Congressman-elect Jerry “Dragonslayer” McNerney, D-Pleasanton, will deliver the weekly Democratic radio address tomorrow, Saturday, Dec. 30; it’s at 8:06 a.m. Pacific Time on major radio networks including Associated Press, ABC, NPR, CBS Radio, CNN Radio, C-SPAN, Armed Forces Radio Network, American Urban Radio Network, Voice of America Radio Network, BBC Radio, CBC Radio and Australian Broadcasting Corporation. He’ll be talking about Democratic plans to break the link between lobbyists and legislation and the need for a new direction in Iraq.

This just in from the Governor’s 2007 Inaugural Committee: Paul Anka, José Feliciano, David Foster, Jennifer Holliday, and Donna Summer will be joined by the 59th Army National Guard Band and local musicians and performers from Sacramento and Los Angeles to participate in the festivities surrounding Governor Schwarzenegger’s 2007 inauguration.

“The Governor is honored to have this group of talented musicians come together as part of his inaugural celebration,” said Carl Bendix, executive producer of the Governor’s 2007 Inaugural Committee. “Each one of these groups and entertainers represents the cultural, generational and musical diversity of our great state and together they embody the Governor’s vision to make the California dream a reality for every resident of this state.”

Well, kind of. None of these headlining artists are California natives, and only Foster — a renowned producer and songwriter who’s coordinating the inaugural’s musical festivities — even lives here, in Malibu.

Guitarist Feliciano will perform the National Anthem during the Governor’s swearing-in ceremony; Tony Award-winning artist and Broadway’s original “dream girl” Jennifer Holliday will sing “And I’m Telling You I’m Not Going;” and the 59th Army National Guard band, “The Governor’s Own,” will serve as the house orchestra.

Anka and Summer will entertain guests at the “Celebrate the California Dream” black-tie gala: Anka, with a special rendition of “My Way” — including new lyrics written as a tribute to the Governor — and Summer, with a full set including disco hits “Hot Stuff” and “She Works Hard For The Money.”

Who’s paying for it all? See it here. Gold sponsorship reportedly cost at least $50,000; silver, at least $15,000.

He works hard for the money, indeed.

The governor’s office today announced Robert Ayers, Jr., 59, of Cloverdale, has been appointed warden of San Quentin State Prison. The job doesn’t require Senate confirmation — as the big prisons overhaul package Schwarzenegger enacted last year removed wardens from that process — and pays $125,196 per year; Ayers is a Republican.

Ayers has been the acting warden there since June; and before that had been acting warden at Lancaster State Prison since last year, and from 2001 to 2005, was a correctional administrator at the Department of Corrections headquarters. He was Pelican Bay State Prison’s acting warden from 1998 to 2000; acting warden at California State Prison, Sacramento from 1997 to 1998; and Pelican Bay’s chief deputy warden from 1994 to 1997. All told, he’s had 38 years in California corrections.

Couple of things about Ayers:

The Corrections Department in 1996 gave Ayers and a prison guard captain Bronze Medals of Valor for their rescue of an elderly fisherman who’d become trapped between his boat and rocks in rough surf.

Former Gov. Pete Wilson had nominated Ayers to the warden’s job at Pelican Bay, but his successor, Gray Davis, withdrew the nomination amidst lawmakers’ concerns about Ayers’ leadership there. His name has come up in some of the federal litigation involving the “code of silence” among prison guards and management which persists to this day.

For example, in his capacity as Pelican Bay’s warden, he was the first named plaintiff in a former guard’s federal lawsuit, Freitag v. Ayers; the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in September ruled in that case that a state corrections department can be held liable for prison officials’ failure to correct a hostile work environment resulting from male prisoners’ sexual harassment of female guards. An investigation by state’s Office of the Inspector General concluded, among other things, that Ayers had taken “no definitive actions . . . to address exhibitionist masturbation directed at female correctional officers by male inmates.” Ayers did, however, launch several internal-affairs investigations of the complaining guard, and later approved her suspension and termination.

Meanwhile, it seems San Quentin goes through wardens faster than Spinal Tap goes through drummers:

News release from Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger:

“Today I woke up feeling great and I am back at work. From the hospital I am preparing for my State of the State address, meeting with members of my staff and working on the state budget. I am also looking forward to my inauguration to a second term as your Governor — even if it means I have to walk into my swearing-in ceremony on crutches. Over the past few days I have received so many phone calls and notes wishing me a speedy recovery. Thank you for your thoughts and prayers.”

Doctors at St. John’s Health Center in Santa Monica say he’ll be on crutches for about eight weeks but won’t need a cast.

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has officially proclaimed January 2007 as “California Dried Plum Digestive Health Month,” and wants all Californians to incorporate the fruits into their daily diet. Dried plums, as you might recall, used to be called “prunes” until growers decided they needed a name that doesn’t evoke jokes like those we’re making here.

A press release from the California Dried Plum Board — representing 1,000 dried-plum growers and 21 dried-plum packers under the authority of the California Secretary of Food and Agriculture, and certainly not to be confused with the California Plum Marketing Program — says the governor knows that by “combining dried plums’ health benefits with a conscientious diet, Californians will be protecting their health, as well as strengthening the state’s flourishing agricultural economy.”

Board executive director Rich Peterson notes California proudly produces 99 percent of the United States’ dried-plum supply, and 60 percent of the world’s. The fruits are chock full of nutrients and anti-oxidants, the board notes, and also help clear up digestive problems because they have fiber.

Lots and lots of fiber.

So, let no one say the governor has been lax in his duties this holiday season. And let’s hope many of our public servants in Sacramento will ring in the new year with a tall glass of prune juice, for they so often seem to be full of… something.

Rep.-elect Jerry McNerney, D-Pleasanton, the Bay Area’s newest Congressman, has rolled out his staff.

McNerney’s chief of staff will be Erich Pfuehler, who as Clean Water Action’s California Director helped bring that organization’s grassroots oomph to bear in McNerney’s campaign to unseat Rep. Richard Pombo, R-Tracy; earlier, Pfuehler was chief of staff to former Rep. David Bonior, D-Mich., who was a House Democratic Whip.

His DC chief of staff will be Angela Kouters, a staffer at the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, and earlier, an aide to former U.S. Sen. Fritz Hollings, D-S.C. This is interesting because McNerney wasn’t the DCCC’s pick for the 11th District: It supported Danville airline pilot Steve Filson in the Democratic primary, and took some heat from McNerney’s grassroots supporters for giving too little, too late to his campaign.

McNerney’s legislative director will be Nick Holder, who has been a senior legislative assistant handling military, agriculture, environment, transportation and budget issues for Rep. Tim Bishop, D-NY. Bishop sits on the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, to which McNerney has just been named.

Andy Stone will be McNerney’s communications director. Stone most recently was a communications strategist at M+R Strategic Services, where he consulted on Democrat Phil Angelides’ gubernatorial campaign. He specializes in working with nonprofits and political campaigns to create effective online advocacy campaigns; McNerney’s online organizing — through “netroots” bloggers, his own Web site and other avenues — proved crucial to his victory.

And McNerney’s district director in Stockton will be Angel Picon, a field organizer with SEIU-United Healthcare Workers West as well as past president of the Stockton chapter of the League of United Latin American Citizens. He also has hired Livermore native and recent Santa Clara University School of Law graduate Tobin Dietrich as a legislative assistant; Linden resident Teresa Frison, who’d been McNerney’s San Joaquin campaign field director, as a scheduler; and Kensington resident Andreas Mueller, another campaign staffer, as a staff assistant, all in the Washington office.

Former President Gerald Ford died yesterday at age 93, but not for want of trying by two women who attempted to assassinate him within a few weeks of each other back in 1975 — both right here in California.

First Lynette Alice “Squeaky” Fromme, a member of Charles Manson’s “Family” cult, pointed a loaded .45-caliber semi-automatic at Ford on the State Capitol grounds in Sacramento on Sept. 5, 1975; Secret Service agents disarmed her before any shots were fired.

Then, 17 days later, Sara Jane Moore, an accountant and reportedly a former FBI informant in the Patty Hearst kidnapping case, fired one shot at Ford from a .38-caliber revolver as they stood about 40 feet apart outside the St. Francis Hotel on San Francisco’s Union Square. She missed, perhaps because an ex-Marine in the crowd grabbed her arm as she fired and then wrestled her to the ground to prevent any other shots. (That day’s hero, Oliver Sipple, died in 1989, an extremely sad story.)

Both women were convicted of attempted assassination of the president and sentenced to life in prison, and both later escaped from the same minimum security federal women’s prison camp in West Virginia — Moore for a day in 1979, Fromme for two days in 1987.

Today, Fromme, 58, is serving her time at the Federal Medical Center Carswell in Fort Worth, Texas; she has no projected release date, as she has been waiving all parole hearings thus far. And Moore, 76, is right here in the neighborhood, doing her time at the federal women’s prison in Dublin, with a projected release date of Sept. 21, 2007.

News release from the governor’s office…

Adam Mendelsohn, Governor Schwarzenegger’s Deputy Chief of Staff for Communications issued the following statement on the Governor’s health:

“This morning while skiing with his family in Sun Valley, Idaho, Governor Schwarzenegger suffered a fracture to his right femur. After the accident the Governor was taken to a local hospital for x-rays and was soon discharged. He is currently at his home in Sun Valley, Idaho with his family. When the Governor returns to Los Angeles from his scheduled Christmas trip, he will have surgery to repair his femur. No one else was involved in the skiing accident.”

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s new press secretary is Aaron McLear, who worked in President George Bush’s 2004 re-election campaign in the decisive swing state of Ohio and has been with the Republican National Committee since.

“I’m just excited, the opportunity presented itself… to go work for someone I really believe in,” he told me today, adding he finds Schwarzenegger’s bipartisan style very appealing. He said he’ll move to California on Monday, Jan. 8 — that’s the Monday after inauguration day — and probably meet the press sometime that week.

Earlier, McLear worked for Ohio Gov. Bob Taft; an April 2001 news release announcing his hiring said he came “to the governor’s press office from the Ohio House of Representatives, where he worked as journal clerk. McLear previously had served an internship in the House majority caucus, with the Legislative Service Commission. He holds a bachelor’s degree in journalism from The Ohio State University, where he was a reporter and copy editor for The Lantern, and had internships with Development Communications and Athletic Department Communications.”

Schwarzenegger’s first press secretary, Margita Thompson, bowed out last month; now she’s communications director for managed healthcare giant Health Net Inc. in Woodland Hills, where former Schwarzenegger chief of staff Patricia Clarey took the chief operating officer’s post in March. Julie Soderlund — Schwarzenegger’s former deputy press secretary, chief spokesman for his re-election campaign, and now spokeswoman for his inaugural committee — has been filling in on an interim basis since Thompson left.

Being a California governor’s press secretary has never been an easy job, but Schwarzenegger’s international movie-star status has kept his spokespeople jumpin’ 24-7.

What’s that low roar rolling toward us, drowning out all other talk of 2008? Wait, yes… it is! It’s OBAMA-MANIA, and it’s sweeping the nation!

DraftObama.org on Friday announced the launch of its newest and largest state chapter right here in the Golden State, sending “a strong message that Californians want Illinois Senator Barack Obama to become the nation’s next president,” according to a news release.

“In the minutes since we launched in California I have been inundated with calls and emails from Californians who want to join in the politics of hope and make Obama their next president,” said Jake Hanchar, California’s DraftObama.org spokesman. “This is by far DraftObama.org’s most ambitious move to date. We are now coordinating the largest state, in population, which is already teeming with excitement in anticipation of the next presidential election.”

“Out here we love to elect superstars and Obama fits the bill. His no nonsense political attitude and his overwhelming charisma add up to make him the leading man in this Hollywood blockbuster of a presidential campaign.”

Boy oh boy, Hanchar — a Bellefonte, Pa. native now living in LA — sure has soaked up that California vibe quickly. A quick Internet search reveals Hanchar:

The news release says California volunteers already have gathered thousands of signatures from Obama supporters, laying groundwork for a grassroots organization that will eventually help Obama win California in the 2008 general election. The California chapter of DraftObama.org - which grew out of a Web page launched by Rockville, Md. computer technician Ben Stanfield — will sponsor activities and organize trips to hear Senator Obama speak at various events in and out of the state.