points in the named congressional ballot (51 to 42 percent).
• Education – one of the best predictors of vote over the past decade – is losing its power, with both well-educated and blue collar voters moving to the Democrats.
• The ‘opinion elite’ in the country – those with a college education and earning more than $75,000 – are supporting the Democratic presidential candidate by 11 points (52 to 41 percent).
• While the Democratic Presidential candidate is winning the Kerry counties by a two-to- one margin, the Republican candidate is only winning the Bush counties by 1 point (46 to 45 percent).
• The Democratic Presidential candidate is carrying those with family members serving in Iraq by almost the same margin as for voters overall, 50 to 43 percent. Democratic Congressional candidates who have been prominently trying to change Iraq policy have an even larger lead, 53 to 42 percent.
• The Democratic Presidential candidate is carrying all Catholics by 18 points and white Catholics by 13 (51 to 38 percent).
• The big difference in the race is independents: Presidentially, Democrats are ahead by 19 points; Congressionally, by 14 points. It is the crash with independents more than Republican defections that is driving the Republican vote down.
The report goes on. Of course, generic candidates do not run against one another. Real candidates do. Clearly, there is a great opportunity for the Democrats to win back the White House next year. The relatively unsettled nature of the Republican field makes theat even clearer. But thera are many ways to lose an election.
** SCHWARZENEGGER CAMPAIGNS TO END CALIFORNIA BUDGET STALL. LIVE WEBCAST THIS AFTERNOON. Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger hits the road today to end the state budget stall. A small group of conservatives is holding the budget one vote from the two-thirds required in the state Senate, following its bipartisan passage last month in the Assembly.
Schwarzenegger will be in Santa Maria, along the picturesque south-central coast of California late this morning. This afternoon, he’ll be in Fresno. At both events, he’ll discuss the growing impact on vulnerable Californians of the state having no budget. His Fresno event will be webcast live at 1:15 PM.
Musharaff, who last week backed away from a tentative plan to impose a year of “emergency rule” — a euphemism for martial law — on his strife-torn country, has come under increasing pressure to deny remote Waziristan to Al Qaeda and the Taliban, including leading Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama saying that if “he won’t do it, we will.”
** KARL ROVE SAYS “HASTA LA VISTA.”President Bush’s longtime political guru, Karl Rove, is resigning from the White House at the end of the month. He has been and continues to be a top target for Democrats looking for various nefarious deeds. In this pre-exit interview with the Wall Street Journal, he describes Hillary Clinton, who he says he expects to be the Democratic nominee to succeed his friend, as “a tough, tenacious, fatally flawed candidate.”
** AL QAEDA’S AMERICAN PRISONERS STILL NOT LOCATED. American troops are now in the midst of an 92nd 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 high command in Baghdad has revealed that ID cards for the other two American prisoners were found in an Al Qaeda safehouse on June 9th.
Iowa Republican straw poll winner Mitt Romney, campaigning
in California today, adopts 24esque style in this campaign video.
Mitt Romney, winner of the weekend Iowa Republican presidential straw poll, campaigns today in the Central Valley and along the Mexican border. Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama scored successes last week in California, with Obama raising big bucks and Clinton getting San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom as a national co-chair. But the main action this week in the presidential race will be outside the Golden State.
Mid-August is when the movie studios tend to release their troubled films, or films that don’t generally fit into their evolving plans. In other words, the dog days of summer. It used to be the same in presidential politics, with little of any interest going on. But that was before the permanent campaign.
The week ahead will, of course, end early next Sunday with yet another presidential debate. This time the Democrats, who are having way too many of these things, in Des Moines, Iowa. But before that, John Edwards will do his darndest to defend the state he staked out as his own after he and John Kerry narrowly lost the 2004 election to George W. Bush and Dick Cheney. He’s viewed the Iowa caucuses as his best chance for an early win this time out, and has spent more time there than anyone. But his longtime lead there is now under serious challenge. So he undertakes a week-long bus tour throughout the length and breadth of Iowa. How’s that for a summer vacation?
Before getting to Edwards’ big Iowa stand this week, there’s the matter of fall-out from the Iowa Republican straw poll on Saturday, and of scheduling of the early contests in the wake of the move by South Carolina Republicans to take their presidential primary from February 2 to January 19. Some say that will make for a scramble among the other earliest states — Iowa, Nevada, and New Hampshire — that will end with first-in-the-nation Iowa going before Christmas. But Iowa Governor Chet Culver, a Democrat, says that won’t happen. How those states sort out their schedules now — it’s currently Iowa on January 14, Nevada on January 19, and New Hampshire on January 22 — will be very important to watch this week.
Then there is the matter of the comings and goings in the Republican presidential field. Fred Thompson is on his third campaign manager and he hasn’t announced his candidacy yet. Word is now he will announce next month, shortly after Labor Day. Will people buy his latest political reorganization? Given that Labor Day is a few weeks away, this is a key week for the fledgling Thompson campaign.
Then there is the Iowa straw poll fall-out. Or, more particularly, those falling out after the Iowa straw poll. Former Wisconsin Governor and U.S. Health & Human Services Secretary Tommy Thompson has already dropped out of the presidential race, late today while I was writing this, after finishing sixth yesterday in Ames. He raised less than $500,000 in the second quarter, hardly enough to fund a Senate race in a medium-sized state. One or more of the others may follow suit shortly.
San Diego Congressman Duncan Hunter, for example, who got a couple hundred votes, may well fold up his pup tent and go home. He was a big wheel when the Republicans ran Congress, chairing the House Armed Services Committee. But he’s going nowhere in this presidential race.
What is this event that is at last helping to thin a too large field? It’s basically a big fundraiser for the Iowa Republican Party, in that it costs $35 to vote. Campaigns, like the Mitt Romney campaign — he’s the one who won — pay for many of the tickets. …
The third remake of this 1956 paranoia scifi classic set in small town California, Invasion of the Body Snatchers, opens around the US on Friday.
** AFTERNOON UPDATE: SCHWARZENEGGER HITS THE ROAD TOMORROW TO END CALIFORNIA BUDGET STALL. Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger will hit the road tomorrow, with events on the Central Coast in the morning and in the Central Valley in the afternoon, to end the California budget stall. Live webcast links to follow.
Unlike 47 other states, California requires a two-thirds vote of both houses of its state Legislature to pass a budget. After passing the Assembly on a bipartisan vote last month, the budget has been stalled in the Senate by a group of conservative Republicans. In its last vote there, the budget which is backed by Schwarzenegger won a 26-14 vote. But one more vote is required.
On this very quiet mid-summer’s Sunday, before getting to the third remake of the classic Invasion of the Body Snatchers, an artifact of cultural politics which opens around the US on Friday, a bit of electoral politics …
** ROMNEY WINS IOWA STRAW POLL, AS EXPECTED, WITH LESS THAN THIRD OF VOTE.As expected, Mitt Romney won the Iowa straw poll yesterday in Ames. It’s basically a big fundraiser for the Iowa Republican Party, in that it cots $35 to vote. Campaigns, like the Romney campaign, pay for many of the tickets.
None of Romney’s major opponents participated — Rudy Giuliani, Fred Thompson, or John McCain — so the former Massachusetts governor, who has spent millions already in Iowa, was free to bulldoze the also-rans of the field. Which he, kind of, did. Romney won 31.6% of the vote. Former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee was second with 18%, while Kansas Senator Sam Brownback was third with 15%.
The turnout had to have been disappointing to Iowa Republicans, who hoped — since this is their big party fundraiser — for more participatns than in the last contested straw poll eight years ago. But the 24,000 who played in 1999 were nowhere near matched by the numbers yesterday, as only 14,200 took part in the straw poll.
The result, while having nothing to do with the selection of any delegates to the Republican National Convention next year, should thin the field a bit. Former Wisconsin Governor Tommy Thompson said he needed to finish second. He finished sixth. And San Diego Congressman Duncan Hunter, who got a couple hundred votes, may well fold up his pup tent and go home.
Now to cultural politics …
** FOR EVERY PARANOID ERA, THERE IS A VERSION OF INVASION OF THE BODY SNATCHERS. We’re about to have the fourth movie version of Jack Finney’s 1955 novel, The Body Snatchers. The story, which has more than a few similarities with the 1951 Robert Heinlein classic The Puppet Masters (the first science fiction novel I ever read, as it happens), as you probably know has aliens — the only kind of aliens there are, from outer space — taking over humans and turning them into “pod people.”
The novel was set in Mill Valley, California, a small town in Marin County, on the other side of the Golden Gate Bridge. The first movie, directed by Don Siegel — who later directed a little movie called Dirty Harry — is set in fictional Santa Mira, California, which was actually shot in Sierra Madre, a San Gabriel Mountains foothill town in LA County. There a doctor memorably played by ’50s stalwart Kevin McCarthy begins to realize that people don’t seem themselves. They’re not, even though they look and sound and dress the same. They’ve been taken over.
The ’50s were an era of paranoia, about death by nuclear bombing, about the international Communist conspiracy, and about the conspiracy by right-wing Senator Joe McCarthy to make out everyone he opposed to be a Communist. The movie, now called Invasion of the Body Snatchers, was taken as a parable of the latter two phenomena, especially the one about zealous anti-Communism enforcing a form of conformity.
We flash forward to the ’70s, another era of paranoia. In fact, the golden age of conspiracy movies, the most notable of which, in the wake of the Vietnam War, political assassinations of liberal leaders, and the Watergate scandal, were directed by the late Alan J. Pakula, with whom I was privileged to be acquainted. This Invasion of the Body Snatchers, directed by San Franciscan Philip Kaufman, who came up with the story to a little picture called Raiders of the Lost Ark, came late in that succession. He decided not to do yet another political conspiracy saga in a decade of them. Wittily set in San Francisco in the midst of the New Age “Me Decade,” which paved the way from counter-culturalism to yuppiedom, his is a tale not so much of the dangers of political conformity as of cultural conformity.
The classic 1978 remake, Invasion of the Body Snatchers, set in
New Age San Francisco.
This time the medical man is, and here is a big spoiler, the enemy, a glib, best-selling, psychobabble psychiatrist played by Mr. Spock himself, Leonard Nimoy. Of course, the joke is that the feel-good conformity he peddled beforehand was just the ticket to nearly doom our heroes when they go to him for advice. Hero Donald Sutherland, who has a bit of action derring do that his son, 24 star Kiefer, would be amused by, is only a health inspector in this version, hence his reliance on Nimoy, who is a general purpose celebrity guru (the mayor is one of his patients). Karen Allen-lookalike Brooke Adams is an appealing if very passive heroine, while a very young Jeff Goldblum (many years before he played Republican strategist George Gorton) and Veronica Cartwright provide needed zest and humor. ’50s lead McCarthy has a brief cameo on a crowded San Francisco street, original director Don Siegel is a villainous cab driver, and Robert Duvall has a briefly glimpsed cameo as a sinister-looking priest on a playground swing.
The ’90s brought another remake, this time sparely titled Body Snatchers. One could say it was brought on by paranoia around AIDS. But it disappeared with little trace.
Now, in this post-9/11 era, in which terrorists can strike at any time, and you know the government in the name of protecting your freedom can do as much surveillance of you as it chooses, comes another version. Its pared down title goes in a different direction. The Invasion stars the fabulous, Oscar-winning actress Nicole Kidman, along with Daniel Craig, who had a huge impact in last year’s reboot of the James Bond franchise, Casino Royale. Kidman is a psychiatrist, this time in Washington, D.C., and Craig is her colleague.
The trailer for the latest remake, The Invasion, starrring Oscar-winner
Nicole Kidman and Daniel Craig, the new James Bond.
But there are a couple of potentially serious problems. Craig actually shot this movie back in 2005, before he made the Bond picture. The studio essentially replaced the film’s director after he’d turned it in, and brought in others to remake much of it. Apparently they felt it was too moody and talky. But the action hero seems not to be Craig, but Jaguar-driving mom Kidman. So we’ll see how this goes. It may well be a mess. Veronica Cartwright, incidentally, from the ’70s classic, has a cameo as one of Kidman’s patients.
With the late football legend and California icon Bill Walsh
honored yesterday, here is the play that created the 49ers dynasty,
which has ever since been known as “The Catch.”
So, about “The Catch.” It’s an iconic moment in sports history. For those who don’t know, the situation is this. After two losing seasons under new coach and general manager Bill Walsh, the San Francisco 49ers franchise has thoroughly retooled, and is loaded with new players who are finally grasping his concepts. For the first time in many years, the team has advanced to the verge of the Super Bowl, the National Football Conference championship game — being played on what was yesterday renamed Bill Walsh Field — playing against one of sport’s true perennial powerhouses, the Dallas Cowboys.
But despite all the advances, Walsh’s team is trailing late in the fourth quarter, 27-21. Walsh and his young quarterback, a slender, unheralded guy from Notre Dame named Joe Montana, huddle on the sidelines and come up with a sequence of plays to run against the experienced Dallas defense. The 49ers drive down the field, employing what became known and widely copied as the “West Coast offense.”
Nevertheless, it’s looking as though they may come up just short until Montana takes the snap, rolls to his right and launches a high pass deep in the end zone toward his playboy buddy, Dwight Clark. Some think Montana is throwing the ball away, ready to reset for another play. But he’s not. Clark launches himself skyward and catches the football at the apex of his leap, coming down in the corner of the end zone for a touchdown, to the eternal astonishment of the man covering him, All-Pro defensive back Everson Walls. It’s a moment made possible by perfect planning and peak performance, which is why I’m looking at the leading sports artist, LeRoy Neiman’s, rendition of it right now. The 49ers win the game, 28-27, shattering Dallas’s time at the top, and go on the first of their five Super Bowl titles.
** HILLARY COPIES RUDY WITH REPEATED ENDORSEMENT ANNOUNCEMENTS. You know, I shouldn’t fall for this. But I’m overwhelmed with information, because I’m trying to cover more than the conventional pursuits of Californian and presidential politics.
The Clinton campaign got me, like it got everyone else — meaning big daily newspapers and TV nets with staffs — with its “announcement” this week of California state Senator Sheila Kuehl’s endorsement of the Hillster on the day of the first ever gay/lesbian Democratic presidential forum in LA.
The truth is that Kuehl, the most prominent lesbian or gay in California politics, ALREADY endorsed Hillary. Months ago. Just prior to the California Democratic Party convention in San Diego at the end of April. I ran a search of NWN archives. It turns out I didn’t report that at the time. Although I did report other endorsements at the time. I’ll leave it to you to figure out why.
Oh, and the header here. Rudy Giuliani’s campaign releases repeated endorsements of the same people around the country. Maybe it’s a New York kind of thing.
** GAVIN NEWSOM ESSENTIALLY UNOPPOSED FOR RE-ELECTION. The filing deadline came and went yesterday and San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom is essentially unopposed for re-election. Oh, he does have a guy who dresses in various costumes — actually, I think he has a couple of those — and a guy who owns a sex club, and a conservative who was a city supervisor after being a wedding singer — but not major opponent. This, despite the sensationalist hysteria in the media and the blogosphere upon the revelation early this year of his past affair with the wife of his then campaign manager.
Why did Newsom get out of trouble so quickly, while LA Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa is still mired in controversy? That’s worth a column. But for now on this fine Saturday, let’s say that Newsom, who is divorced — something which Villaraigosa will be after his estranged wife’s shark lawyer effectuates her split — handled the situation better. And he was aided by his long and deep ties to the the Feinstein, Pelosi, and Brown families.
** ARNOLD BACK ON HEALTH CARE REFORM. Even though California remains without a state budget, at least for now, Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, now back in the state, participated in a virtual statewide confererence pushing his universal health care proposal. While some of the conservatives holding up the budget think they are accomplishing the task of blocking a health care bill that can pass with a majority vote, the fact is that Schwarzenegger’s team has continued working on the issue with the various other players in the mix.
Legendary San Francisco 49ers football coach and California icon
Bill Walsh, who died July 30th, is honored late this morning at
Candlestick Park. Here he discusses his life and times at the end of 2006.
“I think I could have said it better,” he told nationally syndicated radio host Mike Gallagher. “You know, what I was saying was, ‘I’m there with you.’”
The former New York mayor struck a nerve with firefighters and police officers when he said Thursday in Cincinnati that he was at ground zero “as often, if not more, than most of the workers.”
“I was there working with them. I was exposed to exactly the same things they were exposed to. So in that sense, I’m one of them,” he told reporters at a Los Angeles Dodgers-Cincinnati Reds baseball game.
Fire and police officials responded angrily, saying Giuliani did not do the same work as those involved in the rescue, recovery and cleanup from the 2001 terrorist attacks, which left many workers sick and injured.
“I have a real problem with that statement,” said Battalion Chief John McDonnell, head of the Uniformed Fire Officers Association in New York. “I think he’s really grasping and trying to justify his previous attempts to portray himself as the hero of 9/11.”
** 10,000 TURN OUT FOR WALSH MEMORIAL, 49ERS PLAYING FIELD RENAMED. Some 10,000 turned out for today’s public memorial service for football legend Bill Walsh. Included in their ranks were a host of major politicians and sports stars. San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom announced that the 49ers playing field at Candlestick Point has just been permanently renamed Bill Walsh Field. This should solve the problem of what to call the place the 49ers play in during this age of corporate naming rights. The legendary stadium Candlestick Park has since the Walsh days gone through several corporate names, most recently Monster Park at Candlestick Point. Yikes.
Newsom, incidentally, is coasting to a landslide re-election. Only a very angry lefty city supervisor, who reminds more than a few observers of the late Dan White from the right, might surface as an allegedly “major” foe. With Newsom on stage today was old family friend Dianne Feinstein, mayor of San Francisco during the 49ers rise to dynasty status and now California’s senior senator. She’s an old family friend of Newsom, as is House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who noted at a recent banquet that she’s known the mayor since he was born. Newsom is also an old friend of the Brown family. His father, Billy Newsom, who was also a friend of the late Governor Pat Brown, was appointed a justice of the state appelate court by then Governor Jerry Brown. All this came in handy when Newsom got in a sensational personal scandal earlier this year.
** GAVIN NEWSOM TO ENDORSE HILLARY CLINTON, BECOME NATIONAL CAMPAIGN CO-CHAIR. San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom will endorse Hillary Clinton for president this afternoon during an event at the Golden Gate Park site of the future California Academy for the Sciences. Newsom will become one of her national co-chairs, along with Senator Dianne Feinstein and Assembly Speaker Fabian Nunez. LA Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa is a national campaign chair.
** SCHWARZENEGGER ON THE CALIFORNIA BUDGET STALL.From today’s San Jose Mercury-News: Last week, state Sen. Abel Maldonado, who represents parts of southern Santa Clara County, broke ranks with the Senate Republican caucus and supported the state budget. By doing so, he represented his constituents’ best interests while supporting our Republican ideals. His vote embodies something we need more of in government: the strength to follow our convictions while also doing what’s best for the people.
Make no mistake about it: This is a strong Republican budget. This budget does not raise taxes and is fiscally responsible. It increases our state’s reserve to $3.4 billion. This is the highest it has ever been at the time of a budget signing, and is a full $1.4 billion above the reserve I proposed in the May revision.
This budget also pays down an additional $2.5 billion in debt, which includes $1 billion in prepayment of Economic Recovery Bonds and $88 million in other repayments. And perhaps most important, this budget would zero out the operating deficit. I committed to use my veto power to eliminate the $700 million deficit that remained in the budget that was passed by the Assembly – which then would raise the reserve to $4.1 billion.
This budget also invests in California’s priorities by fully funding K-12 and higher education, public safety, rural sheriffs, local jails and other important state programs.
Republican senators initially refused to support the budget because they wanted to eliminate the operating deficit – a goal I supported. My commitment to veto the entire operating deficit should have ended the debate.
Unfortunately, Senate Republicans, except for Sen. Maldonado, decided they would continue holding up the budget in an effort to address concerns they have with environmental regulations. Let me be perfectly clear – it is unacceptable to hold up the budget, and negatively impact the entire state, over a non-budget issue.
Schwarzenegger cabinet secretary Dan Dunmoyer and finance director Mike Genest, both very credible longtime Republican stalwarts, have similar op-ed pieces in today’s LA Times and Modesto Bee, respectively.
Culver, a Democrat, says that his state will retain the first-in-the-nation contest. But it is inappropriate, he says, to move the caucus a position before the holidays, as many have suggested in response to the move by South Carolina Republicans to make their presidential primary the same day as the new Nevada caucus on January 19th.
That may well trigger a move by New Hampshire, which insists on having the first presidential primary election, and is currently scheduled for January 22nd, the customary eight days after the Iowa caucuses. Culver says that he and New Hampshire leaders will work things out so that all the contests remain in 2008.
** BILL WALSH HONORED TODAY AT MASSIVE CANDLESTICK PARK CEREMONY. U.S. Senator Dianne Feinstein, former Assembly Speaker and San Francisco Mayor Willie Brown, current San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom, and a host of sports legends gather at 11 AM for a public tribute to the life and times of Hall of Fame football coach and California icon Bill Walsh. There was a private ceremony yesterday at Stanford, where Walsh coached before building the San Francisco 49ers dynasty of the 1980s and 1990s, and where he returned as athletic director to build a new stadium. Walsh had Dr. Harry Edwards, longtime 49ers consultant and one of my college professors, deliver his eulogy. For her part, Feinstein, who was then the mayor of San Francisco, credited Walsh and his Super Bowl 49er teams with helping knit the Bay Area together following the assassinations of Mayor George Moscone and Supervisor Harvey Milk by right-wing politician Dan White, the Jonestown massacre engineered by a psychotic left-winger, and the frightening emergence of a disease called AIDS.
In addition to the politicians, such all-time greats as Joe Montana, Steve Young, Ronnie Lott, and Jerry Rice will speak at Candlestick, site of probably the most famous play in football history, “The Catch.”
** AL QAEDA’S AMERICAN PRISONERS STILL NOT LOCATED. American troops are now in the midst of an 89th 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 high command in Baghdad has revealed 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. Crude oil prices have receded further to $69 to $70 per barrel on slowing US demand. Record oil prices were reached last week. Which, of course, theatened economic growth.
Can the California budget stall really be about Jerry Brown? The holdouts should hope not, because they’re playing right into the hands of the former governor-turned-attorney general, who pulverized one of their former leaders in the biggest landslide of any contested statewide election last November.
This week, conservative Senate Republicans still holding out on the state budget finally put up a publicly viewable, coherent document on their demands. While it’s good they finally have that, on a nice new web site, nearly six weeks after the budget was due, their demands continue to shift, now including a plan to take more money away from LA traffic mitigation and use it in places that are far less congested.
But the one constant, amidst changing numbers for overall cuts, not to mention changing notions about how to go about effecting those cuts, is an attempt to change the California Environmental Quality Act to prevent Brown and environmental organizations from making sure that local governments address greenhouse gas emissions in their planning processes.
It took awhile for the centrality of this demand to become apparent, because the conservatives’ move was undertaken initially in stealth.
It’s easy to understand why, because for all the bravado on a few hyperpartisan web sites which oddly claim that climate change does not exist, the Republicans’ own voters very much disagree. The polls show, as I’ve reported for many months, that most Republicans believe that our climate is changing as a result of the greenhouse effect, that it is largely caused by human activity, and that government at every level has to do more before it is too late.
As it happens, the conservative budget holdouts in the Senate all voted against California’s landmark climate change law. They say that Brown will use his power as attorney general to stop last year’s big new infrastructure package from going into effect. Their late-blooming concern for the infrastructure bonds is intriguing.
As it happens, most of the conservative budget holdouts also voted against the infrastructure bonds. Their intellectual leader, termed-out Senator Tom McClintock, campaigned against the package. Now, however, he says he’s concerned for it.
As it happens, Brown supported the big infrastructure bonds. He campaigned publicly for the bonds with Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger. His conservative Republican opponent, then Senator Chuck Poochigian, did not. He also strongly opposed the climate change bill, and lost by nearly 20 points to Brown after running a campaign of relentless attacks.
Poochigian was chairman of the Senate Republican Caucus. He and his campaign team had no idea of how to run against Brown, believing that they could repeat their favored notions about the maverick ex-governor-turned-pragmatic Oakland mayor and voters would go along. What happened, however, is that Brown’s favorable rating actually went up in the midst of their relentlessly negative campaign.
For his part, Brown totally dismisses the talk from McClintock — who just lost his fourth straight statewide race, and will be out of state office for the rest of his life unless term limits are changed — and others that he wants to stop the building of needed infrastructure in the state, not to mention new development to accommodate a growing population.
“That’s all nonsense,” Brown told me. “I campaigned for the infrastructure program. They were against it, just like they are against doing anything on climate change.”
“What happened,” says Brown, “is they were trying to do some favors under cover of darkness for backward elements that want to do nothing about climate change. Now it’s out in the light. The responsible business community is with us. I’m not against business. I was for business as mayor of Oakland. What we’re doing is working with San Bernardino County (which he has sued) and other folks around the state to make sure that greenhouse gas emissions are addressed when they do their planning. That’s what this is about. Local government has to be part of the solution. I was just in local government, and there’s a lot of creativity there that we need to harness.”
If anything, the conservatives’ stance, attempting to use the budget as a lever to force a change in environmental law, has guaranteed their failure. Schwarzenegger won’t push it.
Senate President Pro Tem Don Perata held a press conference on the state Capitol’s east lawn and made a stark declaration: “I’m here today to remove any doubt or ambiguity about where I am and where my caucus is. I will not bargain away California’s environment to oil refiners or multi-state developers.”
Senate Republicans, complain Perata and Assembly Speaker Fabian Nunez, have continuously shifted their demands. As for changing environmental law, they say the conservatives can forget about it. “If my Republican colleagues need a public reality check,” declared Perata, “here it is: I will not bargain on California’s environment. There will be no negotiations on CEQA. End of sentence.”
Said Nunez: “We will not entertain discussions on reforms to CEQA or any revenue reduction measures as part of the budget. Those issues are clearly outside of this budget and have only been raised at the thirteenth hour to provide cover for your failure to act responsibly.”
Those are some decided lines in the sand. Governor Schwarzenegger has pledged to use his line-item veto power to cut an additional $700 million from the budget passed on a bipartisan basis by the Assembly. While he has not supported Brown, who decided not to run in the 2003 recall — in which private polling showed him to be a very strong contender — in his lawsuit against San Bernardino County, he agrees that the issue has no place in the budget process.
On August 9, 1945, the US dropped a second atomic bomb on Japan,
on the city of Nagasaki. The brutal war in the Pacific then came to
a swift halt. From the documentary Trinity and Beyond.
A plurality of general election voters in Florida and Pennsylvania are negatively disposed. It’s a draw in Ohio, but of course we know from experience in Ohio that such issues mobilize and lead to a massive turnout of fundamentalist voters.
It’s all part of Russia reasserting itself on the world stage again as a great power, even while the country itself internally is still in something of a shambles. All the more reason for these moves, of course, with big oil money flowing into the country’s coffers through its state and oligarch-controlled fossil fuel energy companies. In addition, Russia says it intends to revive the Red Navy presence in the Mediterranean. But given the sorry state of the Russian navy — which even in its Cold War heyday was decidedly subpar, both in terms of technology and personnel — that’s probably not a huge deal.
Still, New Hampshire state law has it that the Granite State’s primary is a week ahead of all other primaries. And the ever indulged New Englanders had made yelping noises earlier about moving ahead of Nevada, notwithstanding the fact that the Silver State, brand new to the early mix in the presidential sweepstakes, is a caucus state, and not a primary state.
** HILLARY TO NEVADA AND CALIFORNIA. Hillary Clinton campaigns in Nevada and California today. The former first lady leads in both states and in national polls, though she is tied or trailing in very recent polls in early contests Iowa, New Hampshire, and South Carolina. She participates in the National Association of Black Journalists forum in Las Vegas, speaks to the ever popular Culinary Workers Union (they represent casino workers), and holds an organizing meeting. All of that takes place in Las Vegas.
Then tonight she is in Los Angeles with the other leading Democratic candidates for the gay/lesbian issues forum, a first, which will be cablecast on the new Logo channel.
Clinton today picked up the endorsement of one of the nation’s leading gay or lesbian elected officials, California state Senator Sheila Kuehl. A longtime lawyer who represents Santa Monica and part of LA’s West Side, Kuehl was a co-star of that Nickelodeon favorite, The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis. She’s also the author of single-payer health care legislation, which has been passed by the Legislature but vetoed by Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger.
** AFL-CIO WON’T ENDORSE. As anticipated, the principal national labor federation, the AFL-CIO, won’t make an early endorsement of a presidential candidate. This leaves individual unions free to endorse, but scatters the impact.
** PETE WILSON RETURNS. The former Republican governor of California returns to the state Capitol scene in a lawyer/corporate advisor capacity, working with his former communications director and former Schwarzenegger senior advisor Sean Walsh. From the Capitol Weekly.
** AL QAEDA’S AMERICAN PRISONERS STILL NOT LOCATED. American troops are now in the midst of an 88th 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 high command in Baghdad has revealed 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. Crude oil prices have receded further to $70 to $71 per barrel on fears of reduced US economic activity and energy demand. Record oil prices were reached last week. Which, of course, theatened economic growth.
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