Tag: California

Verbatim

Trish

For reasons some of you know, I don’t want people to just see my hair.

Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.), joking at a press conference. As the vertically challenged Boxer climbed a stool to reach the microphone, she recalled once seeing the Queen of England give a speech with only her hat visible to reporters. Boxer’s Republican challenger, Carly Fiorina, refuses to walk back her comment that Boxer’s hair is “So yesterday.” A July-end poll showed Boxer ahead by nine points in popularity, and a more than 10-to-1 lead in fundraising.

CA Gov: Whitman Has Spent Nearly $100 Mil – $500k Per Day – to Buy Governor’s Office

Jon Ponder

Los Angeles Times:

$531,378.

That’s the amount of money Meg Whitman spent per day on her gubernatorial campaign from May 23 to June 30.

Just to put that in some perspective: Democrat Jerry Brown has spend a little more than $377,000 total since Jan. 1. Though to be fair, labor groups did spend about $4 million on Brown’s behalf from the end of May through June.

Whitman has now spent $99.7 million on her race since she first formed an exploratory committee in 2009.

That’s right. Meg Whitman is spending more per day than Jerry Brown’s campaign has spent period.

Poll: Schwarzenegger Approval Stalls at 19% – Even Lower Than Bush And Palin

Jon Ponder

And even 19 percent approval seems high:

Casting a shadow over [GOP gubernatorial candidate Meg] Whitman’s campaign is Arnold Schwarzenegger’s continuing status as the least popular Governor in the country. 71 percent of voters in the state disapprove of the job he’s doing and only 19 percent give him good marks. Generally when you have an outgoing Governor that strongly disliked you’re not going to be inclined to replace him with another person in the same party.

Schwarzenegger is now even less popular in California than George Bush and Sarah Palin — arguably the other two most famous Republicans — are nationally:

According to [a NBC/Wall St. Journal poll earlier this month], just 29 percent view [Palin] favorably, compared with 43 percent who view her unfavorably (not far from George W. Bush’s 29 percent-50 percent score). In addition, the poll shows that 52 percent have problems with a candidate who has been endorsed by Palin, versus only 25 percent who are comfortable with that attribute. We’ve said it before and we’ll say it again: Palin is more of a political celebrity than a political figure.

As I said last month, Schwarzenegger’s career as governor should be a cautionary tale about electing novices in times of crisis.

RNC Beverly Hills Fundraiser to Feature Race-Baiting Tea Bagger Andrew Breitbart

Jon Ponder

Beverly Wilshire Hotel, viewed from the north on Rodeo Drive
Beverly Wilshire Hotel, viewed looking south on Rodeo Drive
Talking Points Memo has obtained an invitation being circulated by Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Steele for a fundraising event in Beverly Hills next month that will feature Andrew Breitbart, the right-wing propagandist behind the doctored videos in the ACORN and Shirley Sherrod scandals:

invitation-rnc-breitbart-eventThe fundraising event, billed as an “Election Countdown,” will take place from August 12-14 in Beverly Hills, California, and will also feature other politicians such as California Lt. Gov. Abel Maldonado, Rep. Dana Rohrabacher, and Nevada Republican gubernatorial nominee Brian Sandoval. Steele and Breitbart are scheduled to co-headline a welcome reception on the first evening, August 12…

RNC spokesman Doug Heye confirmed to TPMDC that the event is going on, but declined to comment further on the nature of fundraising events…

The Four Seasons hotel company, which owns the Beverly Wilshire, has also confirmed to TPMDC that the event is booked for those days, but was unable to confirm a guest list.

I guess the RNC figures, what the heck, we weren’t going to get votes from blacks and others who oppose racism in California anyway, so why not bring out the David Duke of new media to raise money for the party in the heart of the Southern California liberal enclave.

(And it’s fitting somehow that the event will be held in the hotel that was the setting for “Pretty Woman,” the Disney movie that sent a powerful message to young girls that all they had to do to find fulfillment in life was become a street whore and and then fall in love with a wealthy john.)

It will be interesting to see how the city fathers and mothers of Beverly Hills deal with their city being tarred by association with an event featuring a notorious racist, not to mention the protest rally that is sure to be scheduled for the street in front of the hotel, at Wilshire Boulevard and Rodeo Drive, on August 12.

CA Gov: $91 Mil Later, 3 Months Before Vote, GOP’s Whitman Trails Jerry Brown in Polls

Jon Ponder

Whitman at what was billed as a news conference at the Oakland docks, reacting to reporters' outrage after learning she was renegging on her promise to take their questions
Whitman at what she had billed as a news conference, reacting to reporters' outrage after learning she was reneging on her promise to take their questions
She’s in ‘Deep, Deep Trouble,’ Says Brown

To win the Republican primary for California governor this year, former eBay exec Meg Whitman burned through at least $80 million of her own money. After a particularly nasty primary campaign against State Insurance Commissioner Steve Poizner, however, voters were so turned off that turnout was only 25 percent — the lowest in 96 years — which meant that winning the nomination ended up costing Whitman $90 per vote.

Meanwhile, Jerry Brown, the state’s attorney general and former two-term governor, ran virtually unopposed in the Democratic Party, and spent next to nothing on his campaign.

In the month or so since the primary, Whitman has spent another $11 million, including $6 million on the sort of bloody buzz-saw negative advertising against Brown that is usually reserved for the final weeks of a campaign. And again, the Brown campaign has spent next to nothing on advertising (although a union group has anti-Whitman ads up).

So where does all that leave Whitman in the polls?

Six points behind, according to a new Reuters/Ipsos poll.

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Schwarzenegger’s Failure Provides a Cautionary Tale about Electing Novices in Times of Crisis

Jon Ponder

Scharzenegger, in cockier times
Scharzenegger, in cockier times
It’s true that Arnold Schwarzenegger will be leaving Sacramento in disgrace in January, and the Washington Post gets it right that the genesis of his failure lies in the fact that he was a political novice and outsider — just like the current Republican candidate to take his place:

After nearly six years in office, Schwarzenegger has few friends left in either party. The state budget deficit hovers around $20 billion; his approval rating has sunk below 25 percent.

“We thought he was going to be a great governor, but he has been a great disappointment,” said Geneviève M. Clavreul, a Republican activist.

As candidates in races across the country try to position themselves as the politician with the least political experience, Schwarzenegger’s troubles in California illustrate some of the possible downsides of outsiderdom. Like Whitman, the GOP’s candidate for governor, and Fiorina, the party’s Senate nominee, Schwarzenegger came to office as a non-politician who would solve problems with unconventional ideas.

He had some successes, but the movie star stumbled as he tried to navigate the state’s political establishment, with its touchy egos and endless compromises. He floundered as he tried to tame the state’s runaway budget and push through ambitious reforms such as universal health care.

“Touchy egos?” — please. This man spent his career in Hollywood, where dealing with egomaniacs is the price of admission. And while Schwarzenegger may not be “touchy,” he is saddled with an over-sized ego himself — where do you think he got the foolish notion that he could govern California?

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Issa to Double Staff, Barrage White House with Subpoenas If He Becomes Oversight Chair

Jon Ponder

Issa
Issa
Outside his Camp Pendleton-adjacent district north of San Diego, which he has served since 2001, GOP Rep. Darrell Issa is considered a laughingstock in California — mostly because he broke down in sobs in front of local television cameras after Arnold Schwarzenegger bigfooted him out of the governor’s race during the 2003 recall election. (But really, who didn’t see that coming?) Which is why Californians are amazed that this buffoon is on track to becoming chairman of the House Oversight Committee, the committee Dan Burton of Indiana chaired during the Clinton era, if Republicans win control of the House in November.

Cynical GOP-watchers, including yours truly, are predicting that if the GOP wins Congress in November Speaker Boehner will greenlight multiple, simultaneous investigations into the White House with the ultimate goal of impeaching Pres. Obama at any cost. There’s no surer sign of Boehner’s intent than the choice of a nutbag like Issa to chair the Oversight Committee. Anyone familiar with Issa’s record knows that he will devote whatever time and government resources it takes to find a pretext — any bogus reason — to impeach the president.

If you think this is too Chicken Little-ish or an alarmist attempt to scare the bejesus out of fans of the president who are complacent about the midterms, a new report in right-leaning Politico.com might give you pause: Issa has been boasting that he has requested a doubling of the committee’s staff in order to handle the volume of subpoenas he’ll be issuing to the White House, if he becomes chairman:

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RNC Chair Steele Insists Party Will Waste Money, Resources on California GOP Campaigns This Year

Jon Ponder

Steele
Steele
Despite the fact that the two highest profile Republican candidates running in California this year — gubernatorial nominee Meg Whitman and U.S. Senate nominee Carly Fiorina — both oppose abortion in a state that is solidly pro-choice, RNC Chairman Michael Steele says the national party will pour money and resources into GOP campaigns this year:

[National] Republicans, buoyed by what they see as a potential resurgence in California, pledged on Tuesday to send significant financial, logistical and strategic resources to the state in coming weeks.

[Steele], speaking to reporters on a conference call, said Republicans in years past have treated California as a “flyover” state because of Democrats’ electoral edge, or little more than fertile grounds for fundraising.

“The days of just grabbing and going or just ignoring altogether are over,” he said, after meeting with California Republican Party Chairman Ron Nehring in Washington. “We’re going to be full partners on the ground.”

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CA Sen: By Refusing to Apologize, Fiorina Keeps Her Catty Hair Comments in the News

Jon Ponder

Fiorina making light of her chemo-related hair loss
Fiorina making light of her chemo-related hair loss
What Californians and the rest of country have learned about GOP Senate candidate Carly Fiorina since she got caught trashing the hairdo of her opponent, Sen. Barbara Boxer, in front of a live camera — five days during which she has blamed others (“I was quoting a friend of mine” about the hairstyle) and adamantly refused to apologize (although she “regret[s] this whole situation”) and even tried to deflect criticism of her tacky behavior by bringing up her own treatment for cancer — is that her personality can be summed up in a single word:

Asshole.

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