Newsom Rumors Won’t Go Away
Gavin Newsom says “it’s absurd” that anyone would think he’d give up the race for governor and lower his sights to the second spot on the ballot.
“It’s Jerry Brown who’s putting those rumors out,’’ the mayor told the Chronicle.
There’s two bits of bad news for Newsom connected with the Sunday story. First, the story is coming from people close to the mayor and his campaign, not from the Brown camp.
But second, and even more dismaying for the mayor, is that just about the only person in California who thinks the rumor is ridiculous on its face is Newsom.
The talk about a lieutenant governor option has been swirling around the Newsom campaign for months. When Michela Alioto-Pier announced in late July that she was running for state insurance commissioner rather than lieutenant governor, there was immediate speculation that Newsom, who had appointed her to his old seat on the San Francisco Board of Supervisors, had asked her to stay out of the LG race.
Lessons from Bill Lockyer
State Treasurer Bill Lockyer generated a storm last week with his testimony before the Senate and Assembly Select Committees on Improving State Government.
He warned that public pensions and health care costs could bankrupt the state, that taxes will not go up, and that the legislature should clean up its act by getting rid of “junk” bills. An edited clip of his testimony can be viewed here.
Some might argue this was Lockyer’s Nixon-to-China moment, telling his Democratic colleagues to deal forthrightly with the state’s fiscal realities. In FlashReport, Former Republican State Senator Ray Haynes that Lockyer as the state senate leader had a different view of pensions, but now welcomed him to the fight.
The former legislative leader and former attorney general is no stranger to bold speaking.
Proper Way to Toy With Rival
It was about a year ago when Mattel of El Segundo won its eye-widening court case that put it on the path to take over the line of Bratz dolls from MGA Entertainment of Van Nuys.
Oh, sure, other skirmishes followed, but for the most part, the big doll brawl was finished last year. And it was the end of one audacious, memorable corporate fracas.
Wait a minute. Hold on to your Barbies. Maybe it’s not the end.
MGA a few months ago unveiled a line of dolls called Moxie Girlz that could be mistaken for Bratz dolls. There are four multiethnic Moxie dolls, much like the four Bratz dolls, and they have huge eyes and wear fashionable clothes, much like Bratz. (However, they are slightly less sexualized, from which parents like me can take some small comfort.) And since they retail for $19.97 each, they even cost about three bucks less than a Bratz doll.