"Mayor
Gavin Newsom said Tuesday that if Democratic leaders do not quickly rally around Democratic gubernatorial candidate Phil Angelides,
he will lose to Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger in November," reports the Associated Press.
"Newsom would not specify who he was talking about in an interview with The Associated Press. But he mentioned a San Jose Mercury News report that said termed-out state Controller
Steve Westly is considering a run for governor in 2010 because he does not think Angelides, the state treasurer, can beat Schwarzenegger."
Funny, we thought it was a shot at
Antonio Villaraigosa. Oh wait, the story's not over... "
Newsom suggested that Democrats who hope to run in 2010 were undermining Angelides out of their own personal ambitions. Whoever runs four years from now will face better odds if there is no Democratic incumbent."
"I think there's a lot of questions about what's really going on," Newsom said. 'You guys are all starting to write about it. And we've all been talking about it for six months.
Because there's a lot of other ambitions with some folks. You know, term limits do strange things to politicians.'"
San Francisco has term limits too, you know...
"In recent weeks, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger
has worked overtime to reclaim support from Latino voters, seeking to shore up a key vulnerability as he seeks a second term," report Kate Folmar and Edwin Garcia in the Merc News.
"His latest outreach effort came Tuesday, when his campaign unveiled a list of statewide supporters dubbed 'Hispanic Families for Arnold.' On the same day, he also appointed
David Lopez of the National Hispanic University in San Jose to the state board of education."
Congratulations, David, on being appointed to a board without a budget. But, we'll get to that in a minute. The Merc News's Becky Bartindale
explains that Lopez got the nod after meeting Maria Shriver.
We checked the
list of supporters, but there's no sign of a Villaraigosa ... yet.
"Even as Schwarzenegger has steered clear of the strident anti-illegal immigration politics dominating Republicans nationally, recent polls have found tepid Latino support for his re-election."
"'
He's not going to be re-elected if he doesn't get one-third of the Latino vote; that's just simple mathematics' and also about what Schwarzenegger earned in 2003, said California Target Book co-editor
Tony Quinn, who has analyzed ethnic voting patterns for more than two decades. '
No Republican has won the state for president or for governor without getting a third of the Latino vote.'"
Whether he wants it or not, the governor is
getting help with the Latino vote from Washington. "White House political strategist
Karl Rove touted 'shared values' of faith and family and reiterated President Bush's support of broad immigration reform in a Los Angeles address Tuesday to one of the nation's largest Latino civil rights organizations," report Teresa Watanabe and Michael Finnegan in the Times.
"In a lunchtime talk at the National Council of La Raza's annual conference, the Republican advisor outlined Bush's plan for stronger border security, workplace enforcement, a guest worker program and earned legalization for undocumented immigrants."
"'
He understands immigration is a positive force in this country … vital to keep this country going,' Rove said, prompting applause from the crowd of a few thousand."
The guv's top strategist, meanwhile, has
launched a new Internet project.
Matthew Dowd is part of a "group of prominent political consultants from opposite sides of the fiercely fought presidential elections in 2000 and 2004 joined forces Tuesday to launch a website aimed at bridging the divisions those campaigns helped to widen," reports the LAT's Ron Brownstein.
"Along with Dowd, who is the chief strategist for California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's reelection campaign, the other leading Republican promoting the site is
Mark McKinnon, the senior media advisor for Bush's two presidential campaigns. Dowd and McKinnon are former Democrats who switched parties to work for Bush in Texas.
The site's other founders include
Allie Savarino, an Internet advertising consultant, and three partners in a Democratic consulting firm:
Joe Lockhart, the former White House press secretary for President Clinton who became a senior aide to Sen.
John F. Kerry's presidential campaign in 2004, and
Carter Eskew and
Michael Feldman, both longtime advisors to Al Gore, the 2000 Democratic presidential candidate."
Anyway, back to that little State Board of Education story.
"The California Board of Education, which sets policy for the state's 6 million public school students,
will meet today with no money in its budget, no president and feeling neglected by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger," writes the Bee's Aurelio Rojas.
"On June 30, the same day the Republican governor signed a budget that did not include any money for the board's staff, the panel's president,
Glee Johnson, abruptly quit."
"'
I think she felt the Governor's Office was overlooking the significance of the board and what it does,' said
Roger Magyar, the board's executive director, adding the budget mess was a factor."
"Johnson, who as an aide to Gov.
Pete Wilson helped usher in school standards and accountability, did not give a reason for her resignation and was not available for comment Tuesday."
The funding for the board "fell through the cracks" in the non-controversial education budget.
Oops.
"'There were some people who said, 'Governor, we think you ought to take action against the Legislature,'' Magyar said.
But he said the governor's advisers told him it was too late to hold up the budget over the matter."
"Ending one of his remaining fights with environmentalists, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger
will ask the federal government today to protect 4.4 million acres of national forests from any new roads for timber, oil or gas exploration or other development," reports Robert Salladay for the Times.
"If approved, the Schwarzenegger plan would allay environmentalists' fears that national forest land in California would be opened to development, endangering fish and wildlife. The governor's request was in response to a controversial Bush administration rule that opened millions of "roadless" areas nationwide."
"'Having a Republican governor of a western state, with a large amount of roadless areas, stand up to protect all the areas sends an important signal to the rest of the country,' said
Sara Barth, California regional director of the Wilderness Society."
"The Schwarzenegger petition will be scrutinized by the Department of Agriculture and a review committee before officials decide whether to approve it. Environmentalists said that if it is approved, they would closely monitor how it gets implemented."
From our
State Contract Duel Files: "Pistol seller SigArms Inc.
has gone to court to stop the California Highway Patrol from taking delivery of its new pistols, alleging that the department's recent $5.3 million order for Smith & Wesson guns violated state contract rules," reports the Bee's Andrew McIntosh.
"A hearing is set for Thursday on the temporary restraining order against the CHP and the state Department of General Services."
"'Our goal is not to get the courts to give us the contract, but just to give us a fair shot at winning the contract,' said
Eric Cook, SigArms' general counsel."
Dan Walters
looks at the seeming liquid dichotomy between the governor's talk of better levees for flood control amid a new report by the Department of Water Resources warning of insufficient water due to global warming.
"In truth, California has lots of water, more than enough to satisfy all reasonable demands for human and natural uses, if it's managed intelligently and with users paying its full, unsubsidized costs.
We do not need to radically change our lifestyles or adopt doomsday scenarios."
Guess that
Al Gore flick didn't have much of an impact.
"Even if the effects of global warming seen in the DWR report come true, stronger winter flows can be converted into better summer supplies, if we do what's needed and stop circular debates that serve other ideological agendas."
Finally, from our
Fly the Smoky Skies Files: "A
new airline for smokers only is scheduled to make its first flights in March 2007."
"Smintair (Smokers' International Airways) has been founded by a German businessman,
Alexander W. Schoppmann, in the hope of attracting the Asian business market as well as pro-smoking Europeans. Smintair plans to fly jumbo jets with 30 first-class and 108 business-class seats equipped with televisions, DVDs, gourmet food and 'charming and beautiful' flight attendants. And ashtrays, of course."
