Senator
Abel Maldonado jumped into the controller's race yesterday, according to the San Luis Obispo Tribune. Maldonado had been rumored to seek the insurance commish job: "'People were insinuating that that I was going to run for insurance commissioner," he added. 'I thought about it for a second but my heart was never there like it is for state controller.'"
(Translation: Once that millionaire Steve Poizner got in the race, I immediately went looking for another place to land, since I don't have to give up my Senate seat to run.)Meanwhile, former Assembly Member
Tony Strickland also
filed for controller yesterday.
(Translation: Hey, I'm out of work, and the Republican bench is still laughably weak.)Next in the Controller Cake Walk: Will
Cruz Bustamante make the jump to the controller's race making way for
Joe Dunn to run for insurance commish?
(Translation: Will Richie Ross rearrange his political pieces to try to undermine Gale Kaufman client Dario Frommer, who is also running for controller?)OC Blog writes that
John Campbell withdrew his endorsement of Dick Ackerman for Congress on
Hugh Hewitt's radio show yesterday, and mused about running himself. Hewitt followed up in
his blog "If John runs, he wins, period, end of story. If not, there may yet be hope for a surprise candidacy from the world of broadcast journalism."
Well,
Dan Weintraub is going to be
subbing for Eric Hogue later this month, but we're guessing that's not who Mr. Hewitt was talking about.
Is Campbell serious about running, or is he just upset that Ackerman is reportedly backing
Jim Battin to be the next Senate Republican Leader?
We thought
Campbell's new blog was supposed to dish on what was going on in the smoke-filled room. Where's the entry about what happened at the Senate Republican Caucus lunch yesterday? Give us the dirt, John!
Then again, if the LA Times has its way, there may not be any open seat to run for. The paper's headline this morning,
Cox's Past Ties to Con Man Raise Questions could not have helped the would-be SEC commissioner's confirmation chances.
Meanwhile, the Tracy Press reports that
Nancy Pelosi wants
Barbara Matthews to run against Richard Pombo. Matthews' chief of staff "said that House minority leader Nancy Pelosi, D-San Francisco, called California Speaker of the Assembly
Fabian Nunez, D-Los Angeles, on Monday and asked him to personally invite Matthews to run."
Guess Pelosi wasn't jumping on that
Mike Machado trial balloon.
The Folsom Shooting Club has banned members of the attorney general's staff from using its Sacramento Valley Shooting Center while on duty because AG
Bill Lockyer supports two bills the club opposes. According to the Bee, "The club is opposed to
Senate Bill 357 by Sen.
Joe Dunn, D-Santa Ana, which would require handgun bullets in California to have a serial number, and
Assembly Bill 352 by Assemblyman
Paul Koretz, D-West Hollywood, which would require semiautomatic guns to stamp cartridges upon firing."
Apology time?Way back in March, Gov. Schwarzenegger derided the Legislature for not engaging on serious issues. "But it does look like the legislators, facing the deadline for filing legislation, did find time to introduce bills on cosmetic surgery for dogs, the name of our baseball team in Anaheim and
where ice cream trucks can park," the governor said. The latter referred to
AB 1148 by Lodi Assemblyman
Alan Nakanishi, which would
make it a crime for ice cream trucks to double park.The bill never even got a hearing, but now that
a Lodi ice cream truck driver has been arrested with suspected ties to al-Qaida, it does beg the question: Did Nakanishi know something we didn't? Maybe AB 1148 really is a matter of vital national security!
We smell a gut and amend coming...
