It’s official, Republicans won the primaries and special elections in California. Bilbray edged out Busby:
Republican Brian Bilbray beat Democrat Francine Busby early Wednesday in a close race to replace imprisoned former Rep. Randy “Duke” Cunningham in the 50th Congressional District, a contest seen as a gauge of voter attitudes for the national midterm elections.
And Arnie was re-elected Governor, essentially:
After months of vitriolic campaigning, state Treasurer Phil Angelides laid claim early today to the Democratic nomination for governor and pledged to turn his candidacy into a “fight for the California of our dreams.”
Arnie will have an easy time painting Phil as the second coming of Gray: long-time party hack, tool of the unions, big spender, in thrall to special interests. Voters are still intrigued by Arnie enough to let him have some more fun in Sacramento, so status quo will continue. The statewide sentiment in this election was clearly for fiscal responsibility, as two big-ticket initiatives failed, a library bond and Rob “Meathead” Reiner’s lavish pre-school program funded by higher taxes on Sergey Brin.
The people made a wise choice in nominating Debra Bowen for Sec’y of State, the main elections officer, over Debbie Ortiz. Bowen is way smarter and more Internet-savvy than Ortiz, basically a moron with a sad story about life as a welfare brat. Bowen was getting marriage proposals on the Internet 10 years ago (she’s easy on the eyes) and Ortiz couldn’t find her office in the Capitol for several years.
I’m disappointed that my friend Jackie Speier didn’t get the nomination for Lt. Governor. It’s not much of a job, but she’s a noble person and deserves credit for taking a bullet at Jonestown following the effort of her former boss, Leo Ryan, to break up the Jim Jones Kool-Aid party. (She told me to call her Jackie several years ago, so I do.) It wouldn’t surprise me to see Tom McClintock win in November because he’s a strong campaigner. He never told me to call him Tom, but he was always decent.
Lockyer gets another term as AG, and if he can shed his current wife he’ll be in good shape to move into the Governor’s office when Arnie goes back to Hollywood (or the White House, as the case may be.) It’s going to be funny to see Lockyer suffer from the divorce laws he passed for his party’s faithful while he was in the Senate. Karma, dude.