Political news, analysis, commentary and more about California and beyond

With Californians terrified at the specter of next year’s campaign for governor proving utterly devoid of entertainment value, a glimmer of hope arose this week in the person of whack job Republican lawmaker Tim Donnelly.

Incumbent Democratic Governor Gandalf, his quick wit one-liners and reductio ad absurdum Jesuiticalisms seemingly extinguished by the demands of, you know, actually governing, grows day by day increasingly borrring, while would-be GOP rival Un-Abel Maldonado so far is snoozeworthy at best.

Now comes Donnelly, a San Bernardino way out there right-winger, whose greatest claim to fame to date was concealing a loaded .45 caliber Colt Mark IV handgun, complete with extra ammo, in his carry-on while attempting to board a flight to Sacramento. To the huzzahs of high-powered state political writers ravenous for any shred of Sacramento-related amusement (we name no names), Tea Party Tim kicked off his candidacy for governor with a 2:32 web video in which he stalks around in a big black Stetson and red-white-and-blue filigreed boots, calls his wife “the only thing…sexy in the state of California” and exploits features his kids making smart-ass comments about the 2nd Amendment and performing Arnold Schwarzenegger impersonations.

There were no injuries.

“They like to call me white. But I’m not white,” Donnelly says at one point, perhaps a teensy bit defensive about the Tea Party’s white nationalist elements, not to mention his own former Minuteman membership.

“This is white,” he adds in the video, holding aloft a crumpled napkin. “I’m a fleshy pink tone.”

Oy. Welcome to the race, dude.

Whack vs. Crack: While TSA Tim shows at least some minor early promise for enlivening what now seems an arid and dreary election year landscape, the Calbuzz Editorial Board Department of Candidate Screening and Body Function Humor believes there is only one tax-hating, gun-loving, immigrant-bashing demagogue  who might keep us awake is certain to provide the non-stop, political comic relief to which Californians are entitled in 2014.

His name is Rob Ford.

As every school child and still breathing Calbuzzer knows by now, Ford is the embattled mayor of Toronto, which it turns out has just passed Chicago as the fifth largest city in North America, and reportedly is located within the friendly confines of our Good Neighbor to the North. Ford is a bullying buffoon, falling-down drunk and Chris Farley lookalike, who this week became an object of global ridicule when he publicly admitted to smoking crack.

“Yes, I have smoked crack cocaine,” he told reporters, finally confirming news stories and rumors that have swirled around him for months. His explanation, perhaps ridiculous to the small-minded among us, seems quite reasonable to members of the Responsible Liquid Diet Community:

“Have I tried it?” he added. “Probably in one of my drunken stupors…”

We read this stuff so you don’t have to: Among its many ripple effects, Ford’s crackhead admission made a major contribution to the Stand-up Comics Relief Act of 2013, as proven by a wide-ranging Google investigation, lasting nearly 20 minutes, that revealed a trio of critical, crucial and pivotal key findings:

–Every late-night host from Stephen Colbert (one good sight gag) and Jon Stewart (waayy too earnest) to Craig Ferguson (one terrific line) and Jay Leno (zzzzz) weighed in on the matter with Jimmy Kimmel the hands-down laugh-off winner for devising a spot-on informational video titled “How to know if your mayor’s on crack.”

–Ford demonstrated great crossover comedy appeal by igniting a kerfuffle among sports-minded bloggers and tweeters about the throwback NFL tie he wore while publicly flaunting his drug-addled brain, as other pundits fretted over Toronto losing its good reputation as “New York run by the Swiss” and badly “damaging its brand” (who knew they had one?) according to an alleged economic expert dug up by Canadian TV news, with The Onionesque moniker of Gabor Forgacs; the esteemed Mr. Forgacs was identified as a professor at the (all rise) “Ted Rogers School of Hospitality and Tourism Management at Ryerson University,” as The Onion itself covered the news with a story headlined “Nation Not About to Start Giving a Shit About Canadian Politics.”

–The Rob Ford comedy beat long ago was pioneered by Princess Warrior Marg Delahunty, a recurring character on CBC’s “This Hour has 22 Minutes,” who previously and notoriously interview-ambushed the mayor in a funny, except to Ford, confrontation that he escaped by scurrying from his driveway back into his house to call 911 three times, and screaming “You fucking bitches! Don’t you fucking know? I’m Rob fucking Ford, the mayor of this city!” to an emergency operator after his demand to be rescued from the ersatz news hen was not obeyed instantly. (For those with too much time on their hands, the Delahunty-Ford episode leads to a deep online rabbit hole which you can explore at great risk to your productivity, starting here, here and here).

Don’t buy this book: Speaking of crack, Mark Halperin, our least favorite Beltway Blowhard (talk about stiff competition!) is out with his latest political cotton candy opus, “Double Down: Game Change 2012.”

Authored with writing partner John Heilemann, the book presents anew the style of cheesy anonymous sourcing and meaningless gossip for which the pair garnered a gazillion dollars with “Game Change,” their 2008 presidential campaign junk food extravaganza.

As Salon’s Alex Pareene argues in an excellent takedown, the problem with the Halperin-Heilemann oeuvre is not their mildly entertaining anecdotal dish, but the fact that cable and TV talking heads who ought to know better take it seriously as important commentary and analysis. All you really need to know, as Dave Wiegel points out, is that the book contains nine pages about Donald Trump’s contribution to last year’s presidential election.

3-Dot Press Clips: We’re fans of Pareene, who writes some of the best stuff out there on media and politics, including this spot-on piece bashing Politico, not to mention this important article about Chris Christie, the conservative…Craig Shirley is a card-carrying right-winger, but that doesn’t make his splendid pantsing of the hubristic Chris Matthews any less superb…How fierce is the warfare between the Republican Establishment and the Tea Party? Check out Erik Erikson attacking the New Republic…Say it ain’t so, John Harvard: Veritas, indeed…Paging Alfred E. Newman: formerly ambitious Baltimore pol enables teenage souses…. Misguided attack line of the month: Rick Perry tells Barbara Boxer to be more “intellectual.”

This just in: Merv (The Swami) Field asks: “Is it solipsistic in here, or is it just me?”