Tag: California

Hollywood Hills Blaze Caused by Kids Playing with Fire

Jon Ponder


On our way out of town to see friends up the coast in Ventura yesterday, Page and I were more than a little rattled when we saw what looked like a giant mushroom cloud rising 5,000 feet above Hollywood.

Visitors to California over the next six months need to know that if they toss a cigarette out of a car, or hike up a hill perhaps to smoke pot, they could easily start a fire that could cause major damage, maybe even loss of life.

We found an AM all-news station where we learned that an empty lot behind the Oakwood Apartments on Barham Avenue was on fire. Oakwood is a 1970s-style apartment complex that offers temporary long-term housing. It is famous in town because its proximity to Burbank and Hollywood makes it a frequent short-term home for entertainment types. If you know LA, it is sited on a west-facing hillside within a mile or so west of Griffith Park and the Hollywood Sign.

Famous Oakwood residents have included the Jose Menendez family, who lived there when they moved here from New Jersey, five years or so before Jose’s sons, Lyle and Erik, murdered him and their mother, Kitty, in their Beverly Hills mansion in 1989. Funk superstar Rick James died here on August 6, 2004.

Today we learned that a couple of teenaged boys from Illinois who were staying at Oakwood set the fire. They were reportedly in the field behind the complex playing with lighters — a game I remember well from my misspent youth. Back then, we called it “Fire Up That Doobie, Man.”

What these boys did not know is that the Los Angeles area received less rain this winter than in any other year on record — under two inches the last time I checked. There is a miniscule chance we’ll get more rain before the season ends in a few weeks. Otherwise, it won’t rain again until Halloween.

By September, this place is going to be one giant tinderbox. The Barham fire yesterday is a just a precursor. The last time the scrub on that hill burned was 1961. The 41-year-old kindling erupted in seconds and burned for hours. Thanks to the property owner’s adherence to strict fire-management rules, however, the fire department quickly got things under control.

Here’s the point: Visitors to California over the next six months need to know that if they toss a cigarette out of a car, or hike up a hill perhaps to smoke pot, they could easily start a fire that could cause major damage, maybe even loss of life.

And like these teenagers, they could very well face time in jail.

Republicans Aren’t Buying Schwarzenegger’s ‘Post-Partisanship’

Jon Ponder

California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger describes his new mode of working cooperatively with the Democrats who control the state legislature as “post-partisanship.” The way the former bodybuilder describes it, post-partisanship is bipartisanship on steroids — yes, he’s working with the Dems but, no, he is not kowtowing to them. Post-partisanship, he suggests, empowers both sides.

GOP Sen. McClintock and I are are in rare agreement. Schwarzenegger’s “post-partisanship” is a pile of hooey.

California Republicans aren’t buying it. As state Sen. Tom McClintock, a hardcore rightwinger and therefore a sad and lonely figure in these parts, said, post-partisanship “is the process by which Arnold sits down with Democratic leaders and gets them to do exactly what they wanted to do all along.”

Sen. McClintock and I are are in rare agreement. Schwarzenegger’s “post-partisanship” is a pile of hooey.

Schwarzenegger was forced to move to the left politically in order to get reelected, and now he has to govern that way to stay popular. This move fools no one on the left or the right in California, which is fine with the governor and his messagemesters. The post-partisanship message was not crafted for Democrats or Republicans, it was designed to appeal to California’s burgeoning independent voters — and they are eating it up.

It doesn’t take a rocket scientist, or even a political scientist, to game this out. In his first term, Schwarzenegger governed to please California’s Republican minority — probably in the misguided belief that his celebrity alone would convert voters to his side. As a result, by the end of his term, the governor’s popularity was around 30 percent.

In his second term, he has done a strategic 180 to appeal to Democrats and independents, and guess what? His poll numbers have flipped, and now hovers above 60 percent.

So what’s with the post-partisanship hooey? In politics. if you don’t define yourself early in the minds of voters, your opponents will define you the way they want voters to see you. The label Schwarzenegger is terrified of is “moderate,” which for the GOP is a code word for “liberal.” To be a moderate — or let’s just say it — a liberal Republican is to be an apostate to the party’s troglodyte-Dittohead base.

In the days before Republicans re-framed the word “liberal” into an epithet, liberal Republicans were commonplace and even powerful.New York City Mayor John Lindsay, Vice Pres. Nelson Rockefeller and even Pres Gerald Ford were liberals. But liberal Republicans were unceremoniously kicked off the bus in the Reagan era because they fuzzied up the GOP’s new dumbed down marketing plan to attract unsmart voters: “Liberal” means “bad.” “Conservative” means “good.”

As elegantly streamlined as this marketing plan was, it would have never worked if the left had not capitulated. By the end of the 1980s, even liberals ran from the “liberal” label — they were “progressives.” (Contrast this with, say, gay people who neutralized the slur “fag” somewhat by wearing it proudly.)

To avoid the “liberal” stank, poltiicians with money to burn, like Gov. Schwarzenegger, pay strategists big bucks to come up with bushwa like the “post-partisanship.”

Schwarzenegger can waste his time and money on re-branding his liberalism anyway he chooses but Californians have a right to ask what he is up to. There is speculation he’s running for Barbara Boxer’s U.S. Senate seat in 2010 . Fine — but why is he taking his post-partisan campaign to the New Hampshire and Iowa, of all places?

Post-Partisan Depression: Schwarzenegger to Cut Children’s Welfare

Jon Ponder
Republicans can’t resist the call of the dark side. It’s always a mistake to vote for them.

Wow! That didn’t take long! It was just last Friday, during his inauguration ceremonies, that Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger promised Californians a new era of what he called “post-partisanship.”

Three days later, we learn that one of the governor’s first actions in his second term will be as Republican-partisan as a politician can get: He’s going to cut welfare payments to poor children:

“It’s ironic that the governor is proposing healthcare for poor kids while taking away their breakfasts,” state Senate leader Don Perata (D-Oakland) said of the cuts, which would affect more than 40,000 families. “Even Republican Gov. [Pete] Wilson, at the time he negotiated welfare reform, agreed that children should not suffer for the behavior of their parents.”

The plan alarmed advocates for the poor, who predicted that eliminating the cash payments of several hundred dollars a month would substantially increase the risk of homelessness for those families.

Schwarzenegger’s proposal also would eliminate this year’s cost-of-living increase for welfare recipients.

The governor made a wild swing to the left last year in order to get re-elected, so it was predictable that he would swing back toward the conservative dark side after his second term was secured. But who knew it would happen so fast.

Schwarzenegger Breaks with GOP, Promises ‘Post-Partisan’ Era

Jon Ponder

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger was sworn in for his second term in Sacramento yesterday. Sounds like a festive occasion. Jennifer Holliday and Jose Feliciano (remember him?) performed. The governor had a right to celebrate. He had executed a succesful turnaround in exactly 12 months. In November 2005, his approval rating was in the low 30s; in November 2006 he won reelection in a landslide.

Schwarzenegger won because he made a sharp turn to the left on policy, particularly healthcare and the environment — and because was able to convince voters, especially independents, that he had seen the light on Republican-style devisive politics.

In his speech yesterday, he declared his independence from the GOP, and thus became the nation’s most powerful RINO:

“I believe that we have the opportunity to move past partisanship, past bipartisanship to post-partisanship,” the governor said before about 3,000 invited guests. “Post-partisanship is not simply Republicans and Democrats each bringing their proposals to the table and working out differences. Post-partisanship is Republicans and Democrats actively giving birth to new ideas together.

“I believe it would promote a new centrism and a new trust in our political system,” he said. “And I believe we have a window to do it right now.”

The address was written by a former Ronald Reagan speechwriter, Landon Parvin. But there appeared to be more Kennedy touches than Reaganisms.

When Schwarzenegger’s popularity was at its lowest point, there was still a Republican who scored lower. Pres. Bush’s approval rating among California voters hasn’t budged out of the low 30s in years.

Why did Arnold turn it around, while George apparently cannot? Because the president can’t admit mistakes, much less learn from them. Schwarzenegger’s rise from immigrant body builder to multimillionaire movie star to governor of California required, above all, adaptability.

The 40 percent of us who did not vote for him, which is roughly the Democratic base in the state, remain skeptical of his sudden lurch to the left. I stand by my prediction that he’ll lurch back to the dark side before his term is over.

But for now, he has the state’s full attention and a renewed mandate. Good luck, governor.

Will Gov. Schwarzenegger Play Ball with Liberal Legislature – Or Veer Back to the Right and Risk Alienating Voters?

Jon Ponder

The leadership of the California Assembly is Rush Limbaugh’s living nightmare: It does not include a single straight anglo male.

California Kumbaya: The new legislative session convened in Sacramento yesterday and in an unusual move Assembly Speaker Fabian Nunez (D-Los Angeles) invited the GOP governor, Arnold Schwarzenegger, to attend the swearing-in ceremonies. Nunez, along with Senate President Pro Tem Don Perata (D-Oakland), pledged to work with the governor to replicate the successes they had at the end of the last session, including raising the minimum wage, lowering the cost of prescription drugs, regulating greenhouse gas emissions and borrowing $37 billion to upgrade the state’s schools and roads.

Since 1966, there have only been three years in which Republicans have controlled either house of the California Legislature, but during the same period they have controlled the governor’s office for 27 years.

Republicans had hoped that the election of Arnold Schwarzenegger was the beginning of the end of liberal entrenchment in Sacramento. But Gov. Schwarzenegger bungled his first year or so in office, so much so that by November 2005 his approval rating was in the low 30s. After the “thumpin”’ he received from voters in the special election last year, in which all the ballot measures he’d floated lost big, Schwarzenegger did an abrupt 180. After spending more than a year treating the Democrats like enemy combatants, suddenly he was their new BFF.

It was purely enlightened self-interest on the governor’s part but the course change resulted both in the legislative successes Nunez touted yesterday and the landslide reelection victory the governor celebrated last month.

But even by California standards, the current team in Sacramento is unusually liberal. In fact, the Assembly leaders are so diverse that they are surely Rush Limbaugh’s living nightmare:

[Speaker Nunez] took the stage at a Capitol press conference surrounded by a dozen members of his Democratic leadership team. There wasn’t a single straight white male to be found…

The Assembly leadership team onstage included five men and seven women. There is the first African American woman elected as majority floor leader, Karen Bass from Los Angeles. Three of the women are entering their first terms in the Legislature — Laura Richardson from Long Beach, Fiona Ma from San Francisco, and Mary Hayashi from Hayward. Two gay men will control all the money — [Mark Leno of San Francisco] is chairman of the Assembly Appropriations Committee, and John Laird of Santa Cruz is chairman of the Assembly Budget Committee.

The question now is whether the governor will continue to lean left to work with Nunez and company — and, who knows, perhaps revive the moribund liberal “Rockefeller Republicans” as “Schwarzenegger Republicans” — or whether he’ll swing back to the dark side as dramatically as he went granola this year.

My bet is on the dark side. Schwarzenegger has socially liberal instincts — he can talk the talk — but the prime factor that guides him is old-school paternalism. He is the sort of conservative who promotes adherence to orthodoxy but feels in no way personally beholden to live by the same rules himself.

All that prevents him from inviting the California Chamber of Commerce back into the governor’s office, as he did early on, to draft the same sort of Big Business-oriented legislation that angered Democrats and independents in 2005 — nothing except the prospect of running for Barbara Boxer’s senate seat in 2010, or the ironic albeit outside chance he’d face the same sort of recall election that brought him to power in 2003.

California Roundup: Schwarzenegger and Feinstein Win in Landslides

Jon Ponder

Republican Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger won reelection decisively yesterday, with 56 percent to Democrat Phil Angelides’ 39 percent. Democratic Sen. Dianne Feinstein, who was virtually unopposed, won decidedly, as well.

Democrats easily retained control of both houses of the state legislature but while it’s been a decade or more since any Republican was elected to down-ticket statewide office in California, Steve Poizner, a Silicon Valley multimillionaire, won election as insurance commissioner over Democrat Lt. Gov. Cruz Bustamante, 51 percent to 39 percent.

Democrats won other statewide offices:

  • Democrat John Garamendi beat ultra-rightwinger Tom McClintock for lieutenant governor, 50 percent to 45 percent
  • Democrat Jerry Brown, former governor and mayor of Oakland was elected attorney general, despite a barrage of stupidly nasty ads from GOP nutjob Chuck Poochigian, 57 percent to 38 percent
  • Democrat Bill Lockyer, who is currently attorney general, defeated Chuck Parris for state treasurer, 55 percent t0 37 percent
  • Democrat John Chiang defeated Tony Strickland in the race for state controller, 51 percent to 40 percent

As of 5:55 AM today, the winner in the race for secretary of state had not been called, but Democrat Debra Bowen was leading appointed incumbent Republican Bruce McPherson 49 percent to 45 percent.

Schwarzenegger Leads Angelides, 48% to 30%

Jon Ponder
Even in the Bay Area, the state’s most solidly Democratic stronghold, Schwarzenegger has pulled slightly ahead of his challenger.

California is about to make a huge mistake in reelecting Gov. Schwarzenegger. It’s like watching a train rushing headlong toward a bridge that has collapsed into a ravine:

State Treasurer Phil Angelides has failed to narrow Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s double-digit lead in the contest for governor, and Californians are leaning toward approval of all but one of the $43 billion in bond measures on the state’s Nov. 7 ballot, according to a poll released Wednesday…

In the race for governor, the poll found Schwarzenegger leading Angelides by 48 percent to 30 percent — statistically unchanged from the institute’s survey last month.

Angelides continues to suffer from lackluster support among Democrats despite his recent moves to spur enthusiasm among voters in his own party, according to the poll.

He has pledged to demand the return of California National Guard troops from the war in Iraq. He has hammered Schwarzenegger for supporting President Bush’s reelection in 2004. And he has run a TV ad telling viewers he was inspired to enter politics by the drive to dump another Republican president, Richard Nixon.

Yet the poll found that just 57 percent of Democrats back Angelides. Even in the Bay Area, the state’s most solidly Democratic stronghold, Schwarzenegger has pulled slightly ahead of his challenger.

By contrast, Schwarzenegger held 86 percent of the Republican vote. Independents, a crucial swing group, favored Schwarzenegger over Angelides by 43 percent to 24 percent.

Schwarzenegger Severs Ties with GOP — For Now

Jon Ponder
As soon as Schwarzenegger is ensconced in Sacramento for his first full four-year term, he’ll revert to his old ways: Handing the state’s resources over to its financial elite.

The playbook for Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s reelection campaign has been clear from the outset:

  • Ensure that every public appearance is scripted and stage managed in order to prevent the gaffe-prone governor from having to make off-cuff-remarks (therefore only one debate)
  • Use the governor’s access to the national entertainment media to gain free publicity that is unavailable to his opponent, state Treasurer Phil Angelides (thus Schwarzenegger appears on Jay Leno’s show but Leno refuses to give Angelides equal time)
  • Run away from the Republican Party, of which the governor is one of the most popular figureheads (so terse and challenging letters from the governor to President Bush about environmental issues and the like are regularly released to the public)

As the popularity of President Bush and the GOP continues to tank in California, we’re seeing a special emphasis from the Schwarzenegger campaign on the latter point. He’s running as hard and fast away from his party as he can:

At tightly staged events this week in San Diego, Glendale and Oakland, Schwarzenegger has all but severed his Republican ties while playing up the value of bipartisan harmony.

He has also taken pains to widen his appeal beyond white Republican men, his most loyal supporters. At every stop, Schwarzenegger has surrounded himself with African Americans or Latinos and stuck to themes that resonate with Democrats, independents and women: the environment and education.

Hey, using black people as props certainly worked for then-candidate Bush in 2000. At the GOP convention that year, the stage was jammed with brown faces looking out on a sea of white faces on the convention floor. Americans fell for that in 2000, and it appears that Californians are falling for it 2006 as well.

The governor has been off the rightwing media radar but is planning at least one foray:

In what has become a rare nod to a conservative base that he once tended to assiduously, Schwarzenegger plans to appear Friday on “Hannity & Colmes,” a Fox News television show to be taped on the Midway, the San Diego Aircraft Carrier Museum.

But that is an exception. For months, the governor has kept a distance from his party, a move seen as a strategic necessity in a state where just a little more than a third of registered voters are Republican. He has avoided public events with other GOP candidates and refused to endorse the party’s staunchly conservative U.S. Senate nominee, former state Sen. Dick Mountjoy of Monrovia. And in an interview last week, Schwarzenegger sidestepped the question of how much he cares whether Republicans win other statewide races.

This distancing from his party is especially ironic since Gov. Schwarzenegger’s campaign team is comprised of former Bush White House political operatives. It is also a dodge. Everyone knows that as soon as he is ensconced in Sacramento for his first full four-year term, he’ll revert to his old ways: Handing the state’s resources over to its financial elite.