California has the reputation of being
the nation's political freakshow, and we have done little to dispel that notion this special election year. Imagine for a moment that you'd fallen asleep in 1985, awoken 20 years later, picked up a newspaper, and read this:
"Gov.
Arnold Schwarzenegger, in his
final harried weekend of campaigning for his lagging special election initiatives, vowed Saturday to "reach across the aisles" to his political opponents -- even as a crowds of protesters, lead by actors
Warren Beatty and
Annette Bening, dogged him across Southern California."
That was the take from the Chron's Carla Marinucci yesterday on the competing bus tours that marked the final weekend of the special election campaign.
Further blurring the Hollywood-politics line, how many California voters will be upset when they can't find
Arnie Vinick or
Matt Santos on tomorrow's ballot after watching the
"live" debate last night?
The Chron's Sacramento team, Mark Martin and Lynda Gledhill, report today that the governor is
urging supporters to ignore the polls. (His campaign team has been urging reporters to do the same for months).
"Schwarzenegger urged voters to ignore polls that suggest an across-the-board defeat is looming for him. He called the four initiatives he's supporting key steps toward righting a state with failing schools, a bloated budget deficit and a rigged political system."
John Broder of the New York Times gets an
acknowledgment that the governor has been hurt.
"'A $120 million smear campaign is going to have an impact against anybody,' said
Todd Harris, a senior Schwarzenegger adviser. He said the attacks would not deter Mr. Schwarzenegger from seeking re-election, nor would the governor be swayed if his initiatives were defeated on Tuesday."
"'
The worse we do, the more he'll want to run again,' Mr. Harris said. 'This is not a guy who goes out when he's down.'"
The U-T's Ed Mendel reports on the
future of the Alliance for a Better California after tomorrow's election. "A coalition of a dozen unions has formed to oppose the initiatives. The Alliance for a Better California could keep right on going after tomorrow's special election on the governor's "year of reform" measures.
"'
I believe we will stay together to fight for some real reform – education reform, health reform,' said
Barbara Kerr, president of the California Teachers Association. 'I think the governor's unintended consequences brought together a group of people that isn't going to go away.'"
Could the Alliance for a Better California be the California solution to the national AFL-CIO split?
The Bee's Kevin Yamamura reports how this extra election has allowed candidates in 2006 to
skirt campaign fundraising limits.
"The special election has "allow[ed] candidates to
raise money for their own initiative-based campaigns without limits, as long as large donations do not come from other candidates or their committees."
"Treasurer
Phil Angelides has raised
$2.75 million in his "Standing Up for California" account since 2004. While donors can give only $22,300 per election cycle to his gubernatorial account, they face no limits on his "Standing Up" committee. For instance, developer
Eleni Tsakopoulos-Kounalakis gave Angelides' ballot-measure account
$250,000 in October."
Controller
Steve Westly "has raised $216,000 in his "New Vision for California" account this year. Among his biggest checks last month was a
$37,500 contribution from the California Correctional Peace Officers' Association."
The Times's Jenifer Warren writes about the church-based blitz that is hoping to
push Proposition 73 to victory. "At some Catholic parishes around Los Angeles, it came in a glossy "yes on 73" flier slipped into the church bulletin. At Methodist and Lutheran churches in the Bay Area, it was dished up by organizers who set up information tables behind the pews and urged a "no" vote."
"And at some evangelical Christian churches, including the Rock in Roseville, a suburb of Sacramento, pastors made time for a two-minute DVD featuring teenage actresses promoting support for the measure."
"'The public perception is that religious people all feel one way on certain social issues, that there's this monolithic view," said the Rev.
Rick Schlosser, a United Methodist minister and executive director of California Church Impact. 'That's not the case at all.'"
"On Sunday, Schlosser said his goal was to have organizers at 300 churches, mobilizing congregants to turn out and defeat the measure."
The statewide initiatives aren't the only thing on the ballot. In addition to dozens of local measures, voters in
Riverside, San Bernardino and
San Diego will all be voting on new mayors.
"In Riverside, voters will decide whether to reelect longtime incumbent Mayor
Ron Loveridge, or replace him with Councilman
Ameal Moore or
Terry Frizzel. Frizzel, a real estate agent and former mayor, opposes the city's redevelopment push, especially
the use of eminent domain."
In San Diego, the showdown between
Donna Frye and
Jerry Sanders headed to a close with one final debate. "Sanders, the former San Diego police chief, jabbed at City Councilwoman
Frye's backing from organized labor, contending that she would be beholden to the interests whose demands of a compliant city leadership led to the current pension crisis that threatens the city with bankruptcy.
'They are expecting to have the lock on City Hall they've had for some time,' Sanders said.
Frye, a Democrat, charged that the Republican Sanders'
backing from city corporate interests would make him an extension of the recent
Dick Murphy and
Susan Golding administrations that helped create the problems.
'He's trying to divert attention from the issue that nothing will change,' she said. 'It's the same old, same old, same old.'"
In Contra Costa County, voters will
decide the fate of a controversial development, which could lead to the construction of 2,500 new houses.
Dan Walters
previews the mayoral runoff in San Diego and its impact on the traditional business conservative control of California's second largest city.
The
problems continue for Barry Munitz, the head of the Getty Trust who once lead the California State University system. This is from the front page of Sunday's New York Times:
"
Barry Munitz, president of the J. Paul Getty Trust, had invited his good friends
Sherry Lansing, then the chairwoman of Paramount Pictures, and her husband, the director
William Friedkin, to dinner last year in a house used for parties at the hilltop Getty complex in Los Angeles."
"Because the couple collect Dutch art, Mr. Munitz wanted to impress them by having two 17th-century drawings by the Dutch artist Herman van Swanevelt from the Getty Museum taken to be displayed at the house."
"Museum officials, who said they felt that the event was more about socializing than about wooing important collectors, protested. They argued that moving the drawings posed too many risks, and that the climate control in the house was inadequate for fragile works on paper."
"The drawings were moved anyway."
