With the release of new Field and PPIC polls in the last week showing former eBay executive Meg Whitman opening up a potentially commanding lead over Insurance Commissioner Steve Poizner in the race for the GOP nomination for governor, there is a natural tendency among some observers to assume the race is all but over.

Among them are people with relatively short memories.

The last time there was a contested GOP primary for governor -- in 2002 -- former Los Angeles Mayor Richard Riordan held an even larger lead in the polls in January, which at the time was much closer to Election Day (the primary was in March instead of June back then).

Here are the numbers from the Jan. 29, 2002 Field Poll: Riordan 46 percent, Bill Simon 13 percent, Bill Jones 13 percent. That's a 33-point lead. The Jan. 25, 2010 Field Poll shows Whitman at 45 percent and Poizner at 17 percent, a 28-point lead, with a lot more undecideds than there were in January '02.

Poizner's challenge is to tap into the same conservative grassroots base that turned things around and put Simon over the top, and that's a group he has been diligently trying to cultivate. He long ago hired Simi Valley's ultra-conservative grassroots specialist, Steve Frank, and today announced the leaders of his grassroots network, including Dianne Alexander of Thousand Oaks, who will head up Poizner's efforts on the Central Coast.

Clearly, there are differences between the two races -- most notably the fact that Whitman stands ready to spend a whole lot more money than Riordan ever did, and Poizner won't be helped, as was Simon, by an orchestrated effort by the incumbent Democrat (Gray Davis) to help undercut the GOP front-runner.

Still, don't underestimate the power of the conservative grassroots in a closed Republican primary in California. If Poizner can convince those folks to trust him -- and, perhaps more importantly, to not trust Whitman -- he could make a race out of this yet.

One can argue about how well Ventura County lawmakers represent people, but when it comes to representing the interests of animals, the Humane Society of the United States believes county lawmakers are about as good as they get.

In a press release today, the society applauds the formation of an "animal protection caucus" in the California Legislature and lists the four co-chairmen -- three of whom represent portions of Ventura County. They are Sen. Tony Strickland and Assemblymen Pedro Nava and Cameron Smyth.

It further notes that the caucus "is modeled after the successful Congressional Animal Protection Caucus," which is co-chaired by Simi Valley Congressman Elton Gallegly.

Dogs and cats from Moorpark to Meiners Oaks can sleep well tonight.

Things are shaping up for a potential ballot box battle-to-the-death in November between the two groups that almost exclusively finance political campaigns in California: corporations and unions.

Yet another version of the twice-defeated so-called "paycheck protection" initiative is on the streets in the signature-gathering phase. This attempts to hogtie unions with paperwork by making them obtain and file written permission from all their members before spending any portion of their union dues on political campaigns.

In response, a similar strangle-them-with bureaucracy initiative directed at corporations was certified for signature-gathering yesterday. It would require coporations to obtain the "prior informed consent" of stockholders before making political contributions.

It was filed by Democratic Party attorney Lance Olson.

These are life-and-death issues to both Republicans (whose principal source of campaign money is corporations) and Democrats (whose principal source is labor unions).

If both these measures make it to the ballot, chances are they will generate the most money of any of the dozens of initiatives that may be voted upon in November. They could also suck all the money out of other campaigns -- which would be bad news for the presumptive Democratic nominee for governor, Jerry Brown, since both potential Republican candidates, Meg Whitman and Steve Poizner, are billionaires who won't be reliant on outside contributitions to lavishly fund their campaigns.

The two candidates in Ventura County's hottest partisan race this June -- the 35th Assembly District Democratic primary -- each spoke to the Oxnard Democratic club last week, and as is customary in party primaries there weren't a lot of evident differences between them on most issues.

Susan Jordan and Das Williams each said the state needs to change the two-thirds vote requirement for passage of a budget, argued for more funding for education, said the state's safety net should be preserved, and suggested the Legislature should look at some targeted tax increases to balance the billions in budget cuts that lie ahead.

But there is one issue that clearly divides them: Williams supports a proposed deal that would allow the Texas-based PXP oil company to drill into state waters from its existing platform in federal waters; Jordan strongly opposes it.

The issue has divided environmentalists. The deal, negotiated by the Environmental Defense Center in Santa Barbara, is favored by some traditional offshore oil foes because they believe it would lay the foundation for the ultimate end of all drilling off the Santa Barbara County shore. That's because PXP, in a negotiated agreement with the EDC, has promised to put time limits on its operations and to dismantle one offshore platform and all of its onshore processing infrastructure after a period of years.

Williams was urged to run by the groups the EDC represents, angered that Jordan took a lead role in blocking the deal when it came before the State Lands Commission in early 2009.

Now, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has ensured that the issue will still be in play at the time of the June primary. He has proposed that advance royalties from PXP will make up the entire general fund portion of funding for state parks. Unless the Lands Commission reconsiders and approves the deal, he says, there will be no money for parks.

It should set up an interesting test of the oil-drilling sentiments of Democratic primary voters on the Central Coast.

One way that legislators running for statewide office try to increase their profile is to latch on to a specific issue and try to attach their name to it. In the very crowded Democratic primary for attorney general, local Assemblyman Pedro Nava and his colleague Alberto Torrico of Fremont have latched on to the same issue: implementing a severance tax on oil pumped from California wells.

It's a great issue in a Democratic primary because 1) California is the only major oil-producing state that does not now impose such a tax, 2) the profits of oil companies, never a favorite of Democratic primary voters, have been through the roof and 3) programs supported by Democratic constituents took a bath in state budget cuts last year and will likely have to do the same again this year, so any additional revenue for the state can help.

Nava's proposal would dedicate the revenue to the general fund, where it could be used to offset all manner of cuts, including those to social services. Torrico's proposal would dedicate all of the revenue to higher education.

Nava's idea is preferred by most students of good government; Torrico's is favored by college students smarting over yet another round of fee increases.

This week, Torrico got a leg up when his bill was approved by an Assembly committee, generating headlines and a surge of support from college campuses. Politically, that's a setback to Nava's long-shot hope of securing the AG nomination in June.

A number of people have reported to me today that a political survey -- known in the trade as a "push poll" -- is being conducted asking voters in the Thousand Oaks area their thoughts about a potential campaign for county supervisor between termed-out Assemblywoman Audra Strickland and incumbent Supervisor Linda Parks.

Remarkably, one of the people who received the calls was Parks herself.

That must have been awkward. The way "push polls" work is that the caller is asked a series of questions asking whether they would be more or less likely to vote for an opposing candidate if they were aware of some very negative assertions about the candidate that the caller proceeds to make.

"I'm still shocked at how deceitful it was," Parks wrote me in an e-mail this afternoon.

Rondi Guthrie, a spokeswoman for Strickland, said the assemblywoman was not aware of the survey and does not know who might have commissioned it. She said Strickland is focused exclusively on her job in the Assembly.

Strickland, you probably remember, announced in November that she intended to run for county treasurer-tax collector next year. But that bid was foiled last month after the Board of Supervisors adopted an ordinance that puts in place optional statewide educational and profession qualifications for the job -- qualifications that Strickland does not have.

To run against Parks for supervisor, Strickland would have to move into the district from her current home in Moorpark, which is in the district of Supervisor Peter Foy. A check by The Star today revealed that Strickland has not changed the address of her voter registration.

Parks reports that she has received numerous phone calls and e-mails from constituents who received the calls. "People I don't know, people who say they haven't supported me before, are wanting to help because they don't like her shopping around," she said in her e-mail..

Below is Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's State of the State address delivered this morning to a joint session of the Legislature. The text is as it was prepared.

I want to begin with a true story from which we can draw a worthwhile lesson.

As you might guess, the Schwarzenegger household is something of a menagerie.

An Austrian bodybuilder, a TV journalist, four children, a dog, the normal goldfish and hamsters and so forth -- and in recent years we added a miniature pony and a pot-bellied pig.

It's not unusual for me to look up from working on the budget or something to find a pig and a pony standing there staring at me.

Now, the dog's food, which we keep in a canister with a screw-on lid, sits on the top of the dog's kennel.

The pony has learned to knock the canister off the top of the kennel, and then he and the pig wedge it into the corner.

There's this ridge on the lid of the canister, and the pig with his snout pushes this ridge around and around until it loosens, and then they roll the canister around on the floor until the food spills out.

I don't know how they ever figured all of that out.

It's like humans figuring out how to create fire.

But it is the greatest example of teamwork. I love it.

So one lesson to draw from the pig and the pony story is what we can accomplish when we work together.

And last year we here in this room did some great things working together.

We had a pig and pony year.

Now before some reporter writes that I compared the legislature to a pig or a pony, that is not the message at all.

Together, as a team -- as fractious, tentative and uncertain as it might have been -- together, we got California through the front end of the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression.

Although not without pain, we closed a budget gap of 60 billion dollars!

These decisions were very hard for both sides of the aisle.

On the Republican side, we had leaders who sacrificed their careers or put them at risk.

On the Democratic side, we had legislators who were threatened by their own interest groups.

To those on both sides of the aisle who took these risks for the good of the state, you have my deepest admiration.

We did what we had to do.

We made painful spending cuts. We passed temporary tax increases. We permanently eliminated COLAs for most state programs.

We made major reforms in welfare and parole.

And there are two accomplishments in particular I want to recognize.

Just last night the Assembly passed major educational reform, reform that once seemed impossible, but now will become law as soon as it hits my desk.

For too many years, too many children were trapped in low-performing schools.

The exit doors may as well have been chained.

Now, for the first time, parents -- without the principal's permission -- have the right to free their children from these destructive schools.

That is a great freedom.

Also in the past, parents had no power to bring about change in their children's schools.

But that will now change.

Parents will now have the means to get rid of incompetent principals and take other necessary steps to improve their children's education.

To increase accountability, we broke down the firewall so that teacher performance can be linked to student performance.

Another major accomplishment: for decades this state was in a literal war over water, with old and deep divisions, Northern California versus Southern California, Democrat versus Republican, farmer versus environmentalist, business versus labor.

We here in this room made history with the most comprehensive water package in nearly half a century.

Working together, we got it done.

And now we must work to pass the 11 billion dollars in water bonds that will be on the ballot in November.

Some people say... how can we afford these bonds in the current economic climate?

I say, how can we not?

It is the law that you cannot build a school; you cannot build a factory; you cannot build an office building or a housing development without identifying a source of water.

As a result, huge projects with thousands of jobs have been put on hold.

Our economy cannot grow without water. Our population cannot live without water. It is our state's lifeblood.

Now is exactly the time to invest in it, so that when Californians turn on the faucet, there is safe, reliable and clean water coming out the tap -- not just five years from now but 30, 40 or 50 years.

Now, the coming year.

If I had to summarize in one word our focus for the coming year, it would be the word "priorities."

We have to get them straight and we have to keep them straight.

The first priority for the coming year is the economy and jobs.

The people and businesses of California are an engine of self-betterment and progress.

As long as government keeps the engine oiled with prudent policies -- and more importantly -- does not pour sand in its gears, this state will persevere and prosper.

I will come to the main thing we can do to help the economy in a moment, but there are four proposals to spur job growth that I will introduce.

First, you will receive a $500 million jobs package that we estimate could train up to 140,000 workers and help create 100,000 jobs.

Second, you will receive a measure to streamline the permitting of construction projects that already have a completed environmental report.

Third, to stimulate other construction jobs, you will receive a proposal for homebuyer tax credits of up to $10,000 for the purchase of new or existing homes.

And fourth, since we want California to be the dynamo of green technology, I ask you to pass our proposal exempting the purchase of green tech manufacturing equipment from the sales tax.

That, too, means jobs -- jobs for the new economy.

While we still have a long way to go, the worst is over for California's economy.

And the really good thing is that we have the right economic mix going forward -- high tech, green tech, bio-tech, Hollywood-tech, farmer-tech and so forth.

Our economy is well-positioned to take advantage of the future.

So let me tell you the main thing that we here in this chamber can do to help the economy and jobs. We can be a better partner to the economy. To strengthen the economy, which is the foundation of all jobs, we here in this chamber must reform California's budget and tax system. That would be a huge stimulus.

The basic problem is that our tax system does not reflect our economy.

In 2009, California's economic growth declined 2.8%...but our tax revenues were down more than 8 times that much.

Our economy is diverse, whereas our tax system is not.

144,000 taxpayers pay almost 50 percent of all personal income taxes.

Think about it. 38 million Californians have to rely on 144,000 people for their schools, their fire protection, their health care, their public safety and many other services.

That makes no sense.

Here is what we need to accept: our economy is 21st Century, but our tax system is 20th Century.

It's stuck in the wrong century.

The Tax Reform Commission did its work and came up with a plan for reform that was praised by both Willie Brown and the Wall Street Journal.

How often does that happen?

The Commission proposed major, radical reforms.

Some people say they are too bold and thus they would be too hard to enact.

What do they mean too bold?

Bold is what we do in California.

What do they mean too hard? If I had hesitated to attempt something because it was too hard, I'd still be yodeling in Austria.

We must begin work on these tax reforms because we simply cannot wait for the rich to bounce back.

State revenues are not expected to return to where they were until 2013 to 2014.

I sent you the Tax Reform Commission's plan in late September, but it seems to have disappeared somewhere under this dome.

Where is it? Maybe the pig and the pony have taken it.

But I am looking forward to working with the legislature to get this done.

Budget reform is just as important.

The budget crisis is our Katrina. We knew it was coming. We've known it for years. And yet Sacramento would not reinforce the economic levees.

In addition to taking action on the Commission's plan, I ask you to also take action on the Best Practices Budget Accountability Act, which has been drafted by the reform group, California Forward.

I especially support its proposals for performance-based budgeting and applying one-time spikes in revenues to one-time uses, such as debt reduction, infrastructure and the rainy day fund.

The leaders of this body have said that the legislature should be given a chance to enact reforms before reforms go directly to the people.

Here is that chance. I urge you to take it.

And as we struggle to overcome our differences, what I ask you to remember is that the current tax and budget system is cruel.

It is cruel because it is forcing us to make a Sophie's choice among our obligations.

Which child do we cut? The poor one? The sick one? The uneducated one? The one with special needs?

That is cruel.

We overcame the divisions on water. We can do it on the tax system and budget systems. I will address our immediate budget situation more fully in a few days, but let me give you an overview.

We face a $19.9 billion deficit -- $6.6 billion for the rest of this budget year and $13.3 billion for the upcoming budget year.

Big picture, let me tell you what will be required.

First, as bitter as the words are in my mouth, we face additional cuts.

We know what that means.

We know the pain it entails.

What can we say at this point except the truth? That we have no choice.

But I am drawing this line. Because our future economic well-being is so dependent upon education, I will protect education funding in this budget.

And we can no longer afford to cut higher education either.

The priorities have become out of whack over the years.

Thirty years ago 10 percent of the general fund went to higher education and 3 percent went to prisons.

Today almost 11 percent goes to prisons and only 7½ percent goes to higher education.

Spending 45 percent more on prisons than universities is no way to proceed into the future.

What does it say about a state that focuses more on prison uniforms than caps and gowns?

It simply is not healthy.

I will submit to you a constitutional amendment so that never again do we spend a greater percentage of our money on prisons than on higher education.

The way we get this done is to find more cost-effective ways to run our prison system and allows private prisons to compete with public prisons. Competition and choice are always good.

California spends $50,000 per prisoner.

By comparison, the ten largest states spend $32,000.

They spend less, and yet you do not see federal judges taking over their prison health care.

Why do we have to spend so much more than they do?

If California's prisons were privately run, it would save us billions of dollars a year.

That's billions of dollars that could go back to higher education where it belongs and where it better serves our future.

Choosing universities over prisons: this is a historic and transforming realignment of California's priorities.

If you have two states and one spends more on educating and one spends more on incarcerating, in which state's economy would you invest?

I ask you to make the right choice for California.

Another major item is this: federal funds have to be part of our budget solution because the federal government is part of our budget problem.

When President Clinton was in office, California got back 94 cents on the dollar from the federal government. Today we get only 78 cents back.

Texas gets 94 cents. Pennsylvania gets $1.07. Alaska, with all its oil, gets back $1.84 for every dollar. New Mexico gets $2.03.

This should be more fair and equitable.

We are not looking for a federal bailout, just federal fairness.

Californians carry a special burden since we are a border state.

The federal government alone controls immigration policy. It alone controls border security.

While acknowledging its responsibility, the federal government is not even funding a 50-50 split of the costs of undocumented immigrants.

We can no longer ignore what is owed to us, or what we are forced to spend on federal mandates.

We are currently owed billions of dollars by the federal government for various programs.

We need to work with the feds so that we can fix the flawed formula that demands that states spend money they do not have.

Now Congress is about to pile billions more onto California with the new health care bill.

While I enthusiastically support health care reform, it is not reform to push more costs onto states that are already struggling while other states get sweetheart deals.

Health care reform, which started as noble and needed legislation, has become a trough of bribes, deals and loopholes.

You've heard of the bridge to nowhere. This is health care to nowhere.

California's congressional delegation should either vote against this bill that is a disaster for California or get in there and fight for the same sweetheart deal Senator Nelson of Nebraska got for the Cornhusker State. He got the corn; we got the husk.
Now, another priority relating to the budget is pension reform.

The cost for state employee pensions is up 2,000 percent in the last ten years, while revenues have only increased by 24 percent.

The pension fund will not have enough money to cover this amount, so the state -- that means the taxpayer -- has to come up with the money.

This is money that is taken away from important government services.

This is money that cannot go to our universities, our parks and other government functions.

Now, for current employees these pensions cannot be changed -- either legally or morally.

We cannot break the promises we already made. It is a done deal.

But we are about to get run over by a locomotive. We can see the light coming at us.

I ask the legislature to join me in finding the equivalent of a water deal on pensions, so that we can meet current promises and yet reduce the burden going forward.

These are serious issues we face.

Every year, in spite of whatever challenges are before us, I stand up here and tell you how much I believe in California's future.

I tell you how much I believe in the dream.

Some people think, "Ya, ya, ya, that's just Arnold being optimistic."

But I am not alone in believing these things.

Time magazine recently did an article about California that sounded like one of my speeches.

I would like to read you a few sentences. Time wrote:

"(California) is still a dream state. In fact, the pioneering megastate...is still the cutting edge of the American future -- economically, environmentally, demographically, culturally, and maybe politically.

It is the greenest and the most diverse state, the most globalized...when the world is heading in all those directions.

It's also an unparalleled engine of innovation, the mecca of high tech, biotech and now clean tech.

In 2008, California's wipeout economy attracted more venture capital than the rest of the nation combined."

So... now do you believe me?

California has the means and the mindpower to solve its problems.

Sometimes we are just too close to the problems to see the positives, and we need to step back.

A couple months ago I was in Iraq visiting our men and women in uniform, and of course many of them were from California.

They have seen and experienced some hard things.

Many have served tour after tour after tour. As a result, some have lost homes, spouses, limbs and lives.

Too often our soldiers bring back the enemy with them in their heads.

We are seeing a lot of post traumatic stress syndrome. The suicide rate is disturbing.

California has more returning veterans than any other state, so our state, as well as the federal government, has a special responsibility.

You will see that in our agenda.

We have a fundamental obligation to anyone who has shed or risked blood for this country.

That is a priority.

Their sacrifice is extraordinary and never fails to inspire me.

And if you look to the gallery, you will see some Californians wearing the uniform of our country who have just returned from Iraq and Afghanistan.

To each of you, I say, "Welcome home."

No matter how big the problems are that this state faces, no matter how harsh things may seem to us in the months ahead those Californians in uniform will tell you that this is still the greatest place to come home to, the greatest place to pursue a better life.

Just ask them how often they dreamed of being back home here in the Golden State.

Ladies and gentlemen, in closing, we in this chamber must fulfill our sacred trust to keep California a great place to come home to, for our men and women in uniform and for generations of Californians yet to come.

Thank you very much.

I know nothing about William Brennan Lynch other than what I read in a press release from Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger last week, but something about his biography made me scratch my head.

Why is it that the governor chose someone from Santa Barbara to become a judge of the Ventura County Superior Court? Granted, pulling down a judge's salary of $179,000 might allow someone to live in Santa Barbara and commute to Victoria Avenue, but have we reached the point where Ventura County's judges live in Santa Barbara and Santa Barbara County's court clerks live in Ventura because that's what they can afford?

Lynch may turn out to be the best judge to serve on the county bench since the late Jerome Berenson, but it's difficult to believe there wasn't some talented, interested lawyer from Ventura County who could have been picked to fill the slot. Defendants are entitled to a jury of their peers, but perhaps that philosophy no longer applies to their judges.