Dear Roundup Readers: In the next few days, you'll start to notice small changes in your daily Roundup. The vitals will still stay the same -- still the same bad jokes written at the same ungodly hour. But small design changes (the new logo, for instance) will begin to be implemented as we try to integrate the Roundup with the new, redesigned Capitol Weekly, which will be on the street on Aug. 17.
One of the changes in the Roundup will be the introduction of advertising. For the last seven months, we have woken up before the sun to try to entertain and inform you with a rundown of the state's political news. And now, it's time to pay. In a short amount of time, we have built the Roundup into a must-read for California political junkies. We currently e-mail the Roundup to almost 2,500 people daily, with more people signing up every single day. Several hundred more come to our Web site to read the Roundup daily, and many of you print it out to hand around the office.
Advertising in the Roundup will allow you to reach an elite group of California political insiders, every weekday morning, directly in their email inbox. Your ad will also be an endorsement of bad humor everywhere, and will allow us to retain the resources to keep the Roundup going.
For more information on advertising in the Roundup, email us at ads@capitolbasement.com. And bear with us as we make some other minor changes along the way.
xo,
The Roundup
Pounding the warchestController
Steve Westly has an $18.2 million warchest in his 2006 campaign for Governor. Today's campaign finance reports will be boosted by an additional $5 million contribution from the candidate. Westly's cash is slightly more than the $16.8 million Treasurer
Phil Angelides has in his bank account.
Speaking of money in the bank, when
Bill Lockyer dropped out of the governor's race, it seemed like he was content to
move to the political backseat. Instead, Lockyer has become the key Democratic political figure in the governor's special election battle.
As
the LA Times puts it this morning, "the Democratic attorney general has become, in fact,
a major pain to Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, Republicans and conservative activists who have been pushing their agendas in the November special election and beyond.
Lockyer's moves have helped put
Democrats back in the catbird's seat, according to the Merc's Andrew LaMar. "Lockyer, the attorney general,
has undermined the governor's 'Year of Reform' measures by highlighting their potentially unpopular impacts in titles and summaries his office is required to provide. Recently, he won a court challenge bouncing the governor's redistricting measure from the ballot altogether. 'It turns out that Bill Lockyer has played a very important role in the demise of the special election,' said
Bruce Cain, a UC-Berkeley political scientist."
Meanwhile, the Bee reports the speaker is traipsing around Europe with some of his Assembly colleagues on someone else's dime. "Núñez and his former wife,
Maria Robles, whom he plans to remarry, were guests of the William C. Velásquez Institute in
an eight-day program to study universal preschools" (in Sweden and France). "Joining Núñez were Assembly Democrats
Karen Bass of Los Angeles,
John Laird of Santa Cruz and
Noreen Evans of Santa Rosa.
In "
Losing the Battle But Winning The War?" News,
Don Perata hooks up with Matier and Ross to talk about the special election. "Like a lot of political insiders, Perata figures the governor has it in his mind that
he'll come out a winner even if his initiatives on teacher tenure and curbing state spending lose -- if for no other reason than
it will force the Democrats to come out for higher taxes."
The special election gets some ink from the Wall Street Journal's John Fund, along with
a sketch of what a potential compromise deal might look like. "The governor and the legislature would
agree to cancel the election in exchange for a Democratic promise to go easy on
a watered down measure reforming the state's gerrymandered political boundaries on next June's ballot. In exchange, the governor would
embrace a reform of the state's 15-year-old term limits law allowing legislators to serve 12 years in each house, a significant increase over the maximum of six years in the Assembly and eight years in the State Senate currently allowed."
To celebrate one entire month in office, the Times is anticipating the
end of the honeymoon for Mayor Villariagosa. While the mayor has navigated through some treacherous waters during his first 31 days in office, "those actions hint at
a leadership style that has won Villages both plaudits and criticism in his 11 years of public service. Supporters say his ability to finesse complicated issues is what makes him a skilled negotiator — able to
keep warring parties at the table until they compromise. Detractors knock him as
a slick pol with a habit of talking out of both sides of his mouth."
The Times profiles
Msgr. Joe Carroll, known around San Diego as "Father Joe," the "
the religious leader of choice for San Diego politicians in trouble." (If that ain't a Yellow Pages ad, we don't know what is.)
Lately, Father Joe has been busier than ever. "He has offered work, emotional support, an alternative to jail and renewed respectability to
an ousted mayor, a fallen City Council member, a port commissioner convicted of a crime, an ex-governor of Illinois and a former federal official convicted of lying to Congress."
His latest charge: Rep.
Duke Cunningham.He may get a call from one of the governor's top three donors, who is the
target of a wrongful termination lawsuit, reports OC Register columnist Martin Wisckol.
"
William Armsted Robinson, a recluse and political unknown who has become one of Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's top three donors, made a rare showing on the radar July 20 when a Laguna Niguel woman filed a lawsuit against him. The suit, filed in Orange County Superior Court, says that
Paige Hurn, 25, was unfairly fired as Robinson's personal assistant after she spurned his sexual advances.
"Robinson, the founder of DHL courier service, has given $1.67 million to Schwarzenegger, ranking him with San Diego Chargers owner
Alex Spanos and Univision head
Jerry Perenchio as the top contributors. ... Robinson spokesman [and Schwarzenegger fundraiser]
Marty Wilson discounted Hurn's accusations..."
Meanwhile, in India... Lest we believe that the world is not intrigued with California politics, our governor is the subject of some coverage in the Indian media as well. The special election? His magazine deal? How about his
promotion of the California state fair with "Denny Devito." "In a television advertisement, which started airing in Northern California this week, the two, who entertained the audience with their 1988 comedy 'Twins', are
reprising their roles as unlikely siblings.An eager California awaits...