Capitol Weekly takes a look at
what's next for the California GOP, after once again failing to build a bench of statewide officeholders.
"Wednesday morning, Republicans woke up to find themselves in familiar territory. So what is to be made of the results? The two Republican winners were both moderates, and conservatives
Tony Strickland and
Chuck Poochigian lost by wide margins. But GOP moderate
Bruce McPherson lost his race by about the same number of votes as the conservative McClintock.
There did not seem to be a clear ideological rhyme or reason to the election results."
"So while some Republicans grumble that the governor did not do enough to help fellow Republicans this election year, the party was left to wonder once again what the implications are for their future."
"
'Obviously, the lesson from this election is it pays to have a horrible Democratic opponent and lots of money in the bank,' said Mike Spence, president of the conservative California Republican Assembly."
Matier and Ross write "Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's political rehabilitation and re-election has Democrats
wondering whether he'll take on Sen. Barbara Boxer when her term comes up in 2010."
Chief among those wondering is Barbara Boxer.
"Termed-out state Sen.
Jackie Speier, D-Hillsborough, has already raised the question, and so has former San Francisco Mayor
Willie Brown."
"The thinking? 'His wife is part of the Kennedy clan, and so it would be natural for a glamorous Kennedy star to elevate himself to the U.S. Senate as the next
Barack Obama,' Brown said."
"After all, 'here's a guy investing $15 million to $20 million of his own money in the governor's race,'' Brown said. '
That can't be what he's after.'"
Meanwhile, CW's Shane Goldmacher takes a look at
the richest politican in California.
"
Bill Lockyer opted to sidestep an expensive primary battle with eventual Democratic nominee
Phil Angelides, the current state treasurer, and state Controller
Steve Westly. He took his campaign war chest--totaling more than $10 million--and coasted to victory as treasurer."
"Today, that decision leaves him with more campaign cash than any other politician in California."
"As of the latest filing period, Lockyer had more than $10.5 million cash on hand. Perhaps more remarkably, in 2006, an election year, Lockyer raised more money than he spent, taking in $1.54 million, while spending only $1.26 million."
Meanwhile, Jerry Brown celebrated his election as attorney general Wednesday by announcing the formation of the
Suede Denim Secret Police.
"Savoring his post-election high, Gov.
Arnold Schwarzenegger jetted to the Mexican capital Wednesday on a mission to promote trade and also talk privately with leaders here about the most contentious issue confronting the two neighbors: immigration," reports Kate Folmar in the Merc News.
"During the two-day mission, Schwarzenegger and first lady
Maria Shriver will breakfast today with outgoing Mexican President
Vicente Fox, who visited Sacramento in May. The governor will meet Friday with president-elect
Felipe Calderón of the conservative PAN party, who won after a tumultuous election this summer."
"This is Schwarzenegger's first visit as governor to the Mexican capital. Politically, the whirlwind jaunt will serve as a post-election victory lap for the governor, much as a mission to China last fall was a tonic for his special election hangover."
"'I think Schwarzenegger is thinking long-term,' Claremont McKenna political scientist
Jack Pitney said. 'The Republican Party can't survive forever without a substantial share of the Latino vote.'"
And, that Latino vote just might be important in a bid against
Barbara Boxer...
As for next year? "Gov.
Arnold Schwarzenegger said Tuesday's election was a
mandate for Republicans and Democrats to continue working together to address issues ranging from the health care to prison construction."
"The Republican governor said he was 'over the moon' with happiness about his 17-point victory over Democrat
Phil Angelides and the success of the bond measures he backed."
"'
This was not a vote for me,' he said at the Santa Monica Airport shortly before boarding a plane to Mexico. '
This was letting us know we need to go in the same direction ... and do what is best for the state of California.'"
The OC's Register's Soraya Nelson reports,
"the jury is still out on exactly what kind of Golden State governor Schwarzenegger will be in his final term."
The Bee's Jim Sanders looks at why there was
virtually no coattails effect of the governor's large victory.
Dan "Schnur said Wednesday he hadn't taken into account the partisan national backlash against President Bush that gave Democrats control of the House of Representatives and likely the Senate."
"'It just so happened that there were two strong trends at the top of the ticket that were working in opposite directions,' he said."
"
Bruce Cain, director of the Institute of Governmental Studies at the University of California, Berkeley, suggested that coattails were far-fetched in a gubernatorial race in which Schwarzenegger tried to distance himself from the image of a partisan Republican."
"'He got kicked the last time he tried to use his position to get Republicans elected,' Cain said."
"'And I think, across the country, people were saying to a greater degree that they wanted divided government. ... It was, 'I don't trust either party. I'd rather have them have to bargain with one another.' '"
The LAT's Michael Finnegan
reads the tea leaves. "Combined, the results [of the senate, gubernatorial, insurance commissioner and other statewide elections]
fit California voters' long history of hopping back and forth between candidates of both major parties, selecting the most centrist candidates. Their nonideological independent streak has grown more pronounced in recent years, with 19% of the state's voters no longer affiliated with either party, up from 15% four years ago."
"California's
libertarian tradition also showed in Tuesday's balloting. Voters rejected the same abortion limits that they turned down a year ago (a parental notification rule for minors), and they spurned every social conservative on the Republican ticket."
"Surveying their two losses on Wednesday morning, Democrats cited heavy spending by Poizner and Schwarzenegger that their rivals lacked the wherewithal to match."
"'It was a constant barrage of attack ads, especially on Cruz,' state Democratic Party Chairman
Art Torres said at a candidate victory celebration Wednesday morning in Oakland. 'Unless you have the money to rebut those attack ads, that's what's going to stick with the voters.'
Jordan Rau looks at the line forming as the state
prepares to hand out bond money. "A day after voters approved the state's largest public construction effort in four decades, government planners throughout California geared up for an intense competition to secure money for thousands of long-neglected projects to bring the state's roads, parks, schools and housing into the 21st century."
"By design, the $42.7 billion in borrowing authorized by voters Tuesday included few named projects. But hundreds of long-stalled improvements on the wish lists of local governments are likely to be among the first funded. They include the synchronization of traffic lights throughout Los Angeles County, restoration of the concrete-encased Los Angeles River, addition of carpool lanes to the 405 Freeway, widening of major highway arteries in Orange and Riverside counties and installation of pollution-control equipment on hundreds of diesel-spewing school buses."
George Skelton writes that California
is not a dark blue state, but rather light blue or purple. "The one GOP victor, besides Schwarzenegger, was insurance commissioner candidate
Steve Poizner, who ran as a moderate. True, his opponent, Lt. Gov.
Cruz Bustamante, was spoiled goods because of past campaign-funding sleaze. And Poizner, a Silicon Valley entrepreneur, was rich enough to finance his own campaign. But Poizner's centrism puts him on the list of potential governors."
"'
In my view, this is the end of the conservative Republican statewide in California,' says
Tony Quinn, a Republican and co-editor of the Target Book, which monitors political races. '
As long as the grass grows and the wind blows, we will never see another one of them elected statewide.'"
"I wouldn't go that far. There must be a Ronald Reagan out there somewhere."
"But Quinn's point, buttressed by Tuesday's election, is that 'voters of this state have made it pretty clear. They won't go to the far left or to the far right.'"
Daniel Weintraub offers
the formula for a Republican governor: "Schwarzenegger is proof that voters here will embrace a Republican who fights for economic freedom and lower taxes as long as he is socially moderate and willing to compromise to get things done."
Dan Morain wraps the campaign spending story by finding that
those who spent the most generally won. "The year's biggest spenders — and biggest winners — were the oil and tobacco industries. In almost every contest, candidates and issues with the most money trumped the side with less, even if the losers raised bags full."
"Although final numbers won't be known until January, contributors spent a record sum on California campaigns in 2006, more than $600 million. The record was about $500 million, in 1998."
"The oil industry spent
$95 million to beat back Proposition 87, which would have imposed a new extraction tax of up to $485 million a year.
Proponents of the measure spent $57 million, of which $50 million came from Hollywood millionaire
Stephen L. Bing. The result was the nation's first $150-million ballot-measure campaign."
"Proposition 86, which would have added a $2.60 tax to a pack of cigarettes, was the second-costliest initiative in 2006. In any other year, the
$66.6 million that tobacco firms spent to defeat it would have been eye-popping."
"At most a single seat in the 120-member Legislature will shift party control after Tuesday's vote, but
the complexion of the institution will nonetheless change, as nearly half the Assembly turns over, and several business-friendly politicians moderate the historically liberal Senate," reports Nancy Vogel for the Times.
"No incumbent lawmaker lost in the general election, and only an open Senate seat in Orange County that had been held by a Democrat might change party hands. That race is too close to call: Republican Assemblywoman
Lynn Daucher led Democrat
Lou Correa by 138 votes Wednesday, with about 12,000 absentee and provisional ballots to be counted."
And, as for redistricting?
"'I think you're going to see something come out of the Legislature this year and be on the '08 ballot,' said Senate President Pro Tem
Don Perata (D-Oakland). 'The bigger problem now is what it's going to look like.'"
Haven't we heard that before?
"When the Legislature resumes Jan. 3, it will include California's first Chinese American senator, San Francisco Democrat
Leland Yee, and nine African Americans — the largest black caucus in the state's history. Several of the new members hail from districts outside traditional African American strongholds."
Meanwhile, "Proposition 83's buffer zone, which bars any registered sex offender from living within 2,000 feet of a school or park,
may well be an unconstitutional retroactive penalty, U.S. District Judge
Susan Illston ruled. She
issued a temporary restraining order blocking enforcement of the provision in four Bay Area counties at the request of a local man, who said the initiative would force him out of the community where he has lived for more than 20 years."
"Illston found that the plaintiff, identified only as John Doe, had shown a 'substantial likelihood of success' in demonstrating that Prop. 83 is a punitive measure that should not be imposed on people who committed sex crimes before voters passed the measure Tuesday.
She barred enforcement of the residency restrictions until Nov. 27, when a hearing is scheduled before another federal judge on a preliminary injunction that would extend the ban."
"The order applies only in San Francisco, Alameda, Marin and Sonoma counties, whose district attorneys were named as defendants, along with Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and state Attorney General
Bill Lockyer. The suit said John Doe lives in one of the four counties and would move to a new home in one of them if forced to comply with Prop. 83."
The Bee's Peter Hecht writes "...Proposition 85, which would have required doctors to notify a parent or guardian before performing an abortion on a girl under 18,
went down to defeat Tuesday by 54 percent to 46 percent. The margin was slightly wider than for the 2005 version, Proposition 73."
"
Mark DiCamillo, director of the California Field Poll, said the deciding factor may simply have been that voters felt they had already rendered a decision last year."
"'I think voters said, 'I thought we already decided this,' ' DiCamillo said. "I think that factors in the second time around.'"
