Hopes of a GOP pickup in the south bay Assembly seat vacated by
Mike Gordon's death were dashed yesterday when
Ted Lieu cruised to a 40-point victory over Republican
Mary Jo Ford. With Lieu receiving 59% of the overall vote, there will be no runoff. Ford, a physician, spent $255,000 of her own money, and received 19% of the vote.
The governor moved
Pat Clarey to the campaign yesterday, and announce
Peter Siggins as interim chief of staff during her absence. Assembly Speaker Fabian Nuņez was
not available for comment.
Meanwhile, the governor's campaign team announced that
Steve Poizner will be the governor's point man on Proposition 77. "The press release from Team Arnold says that the 47-year old former Silicon Valley tech exec will lead a "broad coalition"of Prop 77 supporters known as Redistrict California,"
reports KQED's John Myers.
"Those efforts will be separate, however, from the group already campaigning for Prop 77, Californians For Fair Redistricting. That group is led by another wealthy GOP businessman who may aspire to public office,
Bill Mundell [who is a likely candidate against
Dianne Feinstein next year]."
"So what might Poizner's new Prop 77 efforts mean? The fall campaign could certainly help raise the name ID of a candidate running for statewide office in the 2006 GOP primary.
And some political insiders say it could also mean a new source of cash for the 'yes' on 77 efforts: the Poizner family trust."
The AP
reports on Mundell's independent effort, which he says he is pushing "largely over fears the measure will fail if tied directly to Schwarzenegger's other Republican-backed ballot initiatives."
You know it's bad when Bill Mundell thinks he's more popular than you.
Speaking of wealthy initiative backers,
Rob Reiner visited San Diego yesterday to
push for his measure to raise taxes for preschool programs. When pushed about whether he was running for office, Reiner showed that he has the political non-commital down pat. "'If I feel I can get something done this way, this is what I do,' he said. '
If at some point in time, I think that the best way to accomplish things is through elected office, then that's something I'll consider at that time, but I'm not thinking about that right now.'"
Dan Walters writes about the promised
"job killer" fight that never was. "The lingering question is why Democrats decided to pull back this year rather than flood Schwarzenegger's desk with veto-bait bills. None of the leaders will even acknowledge there was a tactical retreat, much less explain it, but perhaps it was an effort to reduce the friction with business in hopes that executives would feel less compulsion to support Schwarzenegger's drive and contribute to a measure that would force public worker unions to get their members' permission to take political contributions from their paychecks."
The University of California
got two new regents yesterday, with the governor's appointment of former director of finance
Russ Gould and San Francisco developer
Leslie Tang Schilling. In the press release, the governor's office stated that Schilling is registered with the
American Independent Party, which should at least trigger clarifying questions at her confirmation hearing.
From our
Nguyen-Nguyen Situation files,
Madison Nguyen easily beat Linda Nguyen in a runoff for a seat on the San Jose City Council. "Nguyen, a Franklin-McKinley School District board member who already held the distinction of being the first Vietnamese woman to hold public office in California, received 62.7 percent of the vote while her opponent
Linda Nguyen garnered 37.8 percent with all the precincts reporting."
Finally, yesterday we pointed out a news report that said that
Reggie, the Los Angeles alligator, had been caught and taken to the Los Angeles Zoo. Alas, it was a hoax, and the
roaming reptile is still free in Lake Machado.
Jay Young, the Colorado alligator wrangler that tried unsuccessfully to capture Reggie, thinks he knows who called the Associated Press yesterday morning to falsely report the capture.
"'I think it's a disgruntled employee [of Colorado Gators] who is not right in the head, and he's done this before,' the wrangler said. 'I won't tell you his name, but four months ago he called up a [Colorado] radio station during the whitewater rafting festival and claimed there was a 10-foot alligator in the river, then later called and said we'd caught it.'"
Imagine that, a gator wrangler who is not right in the head.