[courtesy of The California Majority Report]

We're not surprised to hear that the Club for Growth is pulling levers for favorite son Tom McClintock inhis carpet-bagging bid for California's Fourth Congressional District.The Sacramento Bee reports that the club's latest ad calls McClintockopponent Doug Ose, who spent three previous terms in Congress,a—gasp—liberal. We haven't heard that one before.

In an editorial endorsement, the Bee also gives the nod to Ose for the Republican nomination, and of the two, he is clearly the one we could live with, althoughDemocrat Charlie Brown would be a much better choice than either ofthem. Ose, despite his terrible record on taxes and the war, at leastunderstands the need to be practical.

Vallejo's unprecedented decision to declare bankruptcy would set a precedent for other municipalities looking to unload their responsibilities to public employee unions, theSan Francisco Chronicle reports. This is unfortunate. If a city doesn'tfeel it has the resources to commit to COLA or other increases, thatneeds to come up at the bargaining table, not in a Chapter 9 filing.

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by Julia Rosen [courtesy of Calitics - Front Page]

[courtesy of The California Majority Report]

Here's the Obama camp's morning after take to supporters: 

Our projections show the most likely outcome of yesterday's elections will be that Hillary Clinton gained 187 delegates, and we gained 183.

That's a net gain of 4 delegates out of more than 370 delegates available from all the states that voted.

For comparison, that's less than half our net gain of 9 delegates from the District of Columbia alone. It's also less than our net gain of 8 from Nebraska, or 12 from Washington State. And it's considerably less than our net gain of 33 delegates from Georgia.

The task for the Clinton campaign yesterday was clear. In order to have a plausible path to the nomination, they needed to score huge delegate victories and cut into our lead.

They failed.

It's clear, though, that Senator Clinton wants to continue an increasingly desperate, increasingly negative -- and increasingly expensive -- campaign to tear us down.

That's her decision. But it's not stopping John McCain, who clinched the Republican nomination last night, from going on the offensive. He's already made news attacking Barack, and that will only become more frequent in the coming days.

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[courtesy of The California Majority Report]

By any measure, Senator Hillary Clinton's victories last night were huge.

"Obamamentum" is history. The Teflon has been pierced, as the press and voters look beneath the veneer. And the Obama campaign's smug "it's over" trash talk of the last couple of weeks is history.

Press coverage will now focus on whether Obama can win, having failed to win a major state like California or a state that makes in November. Like Ohio. Or New Mexico. Or Tennessee.

Now it will be all about Pennsylvania and painful nitpicking about delegate counts, and what to do in the two huge states -- Michigan and Florida --  where Hillary won (sorta). The spin zone certainly will be a dangerous place to be today, as both sides jockey for the hearts and souls of Democratic voters and media attention.

Is this ongoing fight bad for Democrats and good for John McCain, who clinched the Republican nomination last night? Not necessarily.

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[courtesy of California Progress Report]

By Doug Paul Davis

Now the fun has truly begun. The Davis Enterprise reported yesterday that Lois Wolk, Assemblywoman who currently represents Davis in the 8th Assembly District will run for the state senate. She is unopposed for the Democratic primary.

Her opponent will be fellow Assemblyman Greg Aghazarian--who also figures to run unopposed for the Republican nomination.

Now it is time to get serious for Wolk. Frankly I was appalled when I saw the campaign finance figures that came out of the recent reporting period. Lois Wolk has raised all of $140,831. What has she been doing for the last year and two months? Was she really expecting to be able to run for reelection to the Assembly by way of passage of Prop 93.

Her opponent has already raised $656,675 and a good chunk of that has come directly from the Republican Party--which means that they are targeting this race.

The Enterprise reports that Wolk has accepted campaign spending limits, but Aghazarian has not. That's actually misleading, what this really means is that Aghazarian has passed the limits already in the amount he can spend. The law provides for a candidate to amend that form at least twice during the course of the campaign, so as soon as the candidate passes the finance limit, they will simply file an amended statement.

[courtesy of California Progress Report]

Filing for Assembly and State Senate seats opens Monday!

By Frank D. Russo

With the defeat of Proposition 93 on term limits, at least 24 of California’s 80 Assembly seats and 10 of 40 Senate seats will have new occupants—and many of these races will be decided in the June 3, 2008 primary that is 128 days down the road.

Haven’t caught your breath from yesterday’s Super Tuesday presidential primary where the votes are still being counted? Filing for this next round—more important now in filling the state legislature begins Monday and closes March 7 for all of these 34 races.

Candidates have already been busy for months raising substantial money and planning for the June election in the anticipation that term limit changes would fail on yesterday’s ballot. Now it will be official and as soon as we will begin covering these races.

Because most of these districts are strongly Democratic or Republican, nomination by the majority party in most of them will be tantamount to election in November.

[courtesy of The California Majority Report]

The Los Angeles Times, California's largest newspaper and the country's fourth largest, today endorsed Senator Barack Obama. Said the Times: