Free Republic

Late last night, Hannah-Beth Jackson conceded to Tony Strickland in the hotly contested race for California’s 19th State Senate District. That ends more than three weeks of waiting for the remaining votes to roll in. Some are still to be counted, but Strickland leads by about 900 votes, and Jackson is conceding a victory is now mathematically impossible. This marks the conclusion of the state’s most expensive legislative race in history — costing more than $10 million — and also one of the closest ever. In the November 26 email to the media and her supporters, Jackson’s campaign team explained,...

Thank you all very much. I’m reluctant to start making individual thank you’s because so many have done so much in this campaign – but I do want to say – first and foremost – a special thanks to my wife and family for all they have endured during this campaign. At least I have the chance to fight back; they have to just sit there and take the abuse day in and day out. And then they have to put up with me when I get home at the end of a campaign day. And yet they’ve been resilient...

Sleight-of-hand relies heavily on misdirection and distraction. The Proposition 99 campaign tries the same trick on voters, attempting to get Californians to look only where it wants, while ignoring the most important issues in eminent domain reform. Proposition 99 was crafted because Proposition 98 had qualified for the ballot with a good chance of winning, backed by many documented abuses of emotionally appealing “little guys” steamrollered by the politically powerful—i.e., to defend the beneficiaries of eminent domain abuse against real reform. 99 does nothing to restrict eminent domain to justifiable public uses. It “protects” only owner-occupied primary residences, while undermining...

Republican Sen. Abel Maldonado is running for reelection this year - as both a Republican and a Democrat. The Santa Maria lawmaker turned in signatures earlier this week to qualify himself as a write-in candidate in the Democratic primary of his 15th Senate District, though he is already unopposed for the GOP nomination. Maldonado's campaign said the rare move was intended to give the moderate Republican's Democratic supporters - including his mom - the right to vote for him in the primary. "Abel's mother, who is a Democrat, said, 'Son, I want to vote for you in the Democratic primary...

He denounced it as a political stunt and power play, but was the recall campaign against state Sen. Jeff Denham the best thing to ever happen to his political career? The upside for the Atwater Republican grew immensely this week when Senate leader Don Perata, D-Oakland, called off the campaign. Denham, who has raised considerable funds to fight the effort, vowed Thursday to continue his defense because his name will still be on the ballot June 3. Indeed, some local Democrats intend to keep campaigning against the senator on a grass-roots level. Ads against him have already run. But Denham...

The Log Cabin Republicans of California, a gay GOP organization, has endorsed a number of Inland candidates in the June primary. The group said it didn't focus on "gay issues" in making its decisions because gays and lesbians already have many rights in California. Instead, the group looked at candidates' positions on issues such as lower taxes and public safety, said James Vaughn, the Log Cabin Republicans' state director. "The gay wars are over. We've moved on," Vaughn said. "We want to support Republicans who want to win elections, not fight losing battles." The group took neutral positions on some...

One consequence of the state's first February presidential primary election – unintended, perhaps, but a consequence nevertheless – will almost certainly be an extraordinarily low voter turnout for the June 3 regular primary. Primary elections generally see subpar turnouts, in part because independents have almost no motivation to vote. But June's election will be especially devoid of motivation – no presidential contest or any other statewide candidate duel, only a handful of meaningful legislative or congressional primaries and just two statewide ballot measures, both of which deal with the very arcane issue of property seizures by local governments. We'll have...

California 21 (all of Tulare County and the eastern half of Fresno County) Mitt Romney, 18,477 (36.1) John McCain, 18,261 (35.7) California 49 (much of Northern San Diego County and southwestern Riverside County) Mitt Romney, 24,264 (38.8) John McCain, 23,608 (37.7) California 52 (parts of Imperial and San Diego counties) Mitt Romney, 30,034 (40.3) John McCain, 27,844 (37.4) District 25: Romney down 1.9% (91% reporting) District 26: Romney down 7.4% (83.8% reporting) District 41: Romney down 5.7% (76.5% reporting) District 42: Romney down 0.2% (97.6% reporting) District 43: Romney down 11.2% (68.4% reporting) If things stay this way, the tally...

(snip) In television ads that began airing the first week of January, Governor Schwarzenegger urges voters to endorse Propositions 94, 95, 96, and 97, which would expand gambling operations. ... The agreements allow four tribes [Agua Caliente, Pechanga, Morongo, Sycuan] ... to add 17,000 slot machines to the existing 8,000. In exchange, the tribes will give the state between 15 and 25 percent of the revenue from the added machines. Last May, Schwarzenegger estimated that the compacts would generate $293 million just this fiscal year, but state finance spokesman H. D. Palmer says this figure has since been revised downward...

Ballots, are being sent. What are your thoughts for Props: 91 - Transportation funds, Constitutional Amendment 93 - Limits on legislators Terms in in Office - Constitutional amendment 94, 95, 96 and 97 - Referendum on amendment to Indian gaming

Local GOP preparing for big choice By: SUNANA BATRA - For the North County Times A frequent commentator on politics, and the manager of John McCain's 2000 campaign for president, Mike Murphy's keynote speech at the Lincoln Club of San Diego County's annual dinner last week was witty, insightful and, at times, cutting. "San Diego has always been the spark plug in California and holds an important role nationally," he said. He spoke of the new ground California will break on Feb. 5, when we will hold our presidential primary. Murphy suggested that since we will have the most compressed...

Arnold Schwarzenegger is a lame duck Republican governor, albeit a fairly popular one who touts his environmental credentials and has ambitious plans on health care, infrastructure and education reform. Barbara Boxer is a U.S. senator who has gained some clout on environmental issues now that Democrats have regained control of the Senate but who, as usual, has a less-than-commanding approval rating among California voters. As it happens, Schwarzenegger's and Boxer's current terms expire simultaneously three years hence, raising the intriguing scenario that the one-time action movie star -- barred from seeking the presidency because of his Austrian birth -- would...

The California Republican Party is embroiled in controversy over its refusal to allow the fastest growing voter group – independents – to vote in presidential primary elections, even though Democrats do. The dispute pits Republicans who believe the party must preserve partisan purity at all costs against those who contend the party is undermining its long-range viability by stiffing nearly 20 percent of the state's voters when membership in both major political parties in California is at an all-time low. “At the end of the day, this really is an issue of who it is that should be choosing a...

Effort to halt oath of office hinges on legal inactivity of attorney general-elect A group of Republican activists has revamped its lawsuit challenging outgoing Oakland Mayor Jerry Brown's eligibility to serve as state attorney general. The amended complaint filed Wednesday in Sacramento County Superior Court seeks to prevent Brown, 68, from taking the office to which 56 percent of voters elected him Nov. 7. While the original lawsuit, filed Oct. 19, named local voter registrars as defendants in an attempt to get Brown booted from the ballot, the new complaint names Secretary of State Bruce McPherson and state Controller Steve...

I have enjoyed reading articles about the election, some of which I agree with, others I do not. But as Daniel Patrick Moynihan once said, "Everyone is entitled to their own opinion, but not their own facts." And the fact is the California Republican Party is much stronger today than it was three years ago. In 2002, a Republican "red tide" did not stop California Democrats from winning every statewide office. Pundits, Republican and Democrat, said Republicans could not win in this "bluest of blue states." Just four years later, in the worst year for Republicans nationally since 1974, those...

On election day and night — only three weeks ago, although it seems much longer — several people asked me if the turnout would be over 50%. The answer, of course, was of course. But for some time it looked lower, and quite a few people, many of them on a losing campaign or two, went on about this as though it somehow justified their losing. “Schwarzenegger may have won big,” this sentiment went, “but only 35% turned out in Orange County in the lowest statewide turnout ever.” Many thought statewide turnout would be under 50%. But they, perhaps, forgot...

The bipartisan glow that swathed the state Capitol this year may give way to partisan rancor, as combative conservative Michael Villines prepares to lead Assembly Republicans in the next legislative session, political observers say. Villines, a Clovis Republican who was raised in San Jose, seized power by riding the support of conservative lawmakers, who rejected the more accommodating leadership of former minority leader, San Diego Assemblyman George Plescia. But the move may end up marginalizing the Republican caucus. "They've gone for a guy who was in (Gov. Arnold) Schwarzenegger's face in opposing the bond measures, and rendered themselves a little...

What happens in Washington, D.C., can affect state and local elections. That's what happened on Election Day, when Republican voters stayed home in droves, discouraged from turning out to vote by media reports that the Congress was going Democrat, said Stephen Kinney, a partner with Public Opinion Strategy, a Republican polling company. "The Republicans stayed home because the election was nationalized," Kinney told a breakfast meeting of the San Gabriel Valley chapter of the Los Angles County Lincoln Clubs on Friday. Kinney said many statewide Republicans - from lieutenant governor candidate Tom McClintock to Secretary of State Bruce McPherson -...

Democrat grabs slim lead as phone-call accusations fly Republican lawyers are investigating potential campaign fraud in the hotly contested 34th state Senate District race after Friday's ballot count pushed the Democratic candidate ahead by 783 votes. Senate Republican leader Dick Ackerman said he suspects Democrats working on Lou Correa's campaign may have coordinated with an independent campaign committee to siphon off conservative Republican votes from GOP candidate Lynn Daucher. Correa flatly denies the allegation, saying, "I had nothing to do with it." Ackerman says party attorneys also are investigating who funded last-minute campaign phone calls that attacked Daucher, including one...

(The writer is an attorney and president of the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association.) In politics, sometimes you eat the bear and sometimes the bear eats you. Just ask the national Republican Party. However, there is no doubt that California taxpayers “ate bear” last week by scoring some great electoral victories. First, the four statewide tax increase measures on the statewide ballot were soundly defeated. Propositions 86, 87, 88 and 89 would all have increased taxes on somebody and would have resulted in additional costs to everyone. High priced political consultants have become expert at writing ballot measures whose actual costs...