Author: John Wildermuth

If this were an old-style governor’s race, where candidates relied on the kindness of strangers to finance their campaigns, Democrat Jerry Brown would be doing pretty well.

According to finance reports released Monday, he’s raised more than $9.7 million in campaign funds since Jan. 1, dwarfing the $1.1 million in outside contributions Republican Meg Whitman took in or the measly $94,000 Steve Poizner managed to collect.

But those numbers don’t mean a thing in an era where a thick bankroll – and a willingness to spend it — is far more important to a would-be candidate than a gold-trimmed political resume.

Sure, Brown raised nearly $10 million, but Whitman wrote herself a check for$20 million in January, on top of the $19 million she already had put in her campaign. And while Poizner could only find a relative handful of folks to contribute to his campaign, the $19.2 million of his own money he dropped into his run for governor last year saved a bunch of fund-raising time.

With San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom running for lieutenant governor, the race is getting way more attention than it probably deserves. It’s also opened the way for a hazy bit of Democratic historical revisionism.

In a story that’s spread all over the liberal blogosphere, Paul Hogarth of Beyond Chron asks whether Newsom could become “the Angelides of 2010.”

Hogarth argues that state Democratic Treasurer Phil Angelides lost to Republican Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger four years ago because a grueling primary with Steve Westly and his campaign consultant Garry South “left (Angelides) so bloodied that he went on to lose the general election by a landslide.”

Without the nasty attacks South orchestrated against Angelides, California might now have a Democratic governor, Hogarth suggested.

While she’s anything but an unbiased source, Janice Hahn makes a good point in her effort to have the state’s election cops shackle Gavin Newsom’s fund-raising efforts in the Democratic race for lieutenant governor.

The Los Angeles councilwoman and her attorneys have filed a complaint with the Fair Political Practices Commission, arguing that Newsom shouldn’t be allowed to accept money from anyone who gave him more than $6,500, the contribution limit for the LG race, during his aborted run for governor.

By collecting big contributions for his run for governor, spending the cash before dropping out and then raising new money from the same people to finance a run for lieutenant governor, Newsom “has flouted state (campaign finance) law in an unprecedented manner,” Hahn’s FPPC filing said.

The stakes are huge for both Newsom and Hahn, even if the power of the LG’s office isn’t. Since the contribution limit for the governor’s race is $25,900 and Newsom collected more than $2.3 million from a whole bunch of donors before waving the white flag, the San Francisco mayor has lots of deep-pocketed friends who could find themselves maxed out on contributions before the LG race even gets started.

How conservative was the crowd at the state GOP convention this weekend?

Well, consider this. Meg Whitman called Steve Poizner “the only liberal” in the Republican primary for governor. That’s the same Poizner who spent the weekend complaining that the federal government won’t let him kick the children of illegal immigrants out of school and bar them from hospital emergency rooms.

If there were any moderates hanging around the Hyatt Regency Santa Clara this weekend, they were probably waiting for an opening in the witness protection program.

The result was a conservative version of “Can You Top This?” as played by the candidates for governor and U.S. Senate.

Poizner says he’ll cut the capital gains tax by 50 percent. Whitman pledges to eliminate it.

Down by 30 points in the polls? Check.

Being battered by a never-ending barrage of TV and radio ads? Check.

Having trouble raising money? Check.

If you listen to Steve Poizner, all that shows is that he’s got Meg Whitman right where he wants her.

The next four days are Poizner’s best – and possibly last – chance to turn things around if he’s going to make a serious run at victory in June’s GOP primary for governor.

It’s a window of opportunity that opens tonight with the start of the state Republican convention at the Hyatt Regency Hotel in Santa Clara and continues through his first face-to-face debate with Whitman Monday evening in Costa Mesa.

When it comes to redistricting, $2.7 million may trump $280,000.

The $2.7 million is what Charles Munger, a Palo Alto Republican, has anted up to qualify a “Son of Prop. 11” redistricting measure for the November ballot.

The initiative is simple enough. It allows the Citizens Redistricting Commission created by the 2008 initiative to also draw the lines for California’s congressional districts after this year’s census.

The $280,000, on the other hand, is what Democratic politicians and their allies have put aside for a November initiative that would kill Prop. 11 entirely, putting redistricting back in the hands of the Democrat-run Legislature.

Most of that money comes from California Democrats who are either in Congress or who want to be in Congress – that would be Karen Bass, who has given $50,000 to the initiative. But under Prop. 11, only legislative districts will be redrawn by the committee. Munger’s measure, though, would take redistricting out of the comforting hands of the Legislature and give it to a multi-partisan commission that won’t care nearly so much about putting more California Democrats in Congress.

If you listen to the campaigns – something that’s not generally recommended – Friday’s GOP Senate debate resulted in a three-way tie for first.

“Today’s debate … made it clear that Tom Campbell is the most serious challenger to Senator Barbara Boxer,” crowed the former congressman’s staff.

“One thing was clear coming out of that debate: Carly proved she is the best candidate to beat Barbara Boxer in November,” said an elated spokeswoman for Fiorina.

“DeVore Wins First Debate,” was the headline on Assemblyman Chuck DeVore’s web site.

Everyone’s entitled to an opinion, even if it’s a little bit, well, self-serving. And to be fair, judging a debate is always going to be subjective.

The three GOP Senate candidates will get together for an hour-long radio debate this afternoon and listeners hoping for a reasoned and thoughtful discussion of national and international affairs probably should stick to NPR.

But if you’re looking for some political hardball and an early indication of what that Senate campaign’s going to look like from now until June, the Eric Hogue Show on Sacramento’s KTKZ 1380 (streaming live at www.ktkz.com from noon to 1 p.m.) will be worth a listen.

First off, kudos to Hogue, a veteran of hot talk radio, for putting the event together in a warp-speed hurry. But it never would have happened if it weren’t for last week’s flurry of reports, cheerfully forwarded by the Carly Fiorina campaign, showing that Tom Campbell had taken campaign money from donors linked to terrorist organization.

Meg Whitman welcomed Jerry Brown to the governor’s race Tuesday with a no-holds-barred challenge to the attorney general and a trio of ready-to-go e-mail hit pieces proving that, yes indeed, she has spent plenty of cash on opposition research.

Of course, just because your guys dig something up out of the newspaper archives doesn’t mean you actually have to use it. And it always pays to think like your opponent before you fire your guns.

Take, for example, the first in what’s likely to be a series of slams with the standing headline “Yep, Jerry Brown Said It …” In this initial offering, the Whitman campaign excitedly reports that “In 1974, Brown Said Being in Politics Only a Few Years is a ‘Big Advantage.’”

Sure enough, the L.A. Times piece has Brown saying that having spent only a few years in Sacramento is an advantage. But you might want to think twice about using that quote when you’re a candidate with zero years of political experience, in Sacramento or anywhere else.