Certain images and situations developing around the world recently directly and indirectly play on the politics in the nation-state of California.

Already involved directly in the governor’s race are the troubles of investment firm, Goldman Sachs. Meg Whitman’s stint on the Goldman Sachs board and her involvement in the financial process known as “spinning” has given fodder for the Poizner campaign to deliver sharp attacks. The Goldman Sachs saga has also touched Democratic candidate Jerry Brown for inroads the financial firm had with the City of Oakland when Brown was mayor, and Brown’s sister Kathleen’s working relationship with Goldman Sachs.

Expect to hear the name Goldman Sachs bounced around in campaign ads and mailers over the next five months.

The oil spill threatening the Gulf Coast states will undercut the effort to move forward with drilling at Tranquillon Ridge off of Santa Barbara. While Governor Schwarzenegger initially stated he would continue to pursue the goal of drilling at T-Ridge despite the spill, resistance clearly stiffened against the project because of the massive spill. The governor announced yesterday he was pulling his support for the T-Ridge project.

It’s been a theme of this column that the current contest for California governor is a Seinfeld campaign. The three leading candidates – two Republicans and one Democrat – aren’t addressing the profound questions posed by the state’s fundamental and crippling governmental dysfunction. They’re offering personal attacks when they should be talking about how to rescue California from its current crisis.

So, is there a better choice out there?

Probably not. The system itself is so broken that a governor has such limited power – particularly in fiscal matters, which require two-thirds votes – that the state’s future is likely to be roughly the same no matter who wins the election.

That future is bleak: more and more waves of budget cuts that hurt important institutions such as the university system, more accounting gimmicks to paper over persistent deficits, and more borrowing. Debt service is already the fastest-rising part of the budget. The next governor, whether he or she wants to or not, will be managing debt and decline.

When you look at that unhappy reality, I can think of one person in the state best suited for that kind of job: Bill Gross.

Given the disgruntled mood of Californians toward Sacramento, it is no surprise that reform is in the air. Proposition 14 on the ballot in the June primary was placed there by a reluctant legislature to secure the vote of then-Senator Abel Maldonado (R-Santa Maria) for the 2009 budget deal. Maldonado’s idea would eliminate party primaries with the hope that political strife in California would decline if more moderate legislators were elected, assuming, of course, the effectiveness of a Proposition 14 election system to produce more centrist elected officials.

Will change result if Proposition 14 is approved by voters?

Certainly, voters would have more choice in a Proposition 14 primary, because any voter could cast a vote for any candidate, without regard to anyone’s party affiliation or lack thereof. And even in top two run offs between two members of the same party, candidates will have to appeal to voters beyond the party faithful, and far fewer races will have results that are preordained after the primary.

The campaign to suspend AB 32’s global warming regulations until California’s economy and unemployment recovers submitted double the signatures needed today to qualify the "California Jobs Initiative" for the November ballot.

The initiative got more than 800,000 signatures, far above the 433,971 needed.  The state’s citizens understand that implementing AB 32 at the right time in the right way is not an anti-environment position.  It’s a path to improve our economy first through job growth — with high wage and ‘green’ manufacturing jobs at the center of that recovery — and a way to see if the rest of the country will follow with their own global warming mandates.  Today’s announcement makes clear that the California voters don’t want to go it alone on costly greenhouse gas reductions.

A total of 551 candidates are running in the June 8 Primary Election for congress or the state legislature.

Two hundred thirteen (51 incumbents) are running in one of the 53
congressional districts; 275 (51 incumbents) are running in one of the
80 assembly districts; and 63 (10 incumbents) are running in one of the
20 even-numbered state senate districts up for election this year.

Let me first congratulate Central Valley Republican Congressmen Devin Nunes (CD21) and Kevin McCarthy (CD22), along with Los Angeles Democratic Assembly Members John Pérez – Speaker of the Assembly – and Mike Davis on their re-election this year.  The four are unopposed in both the June Primary and November General Election.

The second Republican gubernatorial debate in San Jose yesterday featured relentless attacks from Steve Poizner, with Meg Whitman sticking to the script that has served her well so far. Whitman counterattacked, but Poizner had the sharper elbows.

Three times Poizner said the election was about character and asked Whitman, "Who are you, really?" in identifying Whitman as a supporter of Barbara Boxer and Van Jones. Whitman called Poizner a true engineer, as in engineering a new position for every office he runs for. Meanwhile, solutions to California’s many problems were few and far between.

California added nearly 400,000 residents in 2009, bringing the state’s population to 38.4 million. But the real tale remains in the composition of that growth.

Over the past two decades, between one-half and two-thirds of the gross increase in population was from natural increase – births minus deaths. But the interesting story is the net population increase. In 12 of the 19 years since 1990, more Californians have left the state to go to other states than moved here from the rest of the country. The net outflow of Californians since 1991 has been more than 1.5 million residents. That has been more than made up by foreign immigration – both legal and illegal. Since 1990 California has enjoyed a net increase of nearly four million foreign immigrants.

I’ve discussed California’s entrepreneurship and the current recession in several articles over the past year (here, here, & here).

This past week brings new data on business incorporations during the recession from Ms. Philly Crosby of the Secretary of State’s office. These data continue to show the strength of California’s entrepreneurs.

Below is a summary of the new business incorporations from 1999-2009.

This may be the worst of times for California, but Republican gubernatorial candidate Steve Poizner says this is the best of times to run for governor. Speaking yesterday at the luncheon meeting of the National Federation of Independent Business Capitol Day, Poizner said the best time to achieve change is when facing a crisis.

Poizner told the business crowd that California dropped from the sixth largest economy in the world to the eight largest in the last decade. He said the reason is that California’s tax and regulation policies are driving job creators out of the state. One example, Poizner noted, was the need to acquire 25 permits from a dozen local government agencies to open a pet food store in San Diego. He proposed a one-stop permit shop to make it easier to start a business.

Members of the audience nodded in agreement as Poizner ticked off troubles facing business in California. He said that 3000 people leave the state every week and that California has lost one-million residents over five years.