September 9, 2009

Where Do We Sign?

SACRAMENTO — September 9, 2009 — Secretary of State Debra Bowen today announced that the proponents of a new initiative may begin collecting petition signatures for their measure.

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July 24, 2009

At Least One Republican Recognizes the Liability That is Meg Whitman

Backstory:
eMeg’s Impartiality, Objectivity Fly Out Window When Challenged on Prop 8 Vote, July 23, 2009

GOP 12 recaps the flustering of emotion-ridden and unobjective Meg Whitman (who, we’re always happy to remind you, couldn’t be bothered to register to vote until 2002 or 2007, depending on who you ask, because she was just “too busy making money and raising a family to vote“), and then opines:

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July 23, 2009

eMeg’s Impartiality, Objectivity Fly Out Window When Challenged on Prop 8 Vote

As I wrote when it appeared a done deal — Wicked Witch of the West to Run for Governor of Oz:

Let me put it this way: I’d vote to put Ronald Reagan back in the governor’s mansion first — as he was, or in his current condition.

Mock, Paper, Scissors has the lowdown on the quick unraveling of Meg Whitman’s “impartiality” and “objectivity” when confronted on her vote for Proposition 8 by a married lesbian mom:

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June 29, 2009

Andrew Pugno Sends Fundraising Spam to the Wrong Guy: Justin McLachlan

Reminds me of the lady in Hawaii who was spammed by Prop 8 supporters; she was certain the only way the sender could have gotten her email was through access to a Mormon “stake clerk’s access to church stake records, which are not supposed to be used for political or commercial purposes”:

Did Protectmarriage.com and Andrew Pugno violate California’s laws?

… A little while back, Ron Prentice, the committee’s chairman, announced that their legal counsel and author of the the text of proposition 8 was set to run for a General Assembly seat in the 5th district of California.

Today, though, I got a mass email from Mr. Pugno updating me on fund raising efforts for his campaign “war chest.” I’d never signed up on Mr. Pugno’s site and based on his calling me “hostile” in an email last fall, I [didn’t] assume that he plucked my email address and added it to his list.

What actually happened is that Protectmarriage.com created a new list for Mr. Pugno — it’s called “Andy Pugno — Protecmarriage.com List 6″ in their system that has, at least, some, if not all of Protectmarriage.com’s email addresses. That appears to violate Protectmarriage.com’s stated privacy policy, which says that they only collect personal information and use it to “send … updates and the latest news from ProtectMarriage.com.”

Ultimately, it could all lead to a violation of California’s Online Privacy Protection Act…

More at the link.

Not surprising. If they’ll lie about everything else, why wouldn’t they lie about what they’re going to do with email addresses?

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June 7, 2009

Greg Herek: Don’t Rush Into New Prop 8 Campaign

We agree, for all the same reasons we’ve been putting out there for some time now — just not half so well or so succinctly as Herek does.

For one thing, we just don’t have the numbers for a 2010 win. We’ll probably lose.

More importantly (in my mind, and I think in Herek’s; he’s a psych prof who’s been studying this stuff for a quarter-century):

“Win or lose, another initiative campaign will exact a substantial psychological toll.” On us, that is. And he’s absolutely right.

Worth the full read:

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January 6, 2009

Wicked Witch of the West to Run for Governor of Oz

Let me put it this way: I’d vote to put Ronald Reagan back in the governor’s mansion first — as he was, or in his current condition:

EBay’s Whitman appears set to run for governor

Meg Whitman, the guiding force behind eBay for a decade, is running for California governor, according to sources close to the Internet giant’s former CEO.

Whitman, who rocketed onto the national political stage in 2008 as a high-profile backer of Republican presidential contenders Mitt Romney and John McCain—

And an Anti-Gay to the Nth Degree — don’t forget her very public support for Proposition 8.

—plans to make a formal announcement soon that she is seeking to become the GOP’s nominee to replace termed-out Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger in 2011.

On Dec. 31, Whitman resigned from eBay’s board of directors as well as two other corporate boards. One close associate called the moves “a clear signal” that she is running for governor and does not want “her corporate activities to interfere.”

The source asked not to be named because Whitman, 52, wants to make a formal announcement in four to six weeks. But he added that Whitman, who has been openly considering a run for months, made her final decision after consulting with her family over the holidays.

Despite her wealth and ties to the eBay brand, Whitman is almost certain to face State Insurance Commissioner Steve Poizner of Los Gatos, a tech-multimillionare Republican who has been preparing a run for governor for more than a year.

Lemme tell you about Steve Poizner. Steve Poizner has been running for, or making noises about running for, anything for more years than I care to remember, sinking $5 million of his own money into a failed run against Assemblymember Ira Ruskin (my assemblyguy, a good guy, and an actual Democrat) in 2004 (during which his slate mailers made it very, very difficult to tell Poizner was a Republican — gee, I wonder why?).

Maybe Poizner doesn’t realize it, but those of us who don’t like him believe he’s never done anything politically in this state that wasn’t a mere stepping stone to the governorship.

I don’t like Poizner. I don’t like anything about him, and I wish he’d retire and just have a grand old time living off the brazillions he made from the sale of SnapTrak to Qualcomm. Preferably back in his home state of Texas, so I wouldn’t have to hear his name again.

And you know what? If all the Democratic and Green contenders vanished off the face of the earth, and it came down to being forced to choose between Poizner and Whitman, I’d choose Poizner.

That’s how I feel about Meg Whitman.

Anyway…

Former GOP Congressman Tom Campbell who lives in San Jose, also has formed an exploratory campaign. And should she beat them, she’s likely to face a well-known Democrat; among those who have expressed interest in the Democratic nomination are Attorney General Jerry Brown, San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom and perhaps even U.S. Sen. Dianne Feinstein.

Hella hard to say how Newsom or Brown would do. Feinstein, that old corporate DINO, would probably beat any Republican. (I can’t see myself voting for Feinstein for so much as town jester, but if push came to shove…)

Whitman spokesman Henry Gomez said she resigned from the corporate boards of eBay, Procter & Gamble and DreamWorks Animation “for personal reasons. She wanted to clear her calendar of obligations in the new year. In terms of her political ambitions, I cannot comment.” …

More at the link… including the note that “Forbes estimated her 2007 net worth at $1.4 billion.” Why can’t these brazillionaires just shut up, go away, and enjoy the spoils of screwing their customers? (Not that all billionaires are evil; in Whitman’s case, you can ask longtime eBay sellers how they feel about eBay’s business practices. While you’re at it, you should ask the Australian government, too.)

Also of interest is mention of Whitman registering as a Repug only in 2007, and her “spotty voting record,” which her spokesman indicates was a result of her being too busy making money and raising a family to vote.

Reminds me of how Sonny Bono never registered to vote until he was 53 years old — and did so only because he had to at least be registered in order to run for mayor of Palm Springs. (And if you don’t know the idiotic reason he ran at all, read this — but be prepared for a concussion when your hand involuntarily smacks itself against your forehead.)

It also pisses me off that a woman, any woman, would use the excuse of raising a family for anything, especially voting, which commands all of about ten minutes of one’s time every two years. If you want to devote your life to raising kids, more power to you — but don’t you dare add fuel to the idea that women can’t walk and chew gum at the same time, and all we’re good for is staying home to cook and pop out babies.

Of course, Whitman ran eBay while she was raising her kids, but that’s not going to mean much for the Neanderthals jonesing for any excuse to say, “See? Women just aren’t suited for politics. They were designed to stay home and have babies.”

Christ on a trailer hitch. Could Meg Whitman do, or be, anything more antithetical to progressivism?

Let me think… Um, no.

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December 6, 2008

Best Prop 8 Postmortem Yet: Matt Stoller

An excellent read, far too involved to do it justice with an excerpt:

Proposition 8 and California’s Festering Corrupt Democratic Consulting Class

Rolling Stone’s Tim Dickinson has an interesting article on the campaign against Proposition eight in California, and what they did wrong. What’s interesting about the post-mortems, though widely known, is how little scrutiny the anti-prop 8 leaders have actually gotten. Dickinson’s article is useful to a point in that he got five people to go on the record with what the group did wrong, but most of his piece is framed by sniping from anonymous top level Democratic consultants and strategists towards the (mostly) unnamed leadership of the No on Proposition 8 forces. …

What is so frightening to ‘top’ Democratic consultants in California that they can’t discuss the reasons the campaign structure dithered and failed using their own names? Just what are they afraid of? Could it be that the real story here is damning to the entire Democratic California political consulting class? Perhaps.

Let me add what I know to the story. …

Definitely read the rest. You’ll be wiser for it — and even more pissed off.

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November 3, 2008

Where the 2010 California Gubernatorial Candidates Stand on Propositions 4 and 8

Capitol Alert set out to get all the potential candidates for governor of California in 2010 to declare their positions on the 2008 statewide ballot measures.

Not surprisingly, some politicians were more accommodating than others.

All told, we surveyed eleven political figures whose names are floating as potential 2010 candidates (three Republicans and eight Democrats). …

The SacBee rundown shows where the 2010 candidates stand on all 2008 California ballot initiatives, but there are only two that impact the right to personal freedom and liberty in the Golden State. Here’s where they stand on Propositions 4 and 8:

The Republicans

Rep. Tom Campbell, former congressman

Proposition 4
No

Proposition 8
No

Meg Whitman, former CEO of eBay, senior adviser to Sen. John McCain

Proposition 8
Yes

The Democrats

Dianne Feinstein, U.S. senator

Proposition 4
No

Proposition 8
No

John Garamendi, lieutenant governor

Proposition 4
No

Proposition 8
No

Bill Lockyer, state treasurer

Proposition 4
No

Proposition 8
No

Gavin Newsom, mayor of San Francisco

Proposition 4
No

Proposition 8
No

Jack O’Connell, state superintendent of public instruction

Proposition 4
No

Proposition 8
No

Antonio Villaraigosa, mayor of Los Angeles

Proposition 4
No

Proposition 8
No

Steve Westly, former state controller

Proposition 4
No

Proposition 8
No

Looks like McCain drone Meg Whitman is the only one choosing to end up on the wrong side of history.

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