Ron you’re no longer in the Minor Leagues

I’m sorry, I’m late on posting this, but props go out to Lucas O’Connor who is a regular contributor at Calitics blog, as well as a part time contributor here San Diego Politico. He has a great article is this week’s City Beat detailing the sorry saga of Ron Nehring’s reign as head of the California Republican Party. In particular his failured effort recently to try change the way California allocates its electoral votes. Go read the whole article, its a good read.

Republicans fooling themselves on the 78th

The local Republican leaders have lost their supposed hero, former Police Chief David Bejarano and scrambled to re-hype Chula Vista Councilman John McCann. This is the same person the party forced out of the race for Bejarano.

Now, the party is looking at what they can do to hold on to the district seat and there was only one way, money, money and even more money. However, they seem to be missing why Assemblywoman Shirley Horton was able to win the seat in the first place and I’m not going to tell them.

The 78 Assembly District has a total registration of 204,938 voters and the party breakdown is 84,033 Dems, 69,443 Reps and 42,955 DTS. Remember the 76 Assembly District has a total registration of 214,340 voters and the party breakdown is 84,797 Dems, 63,564 Reps and 54,012 DTS.

So, again it wasn’t the party registration that won the seat for Horton and with a higher turnout for the Presidential election next November McCann will need more then money.

Help Prevent Animal Cruelty in California

On Friday night, a group of more than 100 dedicated animal protection advocates gathered in San Diego to launch a statewide initiative for the November 2008 ballot. The Prevention of Farm Animal Cruelty Act provides the most basic protection for animals in factory farms: allowing them to turn around, and to extend their limbs or wings.

The purpose of this measure is to ban three of the cruelest forms of intensive confinement in the world of animal agribusiness: veal crates (where male calves are chained in tiny crates), battery cages (each egg-laying hen has less space than a piece of paper), and gestation crates (where pregnant sows cannot even turn around). These inhumane practices cause a great deal of pain and suffering throughout the entire life of these animals. All three of these practices have already been banned in the European Union. The following video Life Behind Bars will take you behind the scenes of factory farms.

The campaign kickoff events began on Monday, Oct.1st, in Sacramento, followed by San Francisco, Santa Barbara, Los Angeles, and finally, in San Diego on Friday evening. This initiative is sponsored by Californians for Humane Farms. This is a coalition of animal welfare organizations, food safety organizations, environmentalists, and concerned citizens.

To qualify this initiative for the 2008 ballot, we must collect 650,000 signatures in the state of California. The deadline for the signature gathering phase is February 22nd, 2008. All of the people gathering signatures are dedicated VOLUNTEERS like myself. Become a crucial member of our team and help put this precedent-setting measure on the ballot. This measure, when passed by voters, will improve the lives of millions of farm animals in California. Thank you!
Check out: http://www.humanecalifornia.org/

Heads Roll – Part II

I was glad to see in the Voice of San Diego today post the article In Mayor’s Office, Politics is Take-It or Leave-It, which seems to be examining the recent firings and the not so recent department of Rear Admiral Ronnie Froman. Maybe this is why the Mayor’s poll numbers are hitting the floor.

However, what I found most interesting was the short blurb on Kris Michell and Fred Sainz. It throws their names out, but didn’t say anything more about them, other then their titles and they were two veterans from former Mayor Susan Golding’s office.

Here we have two people from a previous failed mayoral office and now key “players” in another mayor’s office. Why would they be chosen? What happen to Tom Shepard? I think it would be interesting to see a story on Kris, a former chief of staff becoming a deputy chief operating officer for community and legislative services? Or a story on whether they were in anyway connected to Mayor Golding’s underfunding of the city pension or even the ill-advised funidng of the 1996 Republican Convention.

Now that would be another interesting piece.