Archive for the ‘Campaign Finance’ Category



Gavin’s Issues, eMeg’s Double Play, Poizner’s PPT

Thursday, October 22nd, 2009

020-965The Calbuzz Division of  Wonkery and Ennui listened in Wednesday evening as San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom answered questions from Calitics whiz kid Brian Leubitz and others in an on-line town hall – a format in which Newsom was able to demonstrate  the breadth and depth of  his knowledge on issues.

You name it – Prince Gavin has thought about it and has something to say: constitutional convention, health care, Prop. 13, redistricting, sales taxes, economic development, workforce training, higher education, etc., etc. etc. and especially – his top, key, special, most important priority: “to make California the No. 1 green economy – not as a consumer but as a producer.”

Yes he speaks in run-on sentences with constant stream-of-consciousness asides to himself and his listeners commenting on what he just said or is about to say with just a wisp of “aren’t you glad I’m here to tell you about this” in every utterance. But you gotta give Newsom credit: He knows his stuff.

And he’s not afraid to take stands on issues – unlike Crusty the General Jerry Brown who is laying in the weeds until he has to come out – on everything from tax policy to spending to political reform. (The link for the video is here.)

Like any smart pol, Newsom tries to finesse certain kinds of issues as in: “Let’s not accept the parameters that we have to tax or we have to cut.” But he’s willing to advocate that in a constitutional convention – which he wholeheartedly endorses — Prop. 13 (at least for industrial and commercial property) and Prop. 98 should be on the table but gay marriage and other social issues should not be.

He calls himself a pro-business, pro-jobs Democrat, but he also advocates adopting an oil-severance tax, increasing the tobacco tax and restoring the vehicle license fee (which under Gov. Schwartzmuscle has blown a $27-billion hole in the budget.).

Fifty minutes into the discussion, Newsom was asked to respond to Meg Whitman’s pledge to overturn AB 32 – the California Global Warming Solutions Act – and he used the question to attack Brown, complaining that he has to speak out against Whitman because he’s got no Democratic opponent to debate.

Despite his one little whiny moment, the Calitics Town Hall was one of those campaign events that give voters a chance to get a real feel for a candidate – well, a cyber feel anyway. Good questions and strong answers. Too bad only 426 people tuned in*.  At that rate, a guy would have to do about 37,000 of these things to reach the California electorate. Just kidding…It’s all good exposure.

* That’s what Brian told us Wednesday evening.  On Thursday, Lisa McIntire of the Newsom campaign said:  “According to Ustream, we had 5,452 unique viewers and 8,803 total viewers.”

mrs-potato-head1Chicken eMeg ducks and covers again: Ms. AWOL Whitman, who couldn’t be bothered to vote for most of her adult life, now finds candidate debates, that other creaky staple of the democratic system, tres, tres outré as well.

Thus Her Megness will be washing her hair or grooming her horse or something equally important next Wednesday, when GOP rivals Steve Poizner and Tom Campbell face off at Chapman Brandman University to debate the sorry state of California’s finances. Having invited the GOP contenders for governor via Twitter, organizers figure why stop now: Friday’s the last day to tweet your questions for the candidates at #cadebate.

megregal

eMeg’s profile in courage: On the other hand, as editorial writers never tire of saying, Calbuzz kudos to Whitman for not trying to paint the corners in pitching her pro-choice stance in an interview with Jon Fleischman over at Flashreport.

Fleischman and, doubtless, many of his readers are staunchly pro-life, but eMeg didn’t flinch, even arguing on behalf of public financing of abortions for poor women in the exchange with Flash, who also deserves credit for running the piece even though it strikes at the heart of his world view.

poizner 3Hear, hear Commissioner Laffer: As long as we’re getting all misty and handing out plaudits for political cojones, a shout-out to Poizner for filling in details of his plan to slash taxes across the board and cut spending another 10 percent. Whatever you think of Poizner’s proposal, and Calbuzz is pretty dubious about this whole Laffer Curve thing, the man definitely ain’t trying to cheap out the specifics.

After being accused at the Republican convention of not having done his homework on the bottom line effects of his tax cuts, the Commish unloosed a 3,995 word opening statement (you could look it up) on the economic impacts of his proposal in a conference call with reporters this week, followed by a full Power Point presentation posted on his web site.

If GOP voters actually care about what their candidates want to do as governor, not to mention who has thought seriously about this stuff and who hasn’t, eMeg will run a distant third to Poizner and Campbell, who released his own door stop budget plan a few months back,

Yes we have no bananas: To the surprise of no one,  state schools chief Jack O’Connell made it official this week that he’s not running for governor

Over at California Progress Report, Bill Cavala, elder statesman of the Capitol Consultant Corps, bemoans O’Connell’s no-go as a symptom of a failed campaign finance system, but to us it looked like a simple case of not enough want-to; the plain fact is, Handsome Jack had a notable lack of what you call your fire in the belly.

Must read of the week: Tony Quinn, who is to reapportionment what Yo Yo Ma is to the cello, has a swell piece at Fox and Hounds that offers a smart sneak peek at the 2011 redistricting fight, in which he foresees Dems picking up a congressional seat even as California may stand to lose one.

Take the cash and let the credit go: Thanks to the miracle of the internets, and the mighty labors of The Hotline, we can report not so exclusively that Barbara Boxer is sitting on $6.35 million cash in the bank as of Sept. 30, while GOP Senate wannabe Chuck DeVore has juuuust a teeny bit less, with $144,733 en banc.  It’ll be a while before we have any idea how much Carly Fiorina is prepared to spend. No jokes here: our condolences to Fiorina for the loss of her 35-year-old  step-daughter Lori Ann.

Three Dot Thursday: Cheap Shots at the Wounded

Thursday, August 13th, 2009

photos2Memo to Methuselah: Jerry Brown airily dismisses Gavin Newsom’s bid to make a generational contest of the Democratic primary, but maybe that’s because Crusty the General hasn’t looked in the mirror lately.

Calbuzz was shocked – shocked! – while viewing a TV report on Brown’s recent visit to the Central Coast to realize that the 71-year old former everything really, really, um, looks his age on the tube.

Since we’re a solution-oriented outfit, we immediately dispatched some recent photos of Brown to the Calbuzz Division of Superficial Issues and Cosmetology Fixes for some quick action step recommendations.

ebsenAfter a full-body scan, in-depth analysis that lasted until a few minutes before lunch, our highly-trained and highly paid technicians reached consensus that Brown needs some work on those geezer eyebrows, which make him look like a cross between Jed Clampett and the prophet Isaiah.

Yo Anne! What – they don’t sell products in Oakland?

Using the latest in online, web-based, digital era technology, Calbuzz herein proves beyond a shadow of a doubt that a little dye job would take 20 years off the guy’s face; once you’re done with that, General, we can discuss those white-as-snow sidewalls . . .

gay_marriage_210

Gay Marriage – The Long March: Same-sex marriage advocates made a smart calculation by pushing plans for a new initiative to roll back Prop. 8 into 2012 instead of next year.

For starters, there’s the boost in voter turnout guaranteed in any presidential election; beyond that, recall that Kuwata’s Law holds that every campaign includes three fundamental pieces: money, organization and message. Two years provides a much more realistic time frame than a 2010 rush job for assembling the first two and for carefully framing the third in a way that addresses the pro-marriage side’s political weaknesses within religious and minority communities, which proved fatal in 2008.

As for the governor’s race, the move takes a little steam out of Newsom’s gov run by nulling his signature issue, but also makes it easier for him to appeal to Latino and African American voters, who supported Prop. 8 in large numbers last year. Although it won’t be an issue in the June primary, gay marriage might still provide a little traction for whoever the Democrat candidate is in November, assuming either Meg Whitman or Steve Poizner wins the GOP nomination (Tom Campbell favors gay marriage).

Without gay marriage on the ballot, the wannabe governors will be forced to focus more than ever on state finances as the dominant and driving issue of the campaign; in scoping out a distant second, don’t discount illegal immigration, legalization of marijuana and, of course, the constitutional convention; initiatives on all three subjects are either circulating, or sitting at the Attorney General’s office awaiting title and summary.

megsteve

Poizner vs Whitman, Round 62: While Meg Whitman’s top priority on a recent visit with Santa Cruz Republicans appeared to be barring Calbuzz from the event, chief rival Steve Poizner was busy scoring grassroots points elsewhere on the Central Coast.

While eMeg basks in being the darling of Beltway Big Feet, Poizner keeps rolling up the backing of street level pols, the kind of guys and gals who’ve, you know, actually run and won elections in California. His latest list of Central Coast endorsers includes former Assemblyman and current Assessor Tom Bordonaro Jr. of San Luis Obispo, Councilman Jim Monahan of Ventura City, Vice-Mayor Jim Reed of Scotts Valley, Vice-Mayor Victor Gomez of Hollister, Councilman Glen Becerra of Simi Valley, Councilwoman Charlotte Craven of Camarillo, Councilman Leo Trujillo of Santa Maria, Trustee Robert Huber of Ventura County, and former Councilman Jim Heggarty of Paso Robles.

Of course, Fred Barnes and George Will have never heard of any of these people.

Three dot special: Over at Calitics, Dante Atkins reports that he was awakened last Sunday morning by a poll-taker for Fairbanks, Maslin, Maullin and Associates who was apparently testing lines of attack for PXP oil company, in its continuing efforts to win state approval for an offshore drilling lease at Tranquillon Ridge, off the coast of Santa Barbara. This one ain’t going away anytime soon, sports fans . . . Hardcore junkies will want to check out Politico’s early line on what the wannabes are up to a mere 1,182 days before the 2012 presidential election . . . News that stays news: LiveScience.com reports that the average dog is as smart or smarter than a two-year old curtain climber; the key question remains unanswered, however:  how much smarter are Rex and Fido than the average teenager? . . . Norm Pattiz, founder and chairman of Westwood One, America’s largest radio network, UC Regent, Joe Biden buddy, Democratic donor and mongo Lakers fan gets inducted into the National Radio Hall of Fame. Calbuzz is impressed .

Newsom Hunkers Down: Jaye Books, South Rises

Tuesday, July 28th, 2009

ericjaye2When Calbuzz heard from the enterprising Phil Matier and Andy Ross that Eric Jaye, Gavin Newsom’s longtime senior political adviser, was quitting his Prince’s campaign for governor because of “a fundamental difference” (his words) with strategist Garry South, we weren’t bowled over with surprise.

It’s not that South is a control freak; in fact, he’s perfectly capable of working collaboratively and cooperatively with campaign managers and other candidate handlers.

But Jaye to date in the campaign had Newsom heavily focused on using and trumpeting his use of online social network tools, both for organizing and for fundraising and South  is simply not, by nature,  a Twitter-Facebook-kind of guy.gary_south

The last political consultant to elect a Democrat governor of the state, the Duke of Darkness is a bare-knuckles, in-your-face, shoe-leather, hand-to-hand combat veteran who has two main tasks: 1) Get his candidate to raise a ship load of money and 2) Needle, badger and tweak primary rival Jerry Brown at every turn.

Jaye and South were both doing their best to handle the split-up professionally, and with as little inside vitriol splashing on Newsom as possible. We tried to bait South into talking but he refused to engage.

But as Calbuzz sees it, Newsom’s decision to dump the guy who’s been with him from the beginning of his career, in favor of the guy who has actually won a tough Democratic primary and two governor’s races –- not to mention taking out number of millionaire opponents — suggests Newsom is choosing to forego the all-tweet-all-the-time strategy in favor of a little throwback hardball.

As we noted July 2 , while Brown is sitting on more than $7 million (without actually announcing his candidacy), Newsom has raised just $2.8 million and has only $1.1 million in the bank, despite his legions of Twitter and Facebook fans.

Jaye apparently felt that Newsom could use his online profile to pull an Obama, who shattered all known fundraising records in his presidential bid with a major assist from the web. Fair enough, but that notion ignores the fact that before he was Lord of the Internets, Obama was an old school Chicago pol, with guys like David Axelrod locking him up to dial for dollars and running him through countless fundraisers so that in the year before the election he outraised Hillary Clinton the old fashioned way.

That’s what Newsom must to do to become more than a San Francisco boutique candidate. Brown’s long record and saturation name ID, for better or worse, presents a formidable obstacle for a rookie candidate, and Newsom needs to find a way to gain a financial and tactical edge on General Jerry.

(Aside: We were reminded of the decision made by former Gov. Pete Wilson in September 1995 when he picked Craig Fuller, an old Bush Sr. hand, to manage his presidential campaign over George Gorton, his friend and campaign strategist for 25 years. Gorton had never run a national campaign.)

Democratic primaries are all about capturing the party’s left-wing, and over at Calitics, our liberal friends fretted that losing Jaye, with his back-to-the-roots connection to Newsom and his progressive politics, is worrisome for the San Francisco mayor’s chances.

“South has a history with the radical moderates over at the Democratic Leadership Council, and that’s how he won with Davis,” wrote the estimable Brian Leubitz. “He talked ToughOnCrime ™, business, and all that jive. And it won him the 1998 election.

“But California is in a very different place today than it was then. If Garry South is going to be running Newsom’s campaign, he’ll have to update his strategy. It didn’t work with Steve Westly, and it won’t fare much better now.”

This is fuzzy thinking. Newsom’s first challenge is to beat Brown in a Democratic primary. So why in that context, would South even try to position Newsom to the right of the Attorney General?

Newsom and South are going to have to run a two track campaign: extolling the alleged wonders of San Francisco while ripping Brown’s record — as a governor, mayor, attorney general, state party chairman and the other 173 offices he’s held –- up one side and down the other. This is what South knows how to do, and is very, very good at. And it’s the pathway that Newsom has now chosen as his longtime friend and adviser leaves the field.

– By Jerry Roberts and Phil Trounstine

Just In: Kennedy Whacks Davis, More on Gov Money

Thursday, July 2nd, 2009

kennedycigarNasty Ringer from inside the Horseshoe: So Calbuzz is reading along Wednesday in the Wall Street Journal’s slobber job on Gov. Arnold’s COS Susan Kennedy and suddenly — KABOOM! — she smacks her former patron Gray Davis upside the head with a crowbar:

“Gray Davis would still be governor today if he had the chops [i.e. “balls”] to stand up to the unions and if the Democrats weren’t so pig-headed and owned by the special interests,” said the diminutive cigar-chomping Ms. Kennedy.

This, from a putative Democrat who owes her job to Davis, who made her his cabinet secretary, deputy chief of staff and then put her on the PUC. Kennedy is no press rookie either — having been communications chief for US Sen. Dianne Feinstein before going to work for Davis in 1999.

Kennedy also knows – as well as anyone – that while the CCPOA, CTA and AFL-CIO all had their hooks into Davis (and her), had it not been for Enron and the energy crisis, Davis never would have lost his job.

We tried to get a reaction from Davis but he wouldn’t bite. “I’m not going there,” he insisted. gray-davis“I’m a senior statesman now. I don’t get into disputes.”

An associate of his at Loeb and Loeb in LA, however, said Kennedy sent an email apology to Davis. And a friend of Kennedy’s in Sacramento said she had been trying to aim her fire at the unions (who had made life difficult for the penny-pinching Davis) and felt terrible that she shot her former boss in the face instead.

As long as we had Davis on the phone, we asked him if he wasn’t feeling just a little bit of schadenfreude watching Gov. Schwarzenegger try to handle the budget he so loudly pledged to streamline.

Again, he wouldn’t take the bait. “I don’t take any glee in seeing the difficulty Californians are facing,” Davis said. But, he noted, “It’s abundantly clear that just because you change governors you don’t change the financial condition of the state.”

megcrop1The Meg and Jerry Show: The preliminary numbers on first round fund-raising are in and, as expected, Meg Whitman is dominating the GOP Money Primary, reporting contributions of $6.5 million in the first five months of her campaign. That amount is in addition to $4 million she has donated herself.

The numbers reported by the campaign do not make it clear how much she has spent, with what appears to a much higher overhead operation than any of her rivals, nor does it say how much eMeg has in the bank.

Our Monday post on the Money Primary offered some caveats about over-interpreting Whitman’s big haul, but by any measure it’s an impressive effort by a rookie candidate, and her spin posse took full advantage, quoting campaign chairman Pete Wilson: “There is no more certain measure of enthusiasm for a candidate than heavy early campaign contributors.”

Republican foe Steve Poizner reported raising $1.2 million to date, and pointedly noted that most of his contributions were $100 or less in contrasting his strategic approach to that of Megabucks Meg, a fellow member of the uber-wealth club.

” “Our campaign has focused heavily on generating support at the grassroots level from hard-working California voters and these numbers reflect our success in earning that support,” the  insurance commissioner said in a release. “We will have the funds needed to communicate our message throughout the state, from now to the primary and beyond.”

Republican Tom Campbell, who’ll spend the campaign with his nose to the windows of the counting houses of his two party rivals, said he had raised just under $500,000, had no debts and about $300,000 cash on hand.

As we reported yesterday, General Jerry’s $7.4 million haul exceeded expectations, and dwarfed the $1.6 million raised by Gavin Newsom, who joined Poizner in talking up the number of small donors who’d given him cash.

But here’s a worry for Newsom: He has thus far raised $2.8 million and reported $1.1 million cash on hand. If our Calbuzzer math is right, that would mean he has spent $1.7 million –- or about 60% of his money raised. Yow, that burns.

gavinnytimes

Times Weighs In: On the other hand, Gavin Hood cops the cover photo of this Sunday’s New York Times magazine, featuring Mark Leibovich’s 8,300 word situationer on the California governor’s race.

Leibovich, formerly of the SJ Mercury News, is a graceful writer and a fine reporter, and his piece provides a solid one-stop fill, bristling with good quotes and anecdotes, about where the 2010 race stands, at least for that small handful of Californians who have inexplicably failed to follow Calbuzz in recent months.

At first glance, Newsom comes off as the big winner of the piece, both because of the Nixon Redux, guy-on-the-beach-in-a-suit photo that graces the cover, and because the San Francisco mayor is also the entry point into the Times story.

“Newsom sees the job of governor as a potentially exhilarating high-wire act,” Leibovich writes. “’We’re in a moment of crisis that requires order-of-magnitude change, dramatic change,’ he told me. ‘Candidly, if things were going very well, I don’t think I’d be the best person for the job.’”

But Newsom’s political vulnerabilities, from his Prince Gavin sense of entitlement to his unease in discussing the adulterous affair he had with a top aide’s wife several years ago, also clearly come through.

“There is indeed about Newsom something of that quintessential California type, the overgrown and hyperactive child,” the piece reports. “Immensely gifted but flawed, he is a jumble of self-regard, self-confidence and self-immolation – potential greatness and a potential train wreck in the same metrosexual package.”

Leibo interviewed all of the contenders, as well as Gov. Arnold, and the up-close-and-personal treatment he affords each of them is worth the price of admission.

From Jerry Brown’s recounting of receiving advice from the Big Dick (“’Richard Nixon once said to me, ‘Don’t peak too soon,’” Brown said) and the tiresome sameness of Meg Whitman’s cipher campaign (“All of her campaign events appear to be held in the exact same ballroom, whether they are in a Radisson, a Hyatt or a Doubletree”) to Steve Poizner’s bummer-dude manner (“On behalf of Californians, I apologize to the rest of the country”) and Tom Campbell’s terminally earnest hopefulness (“Campbell said that a large field of candidates will help him”), the Timesman offers telling glimpses behind the masks of the candidates.

IOU an explanation: Amid the thousands of dead trees sacrificed to reports that the state has started issuing IOUs’, the most valuable piece of journalism has been offered not by the political press corps but by Chronicle business columnist Kathleen Pender.

You can find Pender’s smart Q&A about the IOU situation here

Grab Bag: Twitter Cash, New Rule, DiFi and Tony V

Tuesday, June 30th, 2009

gavin3Tweeting For Dollars: With the deadline for this quarter’s fundraising approaching fast (midnight tonight), Gavin Newsom, Jerry Brown and Steve Poizner all turned to their Twitter followers to raise bucks and demonstrate support.

On the Democratic side, Brown seems to be a big winner, predicting he’ll have $7.3 million to $7.4 million in the bank while Newsom claimed to be breaking new ground in online fundraising.

Here’s a series of Newsom pitches:

* Campaign reporting deadline in 36 hours. Need 208 donations to break 4000 online. Can you give $10?
* Update: 162 donations to go to hit 4000. 75 donations already today! Can you give $10 to help?
* Update – 227 people donated today! We’re just 10 donors short of our goal of 4000 online donations already.
* Reporting deadline in 13 hours. We r $2,459 short of $1 million raised online. Can you give $10?

(In an email to supporters Tuesday afternoon, Newsom says he’s pulled in more than 4,000 online donations worth more than $1 million.)

EGBrown3Here are a couple of Brown’s tweets:

* Help me Beat the Deadline: Midnight tonight -
* Less than 10 hours to go – help me beat the deadline!

And an assist from Joe Trippi:
* I’ve worked w/ Jerry Brown for a long time. CA is a mess. He’s the right man to get CA out of it. Pls donate b4 midnight

“We’re going to have somewhere between $7.3 and $7.4 million in the bank,” Brown told Calbuzz Tuesday afternoon.

126719_poizner_GMK_And then there was Steve Poizner, trying to build up his showing against eMeg (who’s expected to show as much as $8 million for the quarter).
* June 30th fundraising deadline is tonight, become a Dollar Donor today!

People often ask us, “Calbuzz, what about this Twitter deal? Is it important to campaigning these days?” To which we reply: It depends how it’s used.

When a candidate or campaign uses Twitter to raise money (like the examples above) or to mobilize supporters (like Tom Campbell did the other day when he was about to appear on KGO Radio with Ronn Owens) – those are uses of Twitter that make sense.

Then there’s what we call, in the trade, a Big Fat Waste of Time:

Whitman2010 Just filled up with gas at the Boyett gas station. Now off to Visalia in our truck

Who gives a rat’s ass?

sanfordCalbuzz Rules: While everybody knows that the First Absolute Rule of Politics is that “Conventional wisdom is always wrong,”  South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford appears to have invented a second inalienable law of politics:  “Don’t cheat on your wife and then talk to the AP.”

Sanford caught a lucky break last week when wall-to-wall coverage of Michael Jackson’s death quickly eclipsed the bizarre story of his sexcapades with Argentine news reader Maria Belen Chapur. A wiser, or less narcissistic, pol might have relished the opportunity to lower his profile, but not good ole’ Governor Gamecock.

No, Sanford had to fight his way back into the headlines  by sitting down with a couple of AP reporters at the South Carolina statehouse and spill his guts, not only offering TMI about Ms. Chapur, but also way more than we wanted to know about the rest of his personal life.

“This was a whole lot more than a simple affair, this was a love story,” he said. “A forbidden one, a tragic one, but a love story at the end of the day.”

Yuck.

Hey, if this whole politics thing doesn’t work out, Mark, you can always find a job writing jacket copy for Danielle Steel.

Go ahead, make my day: That roar of hilarity rising up and out of Southern California feinsteinglassesemanates from the political camp of Senator Dianne Feinstein, choking with laughter after reading GOP analyst Dan Schnur’s LAT op-ed predicting Herself won’t stand for re-election in 2012.

Of even greater amusement was Schnur’s suggestion that L.A. Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa is in line to take over the seat two years hence. “That would be a Clint Eastwood moment,” says one DiFi acolyte. “Please, God, let Antonio run against Dianne.”

tonyvAdd Tony V: Speaking of Villaraigosa, Betty Pleasant, who writes the “Soulvine” column for the Los Angeles Wave has some great behind-the-scenes dish from the big parade celebrating the Lakers’ NBA championship. She reports that Kobe Bryant was none too happy with the former Tony Villar’s efforts to push himself in the team’s spotlight, and refused for a time to board the bus to the event:

The cause of the hold-up was occurring adjacent to the locker room, where Kobe was refusing to ride on the City Council bus because the mayor was to ride on it. At the same time, the mayor, the consummate spotlight thief, was refusing to get on the City Council bus unless he got on with Kobe. Kobe loudly denounced the mayor in phrases that
started with “I don’t like the …” and ended with “I’m not going to let him pimp my popularity!”

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