[courtesy of The California Majority Report]

Today’s symbolic passing of the torch at the White House from President Bush to Republican presidential nominee John McCain couldn’t be better news for California Democrats.
 
Talk about timing -- just as McCain himself is vowing to "compete in California," he’s embracing the blessing of one of the most unpopular Presidents in history, a politician whose disapproval rating in California is well over 70 percent. Even more confounding, McCain’s plan to keep troops in Iraq for 100 years, his steadfast opposition to abortion rights, his vote against the reauthorization of the State Children’s Health Insurance Program and other far-right positions offer California voters nothing more than a third Bush term. That doesn’t seem to be a winning strategy in the Golden State.
 
Then again, McCain’s advisors appear to be rosy-eyed enough to consider California a "purple state." Really? A "purple state"?

There's more...

Image courtesy CNN.

by Larry Dudley [courtesy of Blog for America]

Lost in the coverage of the remarkable February fundraising totals of both the Obama and Clinton campaigns was a real turning point in American politics-- the full realization of the "$100 Revolution"  Gov. Howard Dean called for in November 2003.

On the 18th Dean sent out a fundraising message, not in itself an unusual event, but one that would eventually change the parameters of American politics.   
Beginning in the early 1960s television advertising increasingly dominated American politics.   Beforehand, campaigns had raised money, and often lots of it, but there were practical limits to how much a campaign could spend.   They could open large numbers of local offices, fill them with barrels of free buttons, boxes of bumper stickers and burden mailmen with bales of letters.  But, fundamentally, vIctory ultimately depended on a candidate's supporters.

Television changed all that.   There was almost no limit to the amount that could be spent on TV advertising.  A bizarre "arms race" resulted, where a candidate's political credibility seemed to depend on his or her dominance of the airwaves.   If you were drowned out, news coverage usually faltered as well.   

[courtesy of California Progress Report]

By Peter Schrag

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger this week reached the exact midpoint of his scheduled seven years and 44 days in office. Not a bad moment to assess a tenure that's been almost as extraordinary, if not bizarre, as the way he achieved it.

For much of the past 18 months, he's gotten marks that have been as good as they were awful at the time of his special election disaster in November 2005. The national press loves him, a housebroken Republican who supports stem cell research, abortion rights, universal health care and, above all, recognizes the danger of global warming.

Last week, New York Times columnist Timothy Egan wrote a piece declaring that they could have used him at the G8 summit. Arnold, he said, has shown the rest of the world "that not all Americans are in the last century on the big issues of the day."

But if he's so today on the global stage, making clean air deals with Canadians and Brits -- "EuroArnold, at home in the pragmatic politics of Tony Blair (and German Chancellor Angela) Merkel," as Egan put it -- the mundane affairs of the state he's supposed to govern and that he vowed to turn upside down look as tawdry as they did in 2003.

[courtesy of California Progress Report]

By Peter Schrag

Rudy Giuliani's pirouette around abortion finally landed him on a pro-choice position that no major national Republican candidate has held since 1980. That was when George Bush I, who had backed abortion rights, told Ronald Reagan he could support his party's anti-abortion platform.

For Bush even the vice-presidency was worth a conversion. The conversion, as everybody knows, was tribute to the growing political power of the religious right. Reagan, who had signed the California Therapeutic Abortion Act in 1967, at the time one of the nation's most liberal abortion rights laws, didn't care much one way or another. He later said he'd regretted signing the California law.

Giuliani, who chose to dress necessity in the garb of principle, may have decided that, like Arnold Schwarzenegger, he could ignore the waning Republican orthodoxy on social issues and not be turned to stone. That Giuliani, also like Schwarzenegger, has an ego that eclipses any party platform didn't hurt.

But he may also have sensed that the political clout of the Christian right had passed its high water mark. The death last week of Jerry Falwell, who had done so much to forge that power, was only coincidental but it was symbolic nonetheless.

[courtesy of The California Majority Report]

Buzz was abound on the floor this afternoon about an apparent confrontation between a staunchly anti-abortion Hillary Clinton volunteer and the folks at Planned Parenthood. The volunteer reportedly yelled at and harassed several volunteers at the Planned Parenthood over their position on abortion rights. The argument became so heated that it almost became physical. We can't blame Hillary for this unfortunate occurrence—it's hard to do quality control on volunteers—but it is worth noting that this took place about a year since Senator Clinton took heat from abortion-rights groups for her comment that abortion was a "tragedy." And it is puzzling that a staunch Catholic with a tendency for anti-choice rants would be staffing the table and wearing the paraphernalia of the one of the most pro-choice candidates in the race. Go figure.