The cover of heroes
The Alliance for a Better California -- the coalition of public employee unions that has hounded Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger at nearly every public appearance he has made this year -- announced this afternoon it would NOT stage a protest when Schwarzenegger tapes an appearance on the Jay Leno show later today. The reason: "out of respect for the Tonight Show's 'Support Our Troops' theme for this evening."
Hard to say whether Schwarzenegger factored in this protest-protecting situation when he agreed to go on the show, but it is reminiscent of a trick former Gov. Gray Davis pulled in San Diego a few years back. Worried that he would be roundly booed when he walked out to throw the first pitch at a Padres baseball game, Davis surrounded himself with police and firefighter heroes as he made his way to the pitcher's mound. It worked: No one dared boo, lest their jeers be mistaken for disapproval of the men in uniform.
Posted by Timm Herdt at 12:35 PM | Comments (1)
The causes for divorce
Last year Democratic Controller Steve Westly was Republican Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's most visible ally in the campaign to pass Proposition 57, the ballot measure that allowed the state to sell $15 billion in bonds to pay off its debts.
This week, their fates came together in a different way: Westly announced his campaign for governor on Saturday, and on Tuesday a new Field Poll was released that showed Schwarzenegger's approval rating at 31 percent among adults and 37 percent among registered voters -- a dismal rating slightly below where Gray Davis stood a year before the recall.
Westly told me this week he makes no apologies for his decision to stand with Schwarzenegger on Proposition 57, and noted that Sens. Dianne Feinstein and Barbara Boxer also endorsed the proposition, as did the state Democratic Party. As an added jab, Westly pointed out that he could remember only two extremists who opposed the measure: arch-conservative state Sen. Tom McClintock and Democratic Treasurer Phil Angelides. The treasurer, of course, is also seeking the Democratic nomination for governor in 2006.
Westly says he's now divorced himself from Schwarzenegger and cited the Top Three reasons why the governor's star has faded:
1. "He's broken his promise to the children of California." Westly said the education coalition gave Schwarzenegger "a huge benefit by giving him a bit of a honeymoon" when they agreed to the Proposition 98 suspension last year. Going back on that deal was Strike One.
2. "He's clearly taken a turn to the right." Instead of focusing on bipartisan cooperation, Westly said, the governor has now chosen to fight nearly every group he disagrees with. Strike Two.
3. "The tone and tenor of what he's been saying has changed." With the governor's name-calling and his famous "kicking their butts" comment about nurses, Westly said it "almost seems that he's lost patience for the job." Strike Three.
What remains to be seen, of course, is whether that means the governor is out.
For more on my interview with Westly, see today's column in the Ventura County Star.
Posted by Timm Herdt at 11:32 AM | Comments (2)
The horses have reached the starting gate...
From the outset, this blog was intended to be an election-year blog -- a place to report campaign news and tidbits that would be of interest to political activists but probably not of broad enough interest to justify using up newsprint in the mainstream media. In other words, what we used to call the newspaper.
Well, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger on Monday decided that, despite what it says on the calendar, 2005 in California will be an election year. The blog is back.
You know it's an election year when...
On the morning after the Election Declaration, the administration was forcefully pushing its talking point of the day: The special election won't cost nearly as much as Schwarzenegger's critics have claimed. That was the word being spread on the Republican talk-show circuit on Tuesday, and the administration broadly distributed to reporters a letter to Finance Director Tom Campbell from Secretary of State Bruce McPherson. In the letter, McPherson said his survey of county elections officials showed that the added cost, of the statewide election would be $45 million. Because there will be dozens of local elections that day, the letter noted, the counties were already committed to spending several million dollars to conduct those elections.
At a press briefing on Tuesday, Campbell again made the point to the Capitol press corps. I asked him why, in using the $45 million figure, he had ignored the cost that the state will bear. It will be the state's responsibility to publish the millions of voter information pamphlets that will be distributed to voters. These are the publications, printed on newsprint, that contain the legislative analyst's summary of each ballot proposition, the official arguments for and against, the rebuttal arguments and the text of each initiative. The cost of printing these pamphlets will likely be in the neighborhood of $10 million.
Campbell allowed that the state costs should be considered. But he said he hadn't included the cost because the precise amount had yet to be calculated, because it is not yet known precisely how many measures will be on the ballot. Given that five ballot measures have already been certified, wouldn't it be fair to say the cost of the special election will be somewhere north of $50 million, even using the administration's estimates?
That's the question I asked Campbell. There was no response.
It's campaign season. Once a daily message is developed, nobody deviates from it, not even when confronted by facts that prove the message wrong.
Here we go....
Posted by Timm Herdt at 9:08 AM | Comments (2)
Over the last 22 presidential elections, Ventura County voters have backed the winner 21 times, or 95 percent of the time. It is one of only a handful of counties in the nation that has been such a predictable bellwether.
The Ventura County Star's Sacramento Bureau Chief Timm Herdt on state issues and politics from Sacramento to Ventura County. He can be contacted at 
