Author: John Wildermuth

When Gov. Jerry Brown presents his, to steal a phrase, “terrible, horrible, no good, very bad” budget this morning, Republican legislators could quickly find themselves in a bind.

Brown has spent the days and weeks since his November election telling anyone who will listen just how ghastly a financial fix California is in and the type of something-for-everyone-to-hate budget that’s going to be needed to keep the state afloat.

Nobody and nothing will be spared, the governor promised, including plenty of programs his fellow Democrats have gone to war over in the past.

The spending plan will be smoke and mirror free, he pledged, and will show Californians exactly how much shared pain will be needed to staunch the fiscal bleeding.

All that’s way easier said than done, but if the governor follows through on his promises, GOP lawmakers face a dilemma.

If you’re sick and getting sicker, you look for a top doctor. If you get pulled over by the cops and blow a .15 on the Breathalyzer, you call the best lawyer you can find. When a pipe breaks and water is filling the basement, it’s no time for the guy with the “Plumbing for Dummies” book.

When times are tough, people want a professional in charge and times don’t get any tougher than they are in California right now. That’s a huge part of the reason the voters in November picked Jerry Brown to run the state for the next four years and why the once and future governor is my choice for Californian of the Year.

These days, it’s no compliment to call someone a “professional politician.” On any recent list of America’s most respected professions, you’d find politicians in the basement, rambling around with the used car salesmen, infomercial hosts and oil company CEOs.

But while the country is run by the people, the country’s government is run by politicians elected by those people. And as California has discovered, rookie officeholders aren’t necessarily the reincarnation of Hiram Johnson, Earl Warren, Pat Brown or Ronald Reagan.

Notice to our Readers: Fox and Hounds Daily regular contributor John Wildermuth will be absent from our site for at least several months. John has accepted a temporary reporter’s position at his former home, the San Francisco Chronicle. We will miss him at F&HD and are grateful for the time he spent with us. –Editor

Great quotes never die, especially in politics, where they tend to reappear in opposition research reports and in 30-second TV spots. Here are a few of the comments most likely to echo through the remainder of the 2010 campaign.

1. “Can you say ‘senator’ instead of ‘ma’am’? It’s just a thing. I worked so hard to get that title.”

Democratic Sen. Barbara Boxer to Army Brig. Gen. Michael Walsh.

An instant favorite with Republicans already convinced of Boxer’s arrogance and disrespect for the military. A guaranteed part of the fall campaign, regardless of who wins the GOP primary.

2. “I was focused on raising a family, on my husband’s career, and we moved many, many times.”

Meg Whitman on why she almost never voted until she was 46 years old.

This isn’t an explanation that will go over well with the millions of California women who raised families, helped their husbands and still managed to vote, all without the nannies, household help and jumbo paychecks Whitman and her neurosurgeon husband cashed.

It’s a good thing well-heeled GOP candidates like Meg Whitman, Steve Poizner and Carly Fiorina can finance their own campaigns because the state Republican Party sure can’t afford to.

State finance reports released Thursday showed the California GOP is raising less and spending more than its Democratic counterpart, leaving the party in shaky financial condition four months into an election year.

Actually, shaky is probably an improvement for California Republicans. Two years ago, the party was running in the red, with $3.2 million in the bank and $3.4 million in unpaid bills.

While the top-of-the-ticket names running for governor and Senate can be counted on to either raise enough money or write their own checks for serious campaigns, the down ballot races and legislative candidates depend on help from the party to get out the vote and help fight the general election battle.

The California Teachers Association has put another $500,000 into its effort to overturn a trio of business tax breaks, setting the stage for a nasty November ballot battle.

While half a million dollars is probably way less than the “incremental investment” Republican Meg Whitman has promised to add to the $39 million she’s already spent on her campaign for governor, it’s a sign as to just how seriously public employees unions are taking this fall’s election.

That’s serious as in $2.2 million serious, which is how much the CTA has spent in its effort to qualify the repeal measure for the ballot.

The business community also is gearing up for a fight. On Wednesday, Amgen, a Southern California biotech company, became the ninth big-name business to write a $100,000 check to the “Stop the Jobs Tax” campaign.

Ah, politics. The clash of ideas, the roar of the crowds and the whining of the candidates.

There’s nothing like calling a press conference and tossing out some angry accusations to brighten a slow news day and maybe grab some free publicity.

And if nothing comes of the charges, hey, at least the name gets spelled right.

For years, the accepted way to end one of those table-pounding news conferences was to hand out a copy of a letter that was being sent to the state’s Fair Political Practices Commission, demanding that the other side stop its terrible and illegal TV ad/fund-raising letter/hidden arrangement/dirty trick/mean talk.

There was absolutely no down side to that letter, either, since the FPPC was typically so far behind in its watchdog duties that the election would be over long before anyone even looked at the letter, much less took action.

Some of the financial moves surrounding the Prop. 14 open primary measure make it clear that Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s campaign reform efforts haven’t touched the money side of politics.

A flood of cash has been pouring into the Prop. 14 campaign ever since a financial report released last Monday showed that the effort was beyond broke, with about $90,000 more in bills than it had cash in the kitty.

No sooner had the Los Angeles Times mentioned that the campaign was on the shorts than Reed Hastings, the Netflix CEO, dropped $257,000 into the effort. The very next day, the governor’s political piggy bank, better known as Arnold Schwarzenegger’s California Dream Team, pumped another $500,000 into the campaign.

A deeper look at those financial records, however, shows why there’s a continuing concern about how money is used – and reported — in political campaigns.

When Steve Poizner’s TV ad talks about “the Whitman/Obama policy” on immigration, California voters are seeing the themes he’s hoping can carry him to victory in the GOP primary for governor.

From now until June, expect to see Poizner pound on two points. First, that he’s the conservative candidate who will be toughest on illegal immigration and, second, that Meg Whitman is no real Republican.

Recent polls show Poizner running a staggering 50 percentage points behind the former eBay CEO, who’s spent better than $46 million on her campaign, with plenty more to come. The only way to trim that type of lead is with an all-attack, all-the-time strategy aimed at shocking the hard-core conservatives who make up a major chunk of the voters in a Republican primary.

That’s why you can bet that Poizner’s oppo research folks are combing photo galleries for any picture of Whitman with Democratic Sen. Barbara Boxer, just the thing to feature in the inevitable TV spot that will talk about how Whitman endorsed Boxer in 2004.

Let the pot wars begin.

An initiative to legalize the possession and sale of marijuana in California officially made the November ballot Wednesday, opening the door to a, ah, high-stakes campaign that the whole country will be watching.

If passed, California would have the most marijuana-friendly laws in the nation, if not the entire world.

How the vote will go depends on whom you ask.

The initiative drive was financed by Richard Lee, a marijuana entrepreneur who put up almost all the $1.3 million it took to qualify the measure for the ballot.