I recently finished reading Meg Whitman’s new book “The Power of Many.” This is on top of my reading last fall of Jerry Brown’s “Dialogues” and seven other books about his first governorship. Why did I do this? Pulling out toenails wasn’t enough fun.

There is much talk about the differences between Whitman and Brown. I found, however, similarities. Each has a tendency to speak in aphorisms that can leave listeners scratching their heads.

This put me in mind of that master of aphorisms, Confucius. So, for your spiritual enlightment, I offer the following quiz—a list of quotes. Each of these little pearls was offered to the world by one of three people: Jerry Brown, Meg Whitman or Confucius.

1. “He who will not economize will have to agonize.”

2. “Inaction may be the biggest form of action.”

3. “I really hate waste.”

I have investigated the situation, and I believe I have found the man responsible for Carly Fiorina’s strange sheep ad and Steve Poizner’s bizarre demand for federal law enforcement investigation of his rival Meg Whitman’s attempts to get him to abandon the race.

The man responsible for this madness is, I am sad to report, me.

Well, not just me, but me and people like me. Journalists with short attention spans, who are bored by most of what goes on in the U.S. Senate and gubernatorial races, and have trouble finding editors who want to hear about the relatively routine policy and political debates in both contests. As a result, we rarely write about what’s happening in these races.

That leaves candidates desperate for media attention. And so, quite rationally, they realize that the only way to rouse me from my slumber is to do something a bit bizarre.

Repair California, the committee trying to qualify constitutional convention measures for the California ballot, says it is being blacklisted by at least some of the state's major signature gathering firms.

In a press release and in letters to signature gathering companies, Repair says it's not merely that gatherers won't carry petitions. In some cases, its own volunteer circulators are being blocked. "Also, there is evidence of "dirty tricks" designed to thwart the Constitutional Convention petition effort," says the release, available at Repair's web site. "For example, persons acting on the signature gathering firms' behalf may have thrown valid signatures away." The cease-and-desist letter, as released by Repair, does not identify the companies in question.

When I asked Repair California's campaign director, John Grubb, on Wednesday which firms appeared to be carrying on the blacklist, he named three firms. California has six such firms. I've decided not to name the three firms here, for the time being, as I try to learn more about this. The owners of two of the firms mentioned did not return my calls yesterday. The owner of a third firm did, but would not comment for the record.

California’s economy is in the toilet. The budget stands in perpetual crisis. The entire governing system doesn’t work.

Amidst the Bladerunner-style wreckage of our state government, the legislature is making time for hearings on filling the job of the lieutenant governor for the next 10 months.

Why bother?

This is the question that was raised, but never really answered, Tuesday afternoon as State Senator Abel Maldonado made the case for his own confirmation during a press conference call.

We’ve now entered the weird season – or perhaps the silly season, depending on your perspective – of the California Republican gubernatorial primary.

This morning, Steve Poizner called a press conference – no stated reason given – to talk about the race. Some journalists wondered if he was pulling out. He wasn’t.

Instead, he argued he had been a victim of a crime.

The crime? Threatening him if he doesn’t leave the race for governor and hand the nomination to Whitman.

The Whitman campaign’s reaction? Top Whitman advisor Rob Stutzman responded to an email query by saying of Poizner: “He’s gone nuts.”

Paul Jacob, in his Townhall column, goes after California Republican gubernatorial frontrunner Meg Whitman for multiple statements criticizing the initiative process. "Obviously, Whitman very much wants Californians to cast a vote for her this year," Jacob writes. "And then, apparently, she wants to stop Californians from casting a vote on much of anything else in the future.

Jacob's name carries great weight in part because he was the founder and organizer of the successful term limits movement in the U.S. Today he runs the Citizens in Charge Foundation, which is organizing nationwide to protect and expand direct democracy. (Full disclosure: Jacob and Citizens in Charge are leading participants in the 2010 Global Forum on Modern Direct Democracy, a conference on initiative and referendum that I'm organizing this summer in San Francisco.)

Jacob himself has suffered for his commitment to direct democracy, having been indicted in Oklahoma three years ago for using out-of-state signature gatherers. Using such signatures isn't a crime -- and shouldn't be. Eventually, all charges against Jacob and his co-defendants -- the Oklahoma Three -- were dismissed.

The answer: it's not clear.

Here's the scoop.

John Grubb of Repair California, the committee that's seeking to qualify ballot initiatives to call a constitutional convention for the state, recently explained to me his group's unconventional strategy for signature gathering.

Instead of doing a conventional signature gathering drive, with one of the big California firms and paid gatherers, Repair California is trying to use the signature gathering process to help build an organization. The effort combines social networking functions on the Internet and a volunteer signature drive. Repair California is supplementing these efforts with some paid signature gatherers.

I’m Scott Brown too.

OK. I’m not really Scott Brown. Though I am married to a journalist, drive a populist sort of car, and am a mealy-mouthed moderate at heart. Oh, yes, and I too have great hair.

It’s just that everyone all of a sudden says they are Scott Brown. Well, at least every Republican or independent running for office.

Even in California.

Carly Fiorina has been comparing herself to Scott Brown and suggesting that Barbara Boxer is about as invincible as Martha Coakley. Tom Campbell has been name-checking Scott Brown, perhaps because he thinks that candidates without any money can eventually come up with big dollars, just like Scott Brown.

Good news. We finally have a bipartisan consensus on what ails California. Everything, absolutely everything, is Gov. Schwarzenegger's fault.

Even when the governor is right.

His current effort to extract more money from Washington DC - a righteous cause that has gone over like a lead Goodyear Blimp - has brought the crazy glue governor's problem (everything sticks to him) into sharp relief.

Exhibit 1 of the problem: The folks at the progressive Calitics blog, in a post denouncing Arnold as the "worst governor ever," agree with him: that California, not to mention other states, need more money from the feds. Now to be fair, they don't like the way Arnold has gone about seeking the money, which involves the radically straightforward strategy of pressuring our representatives in Congress to come up with more money.

The Onion recently ran a story under the headline: "Democrats Hoping to Take Control of Congress From Minority Republicans in 2010."

If there were a California version of the Onion, you could run a similar story here, simply by replacing "Congress" with "The Legislature."

To repeat briefly what we all know: Under California's constitutional rules requiring a 2/3 vote for spending bills and revenue increases, the legislative minority, if it can stay together, is in charge. And California's legislative Republicans have been skilled at taking hostages each year, threatening to send the state into fiscal chaos unless its demands are met. Democrats have been unable to figure out how to win these battles, so they have the worst of both worlds - they're responsible for the legislature's failings but don't really have the power to do anything about it.