Today's Fresh Meat

[courtesy of The California Majority Report]

The McCain campaign has displaced it's top campaign strategist with an associate of Karl Rove in what is being called "an expression of our understanding of the need to scale up for a general election campaign against Barack Obama," by campaign spokesperson Jill Hazelbaker. Steve Schmidt, also a former Schwarzenegger strategist, will now direct the campaigns "communications, scheduling and basic political strategy" according to the New York Times.

Meanwhile, McCain faces some hard hitting questions from ace reporters Piper and Spencer Macke, ages 5 and 6, respectively.

David Dayen at Calitics is looking closely at density trends in California. Our state is following the national trend of increasing migration towards urban centers. AB 1252 (D-Caballero), recently signed by the governor, is directing state infrastructure funds towards developing urban plans to meet the growing urban transit and housing needs the shift demands.

These otherwise-beneficial migration patterns are unfortunately exacerbating a troubling increase in the amount of neglected foreclosed suburban homes. Waiting to be signed by the Governor is SB1137 (D-Perata), which would fine the negligent landlords and address a lack of lender-borrower communication. David Dayen takes a hard look at that as well.

There's more....