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November 5th, 2009, 3:30 pm by Martin Wisckol, Politics reporter
This press release just in from Registrar of Voters Neal Kelley’s office:
The Orange County Registrar of Voters invites community members to apply as volunteers for their newly created Community Election Working Group (CEW) that consolidates its various outreach committees. The working group was established to continue the Registrar of Voters’ proactive outreach, which will meet quarterly to discuss a variety of election topics.
The Registrar of Voters recognizes that successful elections can not be conducted in Orange County without the input and cooperation of the public. All members of the public are invited to apply and the Registrar of Voters is looking forward to extending its reach in both the Asian and Latino communities to assist with required language outreach. For more information and to sign up for the Community Election Working Group please visit www.ocvote.com/cew.
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November 5th, 2009, 11:00 am by Martin Wisckol, Politics reporter
 Updated with comments from pollsters Adam Probolsky and the Field Poll’s Mark DiCamillo, and a correction on the Field Poll methodology.
The vagaries of political polling are raising their ugly heads, as a new survey is showing Meg Whitman with the support of 34 percent of Republican and decline-to-state voters in the race to be the GOP’s nominee for governor. Tom Campbell is at 12.5 percent and Steve Poizner, 5.5 percent, according to this poll by Capitol Weekly/Probolsky.
Less than four weeks earlier, a Field Poll of Republican voters put Whitman at 22 percent, Campbell at 20 percent, and Poizner at 9 percent. The Probolsky poll surveyed 750 registered voters and lists a margin of error of 3.7 percent. The Field Poll talked to 1,005 registered voters, and yet listed a larger margin of error, 4.5 percent.
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Posted in: Elections 2010 • Meg Whitman | 6 Comments »
November 5th, 2009, 10:18 am by Martin Wisckol, Politics reporter
 With an election approaching and the air quickly smogging up with political hooey, GOP gubernatorial candidate Tom Campbell sent out the following list of 25 political myths being perpetuated by candidates. If any politician has the experience, knowledge and straight-talk to make such a list, it’s Campbell.
In his typically gentleman manner, Campbell declines to attach names to the myths. Fortunately, many of the readers here are not constrained by such delicate manners - so I hope you’ll tell us which myths came from which candidates.
If you don’t already see the list below, click on the prompt.
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Posted in: Elections 2010 • Tom Campbell | 6 Comments »
November 4th, 2009, 12:11 pm by Martin Wisckol, Politics reporter
Updated with reaction from Chuck DeVore and video of Carly Fiorina’s Garden Grove appearance.
Former Hewlett-Packard CEO Carly Fiorina stopped in Garden Grove this morning to announce her candidacy for the U.S. Senate seat held by Democrat Barbara Boxer.
 "After chemotherapy, Barbara Boxer just isn't that scary," Fiorina said. And while the Republican touted job creation as her top priority, she also defended herself from criticism that Hewlett-Packard had eliminated some jobs and sent others overseas while she was chief there.
“The truth is that we were taking Hewlett-Packard through tough times and we had to make tough decisions,” Fiorina told reporters after announcing her candidacy and holding a town-hall meeting at the Garden Grove plant of Earth Friendly Products. The company makes the nation’s best-selling environment-friendly laundry detergent.
Fiorina said that there was a net gain in jobs over her six-year tenure. She complained that “government policy can kill jobs” and force employers to seek workers abroad. She also painted her 2005 firing as the outfall from backroom politics at the company.
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Posted in: Elections 2010 • Carly Fiorina | 70 Comments »
November 3rd, 2009, 5:03 pm by Martin Wisckol, Politics reporter
Update 2:15 p.m. Thursday: Still no new spending by ACT.
In the 72nd Assembly District special election, county Supervisor Chris Norby has been getting pounded not only by fellow Republican Linda Ackerman’s campaign but also by an independent expenditure group called Alliance for California’s Tomorrow.
However, the Ackerman-friendly ACT has suddenly gone quiet.
The group - whose donors include Indian tribes, hospital and pharmaceutical interests, the state Chamber of Commerce, and the man who wants to build an NFL stadium in the city of Industry - has spent $130,000 on behalf of Ackerman since Oct. 19. Most weekdays, it has spent money on the campaign - often two or three times a day - but the Secretary of State’s Web site shows that since shelling out money for a poll on Friday, it has not spent a dime. That’s the first time the group has been quiet for two consecutive workdays since getting into the race.
This could be a simple anomaly - more likely the group has run out of money or, best case scenario for Norby, the poll showed that the race is out of reach for Ackerman.
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Posted in: 72nd Assembly • Elections 2009 • Chris Norby • Linda Ackerman | 7 Comments »
November 3rd, 2009, 3:41 pm by Martin Wisckol, Politics reporter
Former Hewlett-Packard CEO Carly Fiorina is holding a town-hall forum in Garden Grove tomorrow, and says she’ll make a “major announcement” there - an announcement expected to be her declaration that she’s running for U.S. Senate against incumbent Democrat Barbara Boxer.
Fiorina, long considered a possible candidate, could set the stage for an ideological battle with state Assemblyman Chuck DeVore, R-Irvine, for the Republican nomination. DeVore is a hero to many conservatives, while Fiorina is expected by some to bring a more moderate approach to her campaign.
A Field Poll last month showed Fiorina and DeVore in a statistical dead heat among Republican voters. But Fiorina’s 21 percent and DeVore’s 20 percent revealed that most GOP voters were undecided. That poll also showed a swing in DeVore’s favor since March, when Fiorina was ahead of him by 12 percentage points.
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Posted in: Elections 2010 • Carly Fiorina | 52 Comments »
October 30th, 2009, 12:35 pm by Martin Wisckol, Politics reporter
 Taking the stage at UC Irvine’s Crystal Cove Auditorium on Thursday, Jerry Brown presented himself as a pragmatic, moderate populist and governmental elder.
The former governor (1975-1983), former Oakland mayor (1998-2006), and current attorney general leads each of the declared candidates for next year’s gubernatorial election by at least 20 percentage points, according to an October Field Poll. And he hasn’t yet formally announced his candidacy.
He noted that he had been the state’s youngest governor in 110 years and, if elected next year, would at age 72 become the state’s oldest ever.
“When I was there the first time, I was, ‘Throw them out. Let’s get fresh blood. Let’s get somebody with hair on their head,’” the bare-domed Brown deadpanned during his 1 1/4-hour talk. “Now the shoe’s on the other foot.”
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Posted in: Elections 2010 • Jerry Brown | 30 Comments »
October 29th, 2009, 10:58 am by Martin Wisckol, Politics reporter
U.S. District Judge David O. Carter this morning dismissed Laguna Niguel attorney Orly Taitz’s lawsuit which alleged that Barack Obama is not a natural-born citizen and so is not the country’s legitimate president.
Carter ruled that the federal courts do not have the constitutional powers to remove a sitting president - that only Congress has that authority.
“Plaintiffs’ request, asking this Court to sweep away the votes of over sixty-nine million Americans with the stroke of a pen and order a new election during which the country would be in a state of turmoil, ignores the Constitution’s processes and separation of powers that were developed by the founders,” Carter wrote in his ruling.
Carter also sharply criticized the conduct of attorney Taitz, calling her actions unethical and possibly illegal.
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Posted in: President Obama • Orly Taitz | 181 Comments »
October 29th, 2009, 8:20 am by Martin Wisckol, Politics reporter
Updated Oct. 30 with response from the Whitman campaign.
Los Angeles Times politics columnist George Skelton is not much of cheerleader for GOP gubernatorial candidate Meg Whitman, as he shows again today with this article headlined “Whitman’s radio whoppers.”
Whitman may not have showed up at last night’s Irvine debate - click here for story - but Skelton gives her plenty of attention today for her first round of radio ads, in which she tells listeners that state spending as gone up 80 percent “in the last 10 years.”
Skelton complains that Whitman stopped at 2008-2009, not including this year’s budget with its nearly $20 billion in cuts. Whitman spokesman Tucker Bounds responds that the books haven’t closed on this year yet, so it wasn’t included.
Skelton’s analysis shows that when you include the current year, the general fund has grown 27 percent. As remarkable as it may seem, he says that when you factor in population growth and inflation, spending has actually decreased 16.6 percent over the past decade.
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Posted in: Elections 2010 • Meg Whitman | 2 Comments »
October 28th, 2009, 9:41 pm by Martin Wisckol, Politics reporter
Billionaire former businessman Steve Poizner led with the swagger of sweeping tax-cut promises at an Irvine debate for GOP gubernatorial candidates this evening, while former state finance director Tom Campbell focused on the need for specific budget cuts to be made before slashing revenues.
The third leading Republican candidate, former eBay CEO Meg Whitman, declined an invitation to participate in the debate at Brandman University, a new offspring of Chapman University.
Differences between Poizner and Campbell were apparent throughout the hour-and-15-minute event televised by KOCE and covered by Twitter (#cadebate). Among the contrasts was their approaches to dealing with the state’s ongoing budget crisis.
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Posted in: Elections 2010 • Steve Poizner • Tom Campbell | 27 Comments »
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