For decades, there's been no sharper political mind in California than that of the former mayor of San Francisco and Ayatollah of the Assembly Willie Brown.

That's why it was stunning to read in Brown's San Francisco Chronicle column yesterday about an initiative to legalize marijuana use in California that he "doesn't see any organized opposition to legal pot on the horizon."

Brown is probably spot-on in his assessment that voters are way ahead of politicians on this issue, and that it's far more likely that such a change would happen at the ballot box than in the Legislature. But, c'mon, no opposition?

What about the beer, wine and liquor industries?

These are people who know a little something about how sales can take off after a legal prohibition is lifted on a substance that is widely sold through underground markets.

Legal pot would create huge competition to the alcohol industry, and you can bet Seagram & Sons and the Miller Brewing Co. have already conducted plenty of research that tells them just how much market share they would lose to legal pot in the nation's largest consumer market.

If this inititiatve were to qualify for the ballot, you can bet they'd be opposed, plenty organized and well financed.

It's been one of those weeks for Matt Hewitt, chairman of the Young Republicans of Ventura County.

Last weekend, Hewitt resigned his position as vice chairman of the organization's state federation after the group decided to endorse Steve Poizner for governor rather than Hewitt's preferred candidate, Meg Whitman. It had been just a little more than a month ago that Hewitt was elected to the state position, at the statewide convention held in Simi Valley.

Then, on Wednesday, some members who were disenchanted with Hewitt's leadership called for an election to replace him as chairman of the Ventura County organization. Numerous sources tell me that the meeting was quite contentious as well as confusing because: a) there was uncertaintly over the rules for conducting an election and b) because the county GOP Central Committee was also meeting at the Ventura County Republican headquarters building in Thousand Oaks, the Young Republicans were forced to move their proceedings into the parking lot.

In the end, no election was held.

In one of those moves that makes an observer wonder whether there's a need to connect the dots, the state's largest police officers union today endorsed Assemblyman Alberto Torrico for attorney general.

The Peace Officers Research Association of California is a prized endorsement, especially among Democrats, because although the union often gives its endorsements based on bread-and-butter labor issues its endorsement can be sold to voters as an indication of a candidate's law-and-order credentials.

Intriguingly, PORAC earlier this year took the unusual step of entering into the politics of an issue unrelated to either union matters or law enforcement. It came out in favor of the Tranquillon Ridge offshore drilling project sought by the Plains Exploration & Production Co.

Both PORAC and PXP are clients of the same Sacramento lobbying firm, Aaron Read & Associates.

It does make one wonder whether Ventura County Assemblyman Pedro Nava, also a candidate for the Democratic attorney general nomination, had much of a chance of getting PORAC's backing, given his status as the Legislature's most outspoken critic of the T-Ridge project.

Torrico also voted against the T-Ridge proposal when it was defeated in the Assembly in July. But it was Nava who led the charge to defeat the project sought by Read's client.

In yet another connection, Read also represents the proposed Clearwater Port LNG project. It might be noted that Nava's wife, Susan Jordan, took a lead role in defeating a previous LNG proposal off the Ventura County coast, the BHP Billiton project that was turned down by the State Lands Commission in 2007.

It was fitting today when most reporters in a group gathered for the weekly news briefing from Press Secretary Aaron McLear chose not to attend Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's bill-signing ceremony in the Capitol Rotunda a few minutes later. Since the governor was not going to take any questions, it was set up as a photo opportunity and little more.

Still, the lack of news value in the event also said something about Schwarzenegger's emerging lame-duck status on the same day that the 2010 gubernatorial campaign was more or less officially christened -- the day when former eBay CEO Meg Whitman officially declared her candidacy and launched a statewide introductory radio commercial.

Of local note, state Sen. Tony Strickland of Moorpark accompanied Whitman at her announcement in Fullerton. He is one of a half-dozen statewide co-chairs of her campaign, among a group that also includes former GOP gubernatorial nominee Bill Simon.

On the next rung down the ladder, the 18 campaign co-chairs, is one other Ventura County Republican, from the same family: Assemblywoman Audra Strickland.

Ventura County Assemblyman Pedro Nava, engaged in the uphill political challenge of trying to go from small-town lawmaker to attorney general of California, cast a vote on Thursday that won't help his chances.

He was one of just 18 Assembly members to vote against a bill, strongly supported by organized labor, that would have allowed a proposed NFL football stadium project in the City of Industry to move forward without being subjected to review under the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA).

Organized labor, of course, is a very important constituency when one is seeking the Democratic nomination for a statewide office. Nava's vote on the stadium bill certainly won't help him gain labor support for his attorney general campaign.

When I asked him about the vote today, Nava invoked the memory of his paternal grandfather, who at one time had been an elected city official in Monterry, Mexico.

Nava told the story of the time his grandfather was seriously ill and unable to attend a meeting at which a vote was taken on whether to raise bus fares in the city. After the vote ended in a 2-2 tie, some powerful city leaders approached his grandfather and beseeched him to cast a tie-breaking vote. He told them he'd take a look at it after he recovered from his illness.

After he recovered, Nava's grandfather looked at the proposal, decided it would place too great a burden on poor people, and voted against the fare increase. In short order, he was fired from his job and, when he sought re-election, was accused of being a Communist and defeated.

"How can I not honor that?" Nava asked.

The bill, by the way, stalled today in the Senate, where President Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg asked the parties to try one more time to mediate their differences. He promised the Senate would reconsider the matter late this month if no agreement is reached.

Count me as one of the few in Sacramento who still wonders whether disgraced former Assemblyman Mike Duvall is a philanderer and a lout or a liar and a lout.

Duvall resigned Wednesday, less than 24 hours after KCAL news aired a video that showed him recklessly blabbering into an open microphone about his sexual dalliances with two mistresses in Sacramento, at least one believed to be a lobbyist.

I found it noteworthy yesterday that in the remarks of Speaker Karen Bass and Republican leader Sam Blakeslee about Duvall's resignation, both spoke only about his comments into the microphone and not the behavior they suggested. Duvall's apology was about his "storytelling" and Sempra Energy, the employer of the lobbyist believed to be the subject of Duvall's sexual storytelling, said its employee denied the sordid activities (spanking, for one).

I may be in a minority, but I find it plausible that Duvall's remarks reveal him to be one troubled fellow who liked to tell locker-room stories about his fantasies. People who know more about Sacramento's insider culture than me believe otherwise (see an interesting perspective from one of Speaker Willie Brown's former deputies here).

Bass promised an Ethics Committee investigation into the matter. Unless one of the parties comes forward and says Duvall was speaking about actual behavior, that could be one sordid investigation -- first having to determine who was in fact sleeping with whom before being able to move on to the significant ethical issues about the bounds of legislators' relationships with lobbyists.

Despite the efforts of a couple of Republican-activist bloggers, elected GOP officials say they don't expect a movement to bar decline-to-state voters from participating in California Republican primaries to go very far when it comes up at this month's state GOP convention.

Sen. Tony Strickland told me last week he is strongly opposed to the idea and intends to be at the convention (he never misses one), where he will work to defeat the proposed policy change. He notes a mathematical fact of life: Since registered Republicans make up only 31 percent of state voters, and Democrats only 45 percent, no major party candidate can command a majority in a general election without the support of independents.

Strickland said that, although relatively few decline-to-state voters participate in primaries, it is important that candidates be able to start reaching out to them early. As early as 2007 -- long before last year's razor-thin victory in the Senate campaign -- Strickland begin sending mailers to independent voters in Santa Barbara and Ventura counties, introducing himself to them on his terms.

That sort of logic is unpersuasive to some true-blue conservatives such as Simi Valley blogger Steve Frank. Here's some of what he recently wrote: "Would Wal-Mart allow a Sears official to make policy decisions? Does Ford ask GM to decide what models to produce?... Political parties are voluntary associations. If you do not volunteer, why do you get the benefit? ... This is an issue about principle."

Democrats in Sacramento would like nothing better than for a majority of GOP convention delegates to subscribe to Frank's view. They'd very much like for Republicans to think of themselves as an exclusive, all-volunteer organization that includes less than a third of California voters.

Strickland says he is certain that more strategic thinking will carry the day at the convention.