It's on to the next campaign! Republicans gathered in Anaheim for a unity breakfast, taking shots at Jerry Brown and Barbara Boxer.
As California's general election campaign officially
opened
Wednesday,
each party's line of attack began to take shape, with
an energized
Republican Party appearing to seize the early momentum.
At a time when many Californians are struggling financially
and
skeptical of government, the Republicans sketched out
a narrative on the
day after a gubernatorial primary that appeared to
have the lowest
voter turnout in the 96 years on record: that their candidates offer a
new path.
The 24.8% showing among registered voters is expected to rise
somewhat
when final mail-in ballots are counted, but it remains well below the
previous low, a 33.6% turnout in 2006.
"When Fiorina took the stage in Anaheim, she chimed
in, "Thank
you very
much, Barbara Boxer — we have had quite enough from you!"
(Incidentally, the story was Rothfeld's last as a member of the LAT Sacramento bureau. Rothfeld is heading back to New York to work for the Wall St. Journal.)
Capitol Weekly looks at some of the surprises from election night and what would have happened if Prop. 14 was already in effect.
"In the Senate, none of Tuesday’s 20 races would have been affected by the new law. The top vote-getters in all 20 Senate races Tuesday included one Democrat and one Republican. Same goes for the statewide races. Democrat Kamala Harris received about 1,100 more votes than GOP runner-up John Eastman. But Harris had a six-way primary field to contend with -- something that is sure to be frowned upon by party elders with the new primary rules in effect.
"It is the Assembly that would appear to be most dramatically
impacted by the passage of Proposition 14. Six of the 80 November
contests would be different if the rules
were in effect Tuesday."
Is this
the year of the Republican woman? Meg Whitman and Carly Fiorina see
parallels to 1992.Cathleen Decker reports, "On Tuesday it was
Republicans who made history, nominating women for
the
first time as their candidates for governor and U.S.
senator. And
Wednesday, their hope was to follow Boxer and Feinstein's
script to the
end, right down to winning in the general election
— Whitman over
Democrat Jerry Brown, and Fiorina over Boxer herself.
The historic firsts were similar. But the parallels
may end there.
Dramatic differences exist between the elections themselves,
the makeup
of California's voter population and the issues that
drove people to the
polls. Female Republican nominees remain rare enough
at this level that
no one is quite sure the extent of their appeal, leaving
unanswerable
several key questions:
Will the gender and generational verve that propelled
Boxer and
Feinstein fuel Fiorina and Whitman? Will the Republicans
be seen as
fresh faces to an electorate yearning for some — as the Democrats were
in 1992 — or will their hard-edged business backgrounds negate the human
touch that often has aided female candidates?"
George Skelton says it's time for Jerry Brown to get serious.
"Brown has been able to rationalize that he didn't have any major opposition for the Democratic nomination and whatever he said either would be ignored or peppered in the GOP crossfire. But now he has the voters' attention — and Whitman's.
So his head is up anyway and soon will be the target of sustained fire, right up until the Nov. 2 election. But I figure the main reason for his silence on substance is that Brown really doesn't know the answers. More precisely, he doesn't know the answers that are politically viable, given the polarized public and Legislature."
Jack Dolan and Patrick McGreevy look at how the new voting law, Proposition 14, may impact future elections.
"Voters' approval Tuesday of an open primary system,
combined with
their
2008 decision to strip state lawmakers of the power to
draw their own
election districts, will reshape California politics.
The question is:
How?
"Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, who backed both moves,
is confident
that
state elections will become more daunting for the rigid
partisans he
says plague Sacramento. Other politicians and election
strategists are
not so sure.
"This is a process that lends itself to back-room dealing, to big decisions being made by small groups of people," said California Republican Party Chairman Ron Nehring."
John Howard writes the new law may ultimately wind up in court.
“In my opinion,” said California political analyst Allan Huffenblum, “this is the Prop. 13 of elective politics. It is probably the most important ballot measure impacting legislative races that we’ve done in 40 years. It will create candidates more representative of the district as a whole and not just a small faction.
“I keep seeing these races in which legislators are
getting elected with less than 10 percent of the vote. The two-party
system has completely broken down,” Huffenblum added.
And finally,"Biologists tracking jaguars in the Guatemalan jungle might smell nice but it's all in the name of science, with researchers finding the Calvin Klein cologne Obsession for Men attracts big cats.
"Biologists Rony Garcia and Jose Moreira from the Wildlife Conservation Society's (WCS) Jaguar Conservation Program say they use hidden cameras as a primary source for observing and tracking jaguars in Guatemala's Maya Biosphere Reserve.But they also rely on Obsession for Men, a cologne known for its complex scent, to help lure then research and hopefully ultimately preserve jaguars in the Central American country."
Ah yes, but does it work on cougars?