Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger this afternoon put legislative Democrats in a bit of a bind with his appointment of Sen. Abel Maldonado as lieutenant governor.

It's unlikely that the Democratic majorities in the Senate and Assembly would have been inclined to confirm any Republican to replace the Democrat who was elected to the office, now-Congressman John Garamendi. But they are especially unlikely to confirm a young, ambitious Republican such as Maldonado, giving him a high-profile appointment that he could leverage into a campaign for the office in 2010.

Confirmation becomes even more problematic when you consider that Sen. Dean Florez, D-Bakersfield, wants to run for lieutenant governor in 2010. Of course, two Republican senators -- Jeff Denham and Sam Aanestad -- are also campaigning for the office, but as much as they don't want to see Maldonado get a leg up, chances are they'll let Democrats do the heavy lifting in rejecting his nomination.

The specter of rejecting Maldonado's nomination presents some unpleasantries for Democrats. What kind of signal would it send the party's Latino base if Democrats were to turn down the nomination of a Latino who is the son of a Mexican immigrant who worked his way up from farm worker to owner of a successful agricultural operation on the Central Coast? Additionally, Maldonado has been a true moderate on immigration issues and protecting minority rights.

Some Democrats, notably Santa Barbara Assemblyman Pedro Nava, have said they would try to block Schwarzenegger's nomination if it meant opening the door to renewed offshore drilling by providing a pivotal pro-oil vote on the State Lands Commission. But Maldonado voted against legislation this summer that sought to override the commission's rejection of the Tranquillon Ridge oil project off the Santa Barbara coast, so that issue can't be credibly used as grounds for rejection.

Expect Democrats to make an issue over the timing of the appointment, because confirmation would force the expense of a special election to fill Maldonado's Senate seat. They will argue that Schwarzenegger should delay an appointment until a later date, when a special election could be timed to coincide with the June primary. It's a very thin argument -- especially given that lawmakers so frequently force such special elections themselves when they jump ship mid-term to run for higher office -- but it's likely the best one they'll come up with.

The likelhood is that Democrats will turn down Schwarzenegger's choice. But the fact that the choice is Maldonado will make the task unsavory and, potentially, politically damaging.

"The great thing about running in a crowded race," Assemblyman Pedro Nava told me last week, "is that you can get 25 percent and win."

Theoretically, of course. The theory seldom is validated in practice, however. Typically, one candidate emerges from the pack and most of the rest become single-digit also-rans.

Nava is running for the Democratic nomination for attorney general next year in a field that at the moment includes includes six contenders: Nava, fellow Assembly members Ted Lieu and Alberto Torrico, San Francisco District Attorney Kamala Harris, Los Angeles City Attorney Rocky Delgadillo and Chris Kelly, a former policy adviser in the Clinton White House who later served as chief privacy officer for Facebook.

The charismatic Harris, who co-chaired President Barack Obama's California campaign, is the favorite. Kelly is the wild card.

From Nava's perspective, the better Kelly performs the better. If the political newcomer has a chance to tap into any segment of the Democratic primary electorate, it is the netroots progessives who might otherwise be attracted to Harris, if for no other reason than her Obama connections.

Late last week, Kelly sent a signal that he may become an intriguing wild card. He announced the hiring of veteran Democratic strategist Katie Merrill as his campaign director. Merrill has worked on a number of high-profile campaigns, and her hiring signals that Kelly hopes to wage a serious campaign.

If nothing else, it makes the 25 percent scenario a stronger possibility.

At least no one will be able to accuse the California School Boards Association of hypocrisy.

Association members, who spent most of 2009 loudly criticizing legislative decisions to cut spending on public schools, have decided that no lawmaker is worthy of their annual "Legislator of the Year" award. They decided not to give out the award this year.

In a statement issued this after, President-elect Frank Pugh had this to say: "For crying out loud, schools have been cut by $2,100 per student. We'd be nuts to present this award to anybody in a year when the cuts are going to have detrimental effects on an entire generation of students. We just have to draw the line somewhere."

In a quick analysis of local tax measures decided by voters on Tuesday, a fiscal policy adviser to the League of California Cities reports that other localities were more successful in persuading voters to increase taxes than the Oxnard School District and the city of Ventura. It's noteworthy that most of the successes came in Northern California.

The analysis by Michael Coleman reports that only two of five cities that sought to establish citywide sales taxes were successful -- San Mateo and Gustine, a small city in Merced County. In addition to Measure A in Ventura, sales tax proposals failed in San Carlos and Salinas.

School districts seeking parcel tax increases fared much better; 7 of 11 passed. Of the winners, six were in San Francisco Bay Area counties. Culver City in Los Angeles County was the only Southern California district to succeed.

Former Rep. Tom Campbell, the moderate Republican who is consistently the most original and thoughtful of any of the candidates for governor, spoke this morning at former Assembly Speaker Willie Brown's annual election day breakfast in San Francisco.

Rather than give a traditional speech, he cited a list of the top 25 "whoppers" that candidates for state office in California typically tell. Many of them relate directly to positions other candidates for governor have taken, but Campbell pointedly decided not to name names. The list warrants wider dissemination, so here goes:

"A 'whopper' is a statement that the person making it knows is not true, but it's useful in a campaign. Here are the 25 worst whoppers I've heard...

1. The budget will be balanced if only the wealthy pay their fair share.
2. Cut taxes and government revenue will automatically rise. (The logical corollary is that government will generate most revenue at a tax rate of zero.)
3. You can balance the state budget by eliminating 'waste, fraud, and abuse.'
4. You can balance the state budget by a 'top down' review to get rid of hundreds of state programs.
5. You can balance the budget if you 'run the state like a business.'
6. You can balance the budget by firing thousands of state workers.
7. We can solve California's water shortage if only farms would use drip irrigation.
8. We can solve California's water shortage if only Southern Californians would stop watering their lawns, and washing their 3rd and 4th cars.
9. We don't need to build new dams -- the system we completed 48 years ago is more than adequate today.
10. All our country's petroleum needs can be met by offshore drilling.
11. No source of energy is worse than nuclear.
12. Global warming is all made up.
13. Stopping global warming is more important to the 3rd world than clean water, child immunization, or anti-malaria treated mosquito nets.
14. You can't trust companies to stop producing greenhouse gases without monitoring every smokestack.
15. A new health care plan to cover everyone won't add a dime to the deficit.
16. One Republican Senator makes a bill bipartisan.
17. Thank God for Mississippi, because otherwise, California would be dead last in per pupil education funding. (Actually, we're 26th.)
18. California can cut funding to education without worsening results.
19. It's OK to have more than 30 students in a class, because children really don't learn better in smaller classes.
20. There's no such thing as a bad teacher -- that's why we haven't fired any.
21. You can fix education if you only allow corporal punishment back in the classroom.
22. The government can print 3 trillion dollars in new money without causing inflation.
23. The Wall Street melt-down was caused by paying greedy CEO's too much.
24. There's nothing wrong with Wall Street that more federal regulation can't fix.
25. You can raise 7 million dollars without really deciding to run for governor!"