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Legs of Republican Party platform in peril?
"They have run for so long on a fundamentalist platform that heads will explode and a nasty fight will ensue." The Republican Party does not run for office: people do, and California's last three Republican governors did not run on a fundamentalist platform or an anti-gay agenda. Pete Wilson had several top aides who were gay as did Arnold, no doubt, and on most social issues they differed hardly at all from their Democrat counterparts and I know that when I was on Wilson's Senate campaign staff, the party platform meant nothing and played no role in campaigning or governing. The people who actually get involved in the state and local GOP and Democrat party chapters are the fringe of each party and live to debate and draft meaningless manifestos whose main purpose is to placate the zealots and give the opposition something to criticize. Certainly you'd be hard-pressed to a find a voter who's read them.— October 31, 2014 7 p.m.
Death for all three of them?
"Death for all three of them?" This is California, so the answer to that is "Nope, not even a slim chance of that ever happening."— October 13, 2014 11:06 a.m.
Could Brown reappoint unpopular Peevey?
It will be interesting to see his next gubernatorial appointment. I'm sure that was arranged when he and Jerry sat down to discuss Mike's "retiring from the PUC" announcement. Unless Peevey is ready to retire entirely from being a big shot, Brown will have to give him some impressive-sounding title. Maybe we should vote in new law allowing governors to knight people such as Peevey: that would give them a big title, but keep them away from jobs where they could do damage to the public. "I dub thee Sir Michael the Intimidator."— October 11, 2014 7:38 a.m.
Could Brown reappoint unpopular Peevey?
Don, I debated Peevey when I headed the opposition to the SDG&E takeover by Edison. I also once sat down for a meeting with him (why, I can't recall). I do recall he seemed like the kind of guy who'd call in the boys from Vegas to break your legs with a baseball bat and seemed used to winning by intimidation. He was Edison's enforcer and I can only imagine how he must have intimidated legislators who proposed something that wasn't "in Edison's best interest." Jerry Brown has been a politician for most of his life, first getting elected in the 60's. That's his world, politics - often rough and tumble - and political alliances are more important than the public interest to career politicians who have little chance of not getting reelected. Mike Peevey is his friend, Peevey helps him maintain his life on the public dole. If he can get elected and not have to fire his friend, then there's no incentive for doing so? After working a congressman, senator, a governor and in various public affairs jobs, I learned that once politicians get to Sacramento - or DC - party differences are not what we think. Liberals and conservatives all jockey for support from those with the money and the big donors win out over the public interest. I know it's fun for progressives to think the Republicans have the edge in this, but the Democrats play the game just as well, if not better. Peevey and Brown are poster boys for this. Since leaving public affairs it has been hard for me to muster any enthusiasm for voting: the choice is always Fiddle-de-dee or Fiddle-de-dum and whomever gets elected is going to immediately start courting donors for their reelection campaign and quickly learning that between the donors' needs and their party's dictates, they have no independence, no ability to make a difference. This is why California's major legislative accomplishments now come down to the likes of banning plastic bags. We are gouged on energy costs, state government's finances and structure are fundamentally flawed, but by gosh we'll someday be able to rush between Fresno and Bakersfield on a bullet train! I'm trying to recall which San Diego state legislators have ever really championed utility consumers? Someone must have done something? I do recall that Steve Peace darn near broke us with his approach to energy. This is not about Jerry firing Mike: it's about the changing the way they all do business in Sacramento: it's about having legislators - from both parties - who would publically call for action by the Governor. But, that's not going to happen: the legislators have safe jobs and nothing to gain by bucking the Governor or big donors. Don, as Californians, when it comes to state governance, we are, as they say, screwed, and Peevey is just yet another symptom of that.— October 10, 2014 10 a.m.
Hispanic entrepreneurship low in SD
"San Diego, right on the Mexican border with a huge Hispanic population ends up that low" exactly because we are on the border. We have a lot more low-income Mexican immigrants (percentagewise and in actual numbers) than does San Francisco and you know that "median income and income growth" are going to weigh heavily in SFO's favor. Riverside and Anaheim? Who knows, such surveys as this have a high margin of error, so the results may be skewed, but I suspect that those communities - seen by most gringos as lousy places to live - have a more concentrated Latino population than does LA with its vast sprawl. Certainly Anaheim and Riverside have a much high percentage of Hispanics than does San Diego: using 2010 census numbers it's about 50-52% for each of those cities to about 29% for San Diego, which also its population spread out over a much larger area. You have to wonder if this "survey" looked at just the City of San Diego, or did it take in Chula Vista, Imperial Beach, Spring Valley, Vista, etc? This one likely came from one of those statisticians who insist that if you put your left foot into a bucket of ice water and your right foot into a bucket of boiling water, then statistically you are comfortable.— September 9, 2014 7:56 p.m.
Cartmill for Sweetwater board — get real
WOW - that guy has one big-a** ego. He makes his living as a professional speaker and government/education consultant ( http://www.jimcartmill.com/background.html ) so I guess having "current school board member" on your resume probably gets more bookings than "convicted ex-public official." Maybe he can convince Duke Cunningham to come back from Arkansas to run his campaign on the slogan, "Oops, sorry I got caught. My bad."— July 17, 2014 9:36 p.m.
Violent crime and bad records plague UCSD
Read it again: this is not about spending money protecting students - it's about spending money on paperwork that will go to some federal agency to be compiled into yet another useless statistical report. In it's desire to appear to do something, anything, in reponse to problems they can't actually solve. The education establishment, dependent as it is on federal dollars, gets overloaded with such makework requirements.— July 17, 2014 4:44 p.m.
Suit-happy lawyer sues theaters over free popcorn
"Where did the money go?" Maybe he paid for that free popcorn.— July 11, 2014 12:18 p.m.
Who owns Rancho Tembabichi?
Someone at MTS should have been smart enough to know that even if the company "owned a large property in Baja California that its shareholders were willing to put up as collateral for a project loan" that undeveloped property is not going to get accepted as collateral, especially when it's in Mexico. If there is a lender willing to do that, one can only imagine it must be someone who refers to interest as "the vig" and charges 6% interest per week, compounded weekly. It sounds like MTS's lack of business savvy gives the edge here to the Vegas speculators.— July 9, 2014 8:45 p.m.
What the emails tell us
Gee, signature gathers misrepresenting the facts - I am shocked! I mean, if you can't trust the guy at the card table outside Walmart, who can you trust? Oh wait, that's the entire basis of California's referendum system and the reason why state government is shackled by so many bad laws resulting from that system. As the story points out, Southwest Strategies, the overseer of the drive, took seriously its responsibility to direct the signature gathering company to ensure its employees stuck with the facts. It might be nice if a judge did decide that most adult voters who sign petitions had no idea what they are doing - then maybe the courts could do a retroactive review of the ignorance behind most past referendums and throw out some of the resulting laws.— April 3, 2014 4:28 p.m.