Opinion

Much of the speculation surrounding the impending recall vote on California Gov. Gavin Newsom has centered on whether another Arnold Schwarzenegger-type figure would enter the race and alter the dynamic, as happened in the 2003 recall that ripped Gov. Gray Davis from office. When Caitlyn Jenner announced her candidacy, some of the over-hyped coverage suggested she might be the Arnold of this…

Republican recall candidate John Cox, who Gavin Newsom demolished in the 2018 governor’s race, is so desperate he’s started campaigning with a 1,000-lb bear. But there’s a different animal stalking the campaign of Caitlyn Jenner. The elephant in the room — quite literally — with the Jenner candidacy is how willing Republican voters are to…

With a recall against Gov. Gavin Newsom looming later this year, there’s a fair bit of nonsense circulating about his strategy for beating the attempt to oust him from office – chiefly, people arguing that a prominent Democrat should jump into the race to replace him. A recall ballot consists of two questions: should the…

Here we go again, the second recall attempt mounted by Republicans against a sitting Democratic governor of California in 18 years. Why so much use of the recall here? Simply put, it’s because, all things being equal, Republicans can’t win in a fair-and-square regular election in California. Let’s recount the Republicans’ recent history of electoral…

For almost three decades, California Republicans have nurtured political fantasies about what I call their “great white hopes” — big-city Republican mayors that they believe would make peachy-keen candidates for statewide office. After all, they were elected and re-elected as chief executives of major, diverse cities. So, what could possibly go wrong if they try…

Gov. Gray Davis made history on Oct. 7, 2003, by becoming only the second governor in the lifetime of the U.S. to be recalled by voters. The only other was a governor of faraway North Dakota in 1921. With Gov. Gavin Newsom now under threat of recall himself, Democrats would do well to remember the…

The biggest casualty of the 2020 election was, of course, Donald Trump, who became only the fifth president since the 1800s to be booted out of office after one term — and the first in 28 years. But the second most prominent victim may turn out to be Trump’s sidekick, Vice President Mike Pence. It’s…

In our many collective decades of covering and engaging in local, state and national politics, we have been frustrated by the failure of city councils, boards of supervisors, state legislatures and Congress to effectively eradicate abusive behavior by the minority of law enforcement officers who are nurtured and protected by a culture of corruption in…

Having been asked to write a piece for CalMatters about the California primary this Tuesday, I first asked myself, what do I really know for sure about the race and the candidate field that would be enlightening or even interesting to share with the readers? After pondering that question, instead of playing a prognosticator with…

Gov. Gavin Newsom set off a blizzard of criticism last week by signing a law requiring that all presidential and gubernatorial candidates provide five years’ of income tax returns in order to appear on California’s primary ballot. Most of the pearl-clutching has plopped into the following three baskets: There surely must be something unconstitutional about…