Opinion

Has the mainstream media gone flaccid — or MIA — in vetting candidates, particularly first-time candidates with no public record? There is perhaps no better example of today’s emaciated political press corps than the basically free ride Carly Fiorina, a corporate honcho who claims she worked wonders at her last company, Hewlett Packard, has…

In last week’s radio debate between Sen. Barbara Boxer and her opponent, deposed Hewlett Packard CEO Carly Fiorina, the latter went to great lengths to slap some rouge on her extremist position on a woman’s right to choose. As could be seen in the videotape of Fiorina in the Pasadena studio, she furrowed her brow,…

Lately, there has been much gleeful hand rubbing among national Republicans about the prospect of knocking off U.S. Sen. Barbara Boxer and retaking a Golden State Senate seat, both of which have been held by Democrats since 1992. My advice to Republicans? Rub your hands all you want, but hand out your money to…

This year, the party of (overwhelmingly white) elephants may just put up their most diverse statewide ticket ever. California GOP voters appeared poised to anoint their first-ever female candidate for governor, Meg Whitman – and perhaps their first-ever woman U.S. Senate nominee, too. Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has appointed state Sen. Abel Maldonado as lieutenant…

Appointed statewide officials have a dismal record in California, something Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s lieutenant governor-designate may want to remember.

California can finally stop holding its collective breath: We have a lieutenant governor-designate. Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger announced on Monday’s “Jay Leno Show” that he was appointing state Sen. Abel Maldonado to the job vacated by now-U.S.…

So, former eBay CEO Meg Whitman has decided she wants to trade on-line flea-market trading for the governor’s office of the largest state.  In one fell swoop, no less.  She’s never run for office before at any level. Truth to tell, I’ve never actually met Whitman.  I did, however, run the campaigns that beat…

In “Twelfth Night,” Shakespeare reminds, “Youth’s a stuff will not endure.” But given what has been happening to the Republicans among the youngest voters, their resulting electoral problems could indeed endure for 20-30 years. On November 4, the youngest cohort of voters, 18-29, gave Barack Obama…

Many of my down-in-the-mouth Republican friends, contemplating the ongoing implosion of John McCain’s campaign, are consoling themselves with the idea that Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin represents the future of the party. She’s the new rock star in the firmament of the Grand Old Party, they’re convinced — and she certainly will be the presumed…

The celebrated 18th-century English sage “Dr.” Samuel Johnson once said, “Every old man complains of the … petulance and insolence of the rising generation.” See any evidence of this aphorism in the apparent — and increasing — disdain of John McCain toward Barack Obama? (Hints: Obama as Britney Spears or Paris Hilton? The Obama…

Political consultant Mark Penn came in for a lot of outrage last week when a March 2007 strategy memo for Hillary Rodham Clinton’s campaign surfaced. In it, Penn suggested exploiting Barack Obama’s “multicultural, diverse” boyhood as a “very strong weakness.” According to Penn, Obama’s ties to “basic American values and culture are at best…