The full story runs Sunday, Nov. 1, 2008, in the Contra Costa Times.
But I also took some video clips while out on the trail, which you will find below.
The first four were take on Oct. 25 with McNerney, followed by five clips from my day with Andal on Oct. 28. (You can also go to YouTube and enter “cctwebteam” to see all the videos from the Contra Costa Times.)
Here’s an email I received today. I guess I’ll have to take comfort in knowing that I am not the worst offender although it sounds as though I may be in the running for it.
Dear Lisa,
I have followed your reporting for many years, and although you are not the worst offender, you certainly have not been as “balanced” as I would have hoped. In reading the below article, (click here for link to article) I feel such sadness in its truth.
I hope once Obama is in office, as it looks like he will be, you and the staff of the Contra Costa Times will feel free to research both sides of important issues facing Californians, like education, health care, and our budget, not from the typical democratic side, but by asking hard questions about unions and trial lawyers and illegal immigrants to name just a few.
Papers like yours have enormous impact on public opinion, and so far our democratic legislators have gotten a hall pass from you. Maybe now, you will work towards uncovering stories that are considered taboo by the left, shake things up a little, and give Californians a fighting chance to make the changes that will improve our state education system, health care system, budgeting process and our ability to attract and keep good businesses.
No, Lisa, we CA republicans aren’t a bunch of gay-bashing, war-mongering, rich white bigots like the papers portray us. We are diverse in many ways, but united in THIS: We believe our CA government is too large, too controlled by unions, overburdened by illegal immigration, unable to educate, unable to budget, reliant on too few for tax revenue, and unfriendly to business.
There are stories in that statement if you would only be brave enough to print them.
And what’s with the Obama pumpkins and Obama Barks on your Inside Politics today? Are you a political editor or contestant for Miss Congeniality?
This just came out from the Secretary of State: A record number of Californians — 17.3 million — have registered to vote.
Decline to state voters continue to expand their share of the electorate while Democrats posted a 1.4 percentage point gain since 2004. Republicans lost ground as the party’s share declined 3.3 percentage points in the same time period.
Here is Secretary of State Debra Bowen’s press release:
SACRAMENTO - More than one million Californians have registered to vote since September 5, catapulting the state’s total number of registered voters to an all-time high of more than 17.3 million. That’s according to Secretary of State Debra Bowen’s final report of registration for the November 4 General Election, which was released today.
“It’s great to see so many Californians taking an active role in their democracy,” said Secretary Bowen, California’s chief elections officer. “Voter interest in this historic election is enormous and I expect to see a record number of Californians cast ballots on Tuesday. Thanks to everyone - including community groups, elections workers, campaigns, schools, and businesses - who helped register so many new California voters.”
The final report includes data gathered through the October 20 close of registration for the general election. It reflects updates to voter rolls, including the removal of registrants who have passed away, moved out of the state, or have been determined to be ineligible to vote, as well as the addition of new registrants.
The state now has 17,304,091 million registered voters - almost 747,000 more than it had at this time before the general election four years ago. The percentage of people who are eligible to vote and are registered is 74.6% now; it was 75% just before the 2004 general election.
The previous voter registration record in California was 16.6 million in February 2005.
Registration has been climbing all year, with more than 1.7 million new voters registering since January.
Following are the registration totals for the six qualified political parties and voters who have declined to state their political affiliation.Read the rest of this entry »
An astute reader points out that you would not want to find in East Bay streams the frog pictured in the lovely colored fold-out brochure promoting Measure WW, the East Bay Regional Park District’s $250 million bond measure.
Times animal columnist Gary Bogue confirms the photo is indeed of an African clawed frog, a non-native species that threatens indigenous frogs and small fish.
It’s a definite pest in California creeks, streams and ponds, Bogue says. He called it the “Frog from Hell.”
You can no longer buy these frogs in California but a batch of them still live in a lake in Golden Gate Park despite pleas to eradicate them.
East Bay Regional Parks, of course, has strict policies against the introduction of non-native species into its parks.
The Measure WW brochure picture was very likely an innocent mistake by a graphic designer who used stock frog photo, said East Bay Regional Park District Trustee Doug Siden of Alameda.
What? Not everyone knows the difference between an African clawed frog and a California red-legged frog?
UPDATE:
Measure WW campaign consultant John Whitehurst takes responsibility for the “Frog from Hell” picture and promises he will take an amphibian identification class right after the election.
“I’m guilty, I confess,” he said. “Hey, I wanted to send a message to voters that if Measure WW doesn’t pass, the parks will croak!”
Contra Costa Times reporter Matt O’Brien wrote a fascinating story today about how the presidential campaigns and candidates are reaching out to Latinos. But the candidates don’t necessarily do the best job speaking Spanish.
And below, you’ll find some extra notes that Matt could not fit into the published story as well as some links to the candidates as well as President Bush and Jackie Kennedy speaking in Spanish.
ON OBAMA TALKING SPANISH IN AD
But impressions among fluent speakers was that whether or not he can actually speak the language in a non-scripted setting, Obama’s accent is better than that of President Bush, who has been known to sprinkle Spanish words into his speeches since his time as governor of Texas.
“It’s nice and short and correct,” said college Spanish instructor and Hayward City Councilman Francisco Zermeno. “It’s got a good use of the subjunctive. Good diction, he’s almost natively speaking, almost fluently, a couple little problems here and there. Not as fluid as it could be, but of course, he’s monolingual.” Read the rest of this entry »
Metro Dog co-owner Diane Livoti with "Bark for Barack" poster (Photo by Kristopher Skinner/Contra Costa Times)
Your pooch cannot vote for president. Not legally, anyway.
But the humans at Metro Dog, a Richmond doggie daycare and boarding center also known as “Disneyland for Dogs,” found a way to get out the bark for Barack Obama.
Get it? “Get out the bark!” instead of “Get out the vote!”
Okay, it’s a stinky joke.
But this is a really cool poster.
Emily Jan of Timbuktu Designs styled the vivid artwork titled “Bark for Barack” after an early 1900s Alexander Rodchenko Russian literacy poster.
The poster features a regal greyhound, which probably wasn’t Metro Dog regular and Burmese Mountain Dog Tomas’ first choice. (His human, after all, coined the phrase “Bark for Barack” for the poster.)
Pet lovers are displaying it all over the East Bay, including the Oakland Zoo.
"Bark for Barack" poster
Hundreds of copies of the image have been downloaded from all over the nation at their web site, www.ObamaDogsUnite.com.
Metro Dog co-owners Diane Livoti and Alison Smith have raised more than $2,000 for Obama’s campaign through sales of the poster although they long ago exhausted their one and only order of 500 prints.
The only place to obtain it now is a download from their web site, where they ask for a $5 campaign donation in return for use of the image.
In the interest of fairness, I asked Livoti to arrange a paw-wow with the Republican pups in her fine establishment.
Surely, there must be some toothy growling over this flagrant bias against their candidate John McCain?
Before long, election officials will beam results directly into implants embedded into our foreheads.
In the meantime, sign up for Alameda County’s email blast service of the results of a select group of races to your cell phone. Click here to sign up.
Races include Alameda County results for: President, Pleasanton Mayor, Berkeley Mayor, Oakland City Council at Large, Berkeley City Council District 4, San Leandro City Council District 2 and Measure V V.
If it works well, Registrar Dave Macdonald says he will expand the service in future elections.
For those who are counting, the score in the East Bay contest to possess the most high-tech election gadgets in the East Bay is:
Contra Costa County: 1
Alameda County: 2.
Both counties launched GIS-based mapping results in the last election but Alameda County is the first to send emails to your Blackberry.
That Obama is winning in California isn’t news, of course. But the potential margin of victory carries huge coattails implications for down-ticket Democrats such as Rep. Jerry McNerney, the Pleasanton freshman seeking re-election in a conservative-leaning district.
Here are the few few graphs of the story:
Barack Obama is poised to win California by the largest margin of any president since Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1936, a new Field Poll released today finds.
The Democratic presidential candidate leads Republican rival John McCain by 22 percentage points — 55-33 — among likely voters in California. If that margin holds Tuesday, he would set a post-World War II record for a presidential victor in the state. Not even landslide victories in 1980 and 1984 by Ronald Reagan, a former California governor, came close.
The mailers began arriving in mailboxes in Miller’s district Wednesday (including mine) and the ad starting airing yesterday, as well. (See link to YouTube below.)
What is the American Future Fund and why would they spend $200,000 in Miller’s heavily Democratic district? It seems like a strange place to dump this kind of money.
According to various news accounts, the American Future Fund is technically a 501c(4) charity run by several well-known Republican strategists. Its web site says it promotes conservative, free market principles. It has spent scads of money on ads around the country in recent months, primarily targeting Democratic senators such as Mark Udall of Colorado for his views on oil-drilling.
The anti-Miller effort appears to be part of a larger nationwide campaign by business interests to defeat a controversial labor-related measure called the Employee Free Choice Act.
Miller is chairman of the House Education and Labor Committee and a key sponsor of the act. It passed the House in March 2007 but failed to win enough votes in the U.S. Senate to withstand a filibuster. Most expect this bill to resurface in the next Congress, especially if Democratic nominee Barack Obama wins the presidency next week.
While the Miller mailer focuses on $4.6 million in earmarks the congressman obtained for a local business, SecuriMetrics, that also contributed $16,090 to the legislator’s campaign committees, the TV ad says he supports the Employee Free Choice Act because he has accepted more than $1 million from labor unions.
The bill would add a second method by which employees could form a union. Under the current system, if 30 percent of the workforce petitions its employer for a union, the employer must hold an election and all the votes are taken in a secret ballot. The act states that if a majority of the workers sign a statement seeking a union, the union can be adopted and there is no secret ballot election.
Ironically, the American Future Fund accuses Miller of being in the pocket of corporate interests but no one knows where the fund gets its money.
A loophole in campaign finance law permits 501c(4) charities to spend money on “electioneering communications” without disclosing the names of the donors as long as political activity is not its major function.
No one can say he or she didn’t know the rules now. Contra Costa Registrar of Voters Steve Weir has posted these two signs after a recent incident in which several women wore pro-Obama clothing or buttons and brought cameras into the downtown Martinez election office.
Oh, the sign should also say: “Keep your clothes on.”
One of the women also stripped off her Obama shirt when asked to remove the offending item. Please, don’t disrobe.
