The Merc News follows-up with
public opinion experts on the release of the governor's revised budget. "
Bruce Cain, director of the University of California-Berkeley's Institute of Governmental Studies, said the governor, who has embraced the business-sponsored 'Live Within Your Means' budget initiative, 'is better off if we are in a crisis. I think the appetite for political change is always greater when you are in a crisis.'
Cain said it would be easier to tell educators they need to make further sacrifices 'if you have a huge structural deficit facing you, but when you have more revenue coming in it's hard for them to accept that they can't have their $2 billion back.' For Schwarzenegger, he said,
the return to better times is 'bad luck politically.'"
"'
The average person is sort of throwing up their hands,' [Sac State Professor
Barbara] O'Connor said. 'And the thing that worries me about it is that the hopefulness the governor enjoyed is gone, the hopefulness that people felt about him.'"
From our
Fighting Ego With Ego Files we present our first link to the Huffington Post
via Dan Weintraub. It's
Robert Greenwald musing on how he personally took down Gov. Schwarzenegger. He begins, "When the front page of the New York Times announces the fall of Arnold, then we know it is real."
Hmm...well, let's continue anyway.
He then goes on to personally take responsibility for the governor's downfall. "Rick Jacobs and I helped start a weekly phone call with various groups, individuals and all of us united in wanting to do something." Greenwald says he then cobbled together a spot with "real people," "and to the surprise of the press and pollsters and politicians, his numbers went into freefall."
Well, that and a few dozen protests, and a couple of million dropped on TV spots around the state, but we can see we're off message here...
In some good news for the governor, it looks like there may be a Democratic gubernatorial primary after all. Matier and Ross report the rumor that's been circulating around Sacramento for weeks has finally come to pass:
Steve Westly finally pulled the trigger on that
$10 million check for his gubernatorial campaign. "Serving notice to fellow Democrat
Phil Angelides that he has every intention of competing big time for the party's nomination next year. 'This is just the first,' said Westly's campaign manager,
Jude Barry. 'We know we are going to have the resources to win -- and probably more than Phil.'''
And as
Governor Checchi and
Governor Simon know, money is everything in California politics.
George Skelton praises the governor for
reversing his proposed cuts to transportation funding. "It erases some talking points for Democratic legislative leaders, who have been pounding the governor on transportation and pushing their own funding plans. ... But Schwarzenegger, in his revised budget, still is shortchanging schools and weakening the safety net for the poor and the disabled. He'll need to compromise on these issues before Democrats let him ring up all those points for road building."
Meanwhile, Dan Walters chimes in on
public pensions. Walters says the governor was
"on the right track" with his reform proposal that was abandoned earlier this year. "Were benefits more dependent on what CalPERS and the other funds earned on investments, rather that open-ended hits on taxpayers, perhaps workers and unions would be more vigilant about those investments and less tolerant of pension fund trustees' side-agenda high jinks.
The LA Times takes a deeper look at the
proposed reform of the California Youth Authority. "Living units, now marked by violence and crowded with up to 75 youths, would house half that number. Every offender would be teamed with a counselor who would follow the youth's progress — and, when needed, impose sanctions or rewards — throughout the sentence."
The Merc News
further reports that advocates and former wards want a bigger say in the reforms. "
Alfonso 'Ricky' Montano, a 26-year-old college student and aspiring recording artist from Milpitas, went into the CYA system at age 15 on a weapons possession charge and stayed until he was 21. Eighty percent of his time, he said, was spent in solitary confinement and 23-hour lockdown."
Montano said state officials should ask graduates of the system for input.
'Guys like me could turn that place around,' he said. 'It's a place that is meant for us to get better, but we come out crazy.'"
People say the same thing about the Horseshoe.
As the campaigning continued before tomorrow's mayoral runoff,
Antonio Villaraigosa played the Tom Bradley card. "'There were some who questioned whether or not he could represent the entire city,' Villaraigosa said of Bradley. 'They said, 'I know you can represent them, but can you represent all of us?' In that first election, he wasn't quite able to convince all of the people of this city.' ... 'Four years later, he was back. He was back and with him a broader coalition for a new Los Angeles. Nobody today, no one, would question whether or not Tom Bradley was a mayor for all of us. We know he was.'"
Bradley also twice ran, and lost, for governor. We figure it's only a matter of time before Villaraigosa gets similar ideas, assuming tomorrow's vote goes as expected.
From our
"Freewheelin' Jimmy Hahn" Files Jim Hahn has a Bob Dylan's-style campaign day ahead of him. Compare the mayor's schedule with the lyrics from Dylan's 1963 "I Shall Be Free."
Dylan: Now, the man on the stand he wants my vote,
He's a-runnin' for office on the ballot note.
He's out there preachin' in front of the steeple,
Tellin' me he loves all kinds-a people.
(He's eatin' bagels
He's eatin' pizza
He's eatin' chitlins
He's eatin' bull$&it)
Hahn: After spending Sunday at the Faithful Central Bible Church, Mayor Jim Hahn's penultimate day on the campaign trail begins at
Roscoe's Chicken and Waffles at 10 a.m., then he goes to the Jewish Home for the Aging in Reseda,
Brent's Deli in Northridge and
Reikai's Kitchen in Little Tokyo before heading to a 5 p.m. rally. (Hahn's schedule courtesy of
LA Observed.Also making a second mayoral bid is San Diego's
Donna Frye, who
officially kicked off her second campaign just weeks after officially losing her first. This time, her name will actually appear on the ballot. A special election will be held July 26, with a runoff in September or November if no candidate receives a majority.
Speaking of stories that seem to never end, we finally have an
owner for the Wendy's finger. "It didn't belong to a dead aunt of
Anna Ayala, who made the claim. Nor was the owner a woman who got too friendly with her pet leopard. ... The finger came from a man who lost it in an industrial accident and gave it to the husband of Ayala, who allegedly planted it in a scam to get money."