A Schwarzenegger hangover saved California Democrats from a wipeout as the Tea Party wave washed harmlessly up the High Sierra’s eastern slope.  Democrats won eight of nine statewide offices, with the race for attorney general looking more Republican as the late ballots get tallied.  Democrats also racked up their largest State Assembly majority since the Watergate blowout year of 1974 (52 seats of 80).  And, the passage of union-sponsored Prop. 25 allows Democrats to enact a budget with a simple majority vote.  But for visual confirmation of this election’s connection to the failed “Republican” governor, one need only look at governor-elect Jerry Brown’s ad showing Arnold Schwarzenegger side-by-side with Meg Whitman uttering the same platitudinous inanities we’ve come to expect from self-funded dilettantes who neither have the time to vote nor the inclination to first seek a lesser office so as to gain political experience.

It isn’t hard to see where things went awry in California: just look back to the heady years of the historic 2003 recall of Gray Davis.  Davis was swept out of office due a massive deficit brought on by his rapid expansion of state government during the dot com economy combined with his mishandling of the state’s electricity crisis.  Candidate Schwarzenegger won on a platform of “blowing up the boxes” of bureaucracy while “cutting up” the state’s “credit cards” – Schwarzenegger did neither.  Instead, he gave California seven years of uneven leadership, veering from the right to the left while calling his erratic leadership “post-partisanship.” Schwarzenegger pushed through the largest state tax increase in U.S. history, expanded government spending, debt and regulatory hurdles while shrinking the sphere of liberty – curious actions for a self-avowed fan of the late Milton Friedman.  Schwarzenegger’s voter approval rating hit 22 percent this summer, matching Gray Davis’ recall-eve rating – something Davis, if he wishes to indulge in schadenfreude, might see as poetic symmetry.

While the Democrats had a great election night in the Golden State, there are some signs of hope for the majority of Californians who don’t take their ideological cues from San Francisco.

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California’s progressive-era experiment in direct democracy was supposed to elevate the voters above the special interests, allowing voters make law themselves through the statewide initiative process. That this process is now virtually owned by the special interests is yet another example of the immutable Law of Unintended Consequences in government.

A brief perusal of the California Secretary of State’s initiative campaign finance disclosure website shows that some $120 million dollars has been raised by 53 groups supporting or opposing California’s nine November ballot initiatives. By comparison, California’s two major candidates for governor have raised or given to their campaigns $176 million to date, exclusive of independent expenditures and political party spending on both sides.

Initiative spending

What’s common about most of this spending is that it is fairly transparent in that we know the identities of the people, the labor unions and the companies writing the checks. Sure, there are cut-out committees that ship money to each other in an attempt to obfuscate their spending, but, with a spreadsheet and enough patience, a person can figure out who is funding whom.

For instance, you can crack open the disclosure page for the biggest No on Prop. 23 committee and see that they’ve raised more than $23 million. This includes $1 million from Hollywood director James Cameron, $700,000 from America’s richest man, Bill Gates, millions more from rent-seeking Silicon Valley venture capitalists who hope to grow wealthier off the economic pain of average Californians. You can also see that the National Wildlife Federation gave $3 million. Sadly, here is where campaign disclosure gets weak, because the National Wildlife Federation doesn’t have to disclose its donors since contributions on an initiative are considered nonpartisan and thus, not subject to the stringent disclosure rules as money destined to directly influence a partisan campaign.

This oversight is especially egregious when it comes to Prop. 22, a densely written amendment to the California constitution (already the third-largest in the world) that consumes eight pages of fine print to accomplish its purpose: constitutionally lock in redevelopment agency protections to protect them from pressure to reform.

California’s redevelopment agencies are supposed to target so-called “blight.” What they often do instead is use eminent domain to take property from one set of owners and give it to another so as to increase the tax base for a city.

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While falsely portraying it as a David versus Goliath event, the Institutional Left has been caught in an orchestrated effort to attack Charles Koch, while creating a public relations event around California’s ballot initiaitve, Prop 23. Koch openly supports the cause of Liberty and we know how much today’s left hates that. Not only that, sources have now confirmed that, while portraying itself as covering this story, a writer at the Huffington Post has actually conspired in the making of it. There is no room for credible journalism for such a practice.

Look for more on that at Big Journalism.

Charles Koch Challenged to Debate Prop. 23 by California Student Leader Joel Francis

Joel Francis, a Marine Corps veteran and senior at Cal State Los Angeles, has issued a debate challenge to Koch Industries’ billionaire CEO Charles Koch on his support for the disastrous Prop 23 attack on California’s climate and clean-energy progress.

This didn’t just happen because Francis is, allegedly, merely a student leader with a veteran’s cred. Francis and his effort are part of an effort by the so called California Student Sustainability Coalition. If you scroll to the bottom of their site and read the fine print, you’ll find this: “The California Student Sustainability Coalition is a project the Earth Island Institute.

To understand the actual viewpoint the Earth Island Institute represents, take a look at this press release from them after 9/11. These are the same people propping up Joel Francis today and paying the freight to push the effort. The record below demonstrates that.

U.S. Responds to Terrorist Attacks with Self-Righteous Arrogance

We need to correct the rightist spin of the Bush administration and media. This was not an “act of war.” This was an act of anger, desperation and indignation.

This was not an “attack on Freedom.” It was a politically targeted attack on the core structures of the U.S. military and the U.S.-dominated global financial structure.

This was not an “attack on all American people.” This was not the sort of flat-out terrorism that targets random innocents at a disco or a beach. The majority of the victims were, unfortunately, working for the Pentagon and various elements of multinational financial empires.

Below is just one press release from PR firm, Tiger Comm, being used to push the story out to the media and here is Serena Conner, of Tiger Comm.

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The focus of American politics is often on the East Coast.  The interplay between Washington DC and the major media outlets on the East Coast often results in West Coast politics being as much as an afterthought as  college sports are to eastern writers.  This year, however, is different because the West features some of the highest profile races in the Country – races that can be won by Republicans.

The races that are grabbing that attention – which attention is likely to grow – are: (1) the Nevada race for Senate pitting the Democrat Leader Harry Reid against newcomer and the Tea Party candidate Sharon Angle, (2) the Washington State Senate Race between the Democrat incumbent Patty Murray and a yet to be determined Republican , and in California (3) newcomer Republican Meg Whitman v. Jerry Brown for Governor, and (4) newcomer Republican Carly Fiorina v.  Democrat incumbent Barbara Boxer for US Senate.

In each of those races, the Republican has more than just a chance to win.  In California, the latest polling shows the Republican Whitman statistically tied with the Democrat Jerry Brown,(B) 44 – (W) 43.  Whitman is proving to be an incredibly determined candidate and is more than matching the spending on the Left in support of Brown.  How worried are the Democrats about that race?  The Democrats Governor’s Association, in a very rare move, spent money to attack Whitman during the Republican primary.  Perhaps more telling, the LA Times recently ran an article chronicling Brown’s troubles entitled:  “Brown’s frugal campaign may be too little, too late.”

In the race for Senate, Boxer’s slim lead over Fiorina is within the margin of error 44-41 – but within that Field poll is even more trouble for Boxer.  Her unfavorable rating jumped from 39% to 52% over the last year.  Combined with Boxer’s high name identification, that poll indicates that Boxer will have a hard time convincing the voters who already know her – and don’t like her – to vote for her in this anti-Washington, non-incumbent year.   Fiorina, on the other hand, has a big upside potential and is a dynamic candidate who will be better funded then any of Boxer’s prior opponents in a state favorable to women candidates.

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