Opinion

This weekend, the estimable governor of the Great State of Mississippi, Haley Barbour, comes to California to speak to the (rapidly diminishing) species we call Republicanus Californicus at their state convention in Sacramento. Barbour will cause a buzz because he will be the biggest-name speaker the state GOP could draw to their gathering, keynoting the…

Back in October of 2008, I penned a piece for Politico predicting that Sarah Palin, despite all the hype and frothing over her selection as the first female on a Republican presidential ticket, would never get the Republican nomination for president in the future, let alone be elected president. I pointed out that during…

OK, I admit it, folks, I was wrong about the elections in November. Very wrong. For years, I have been dinging and pinging the “other party” – the Republicans – in print, including in this publication, for their inability to win statewide elections in California.  In 2004, I penned a piece in the Sacramento…

When Jerry Brown takes the oath of office as governor for the third time in January, he will have a Legislature – to be sworn in Monday – controlled overwhelmingly by his own party, just as he did 36 years ago. But that may be about the only thing he’ll recognize about the legislative branch,…

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…