Joe Dunn and CMA

This is old news, but I haven't blogged about it yet. Former state senator Joe Dunn (d-Orange County), who used to be a plaintiff's lawyer and has always been close to the Consumer Attorneys of California, is the new chief lobbyist for the California Medical Association.

As long as I've worked with them, CMA's chief focus has been protecting the odious medical malpractice caps called "MICRA" (the Medical Injury Compensation Reform Act)--these extremely low caps on damage awards effectively prevent patients who are injured by negligent health care providers (including hospitals) from getting any lawyer to represent them--it's just not worth taking the case.

Yet the California Medical Association, under the leadership of the late great Steve Thompson, had made some strides in working towards meaningful health care coverage, and occasionally escaped from the dominance of Kaiser Permanente, the giant HMO that pays some 50% of its membership fees on behalf of Kaiser doctors--ooh, I should tell you my favorite Steve Thompson story.

Will Joe Dunn, champion of individual rights now be in the position of fighting to keep MICRA caps low? It's hard to imagine CMA would hire him without a solemn committment to defend MICRA. And it's hard to picture the Joe Dunn I know standing up for negligent doctors. Stay tuned...

White elephant gift, people unclear on the concept?

The other day I was in the store Mixed Bag on K street in Sacramento (where everything they sell is small--it's ingenious. You pick this $5 item, this $6 item, next thing you know you're up at the cash register dropping $150 bucks and you can't figure out how!)--a woman comes up to the counter asking for help, "Do you think this will work for my white elephant gift?" displaying a hideous item she's found on one of the shelves.

The shopkeeper and I exchange quick glances. Um, isn't the point of the white elephant that you're giving away something that you didn't want but maybe someone else would? Are you supposed to go out and deliberately pay good money to buy something that you think the recipient would hate?

In my community, every year a different "lucky" cohouser takes home the same horrible garlic roaster from the white elephant gift exchange. Until now I've assumed that the original purchaser of the item thought it was a nice gift, but now I begin to wonder...

Dining Alone--the exciting world of un-eviting

So far 323 people are confirmed for thanksgiving dinner at my house next week and 53 more are considering it. How did I get so lucky? I sent out a message not inviting them. Turns out today's busy people are highly motivated to respond to a non-invitation.

Here's the back story: during my recent ill-fated stint as communications director for the second most losing initiative in California (turns out only 25% of Californians think that "it's about time for Prop 89"), my overworked cable ISP Comcast decided to eat my web-based address book...twice. For some reason my hard-drive back-up address book was 2 or 3 years out of date; it drove me mad.

Fortunately, I had recently uploaded my entire address book of 596 names to evite--the online "free" invitation tool. The rub: evite would be happy to let me download any email personage to whom I had actually sent an invitation (and I had only sent them to like 50 people). So I concocted a quick invitation to thanksgiving dinner at my house and sent it out to EVERYONE I know (and many I don't know, who are these people? Why did I save their email addresses?) When you clicked inside, you found out that it was a non invitation.

The result: a greater response than any invitation or email of any kind I have ever sent out. People who haven't responded even to personal non-group emails of mine for years came out of the woodwork to RSVP, telling me they're bringing their new lover, arsonist step son's etc. The notations of the people who are coming is one of the funniest things I've read in years. And the responses don't stop.

If the link works, read the RSVPs, however you won't be able to RSVP yourself unless you were personally un-invited. Actually, what the hell, anyone who's reading this blog, I personally don't invite you to spend Thanksgiving at my house next week. I'm really looking forward to not seeing you! Please do me the courtesy of letting me know how many people you won't be bringing.

Sara

I called for change, have you?

Off and on this week, I've phonebanked potential votes for Democrats in tight congressional races around the country through MoveOn.org's amazing website. You can do like 3 calls from your desk right now. If you only have one moment to devote, do it. It's worth it just to say you contributed to the Democrat's taking back the house.

Jack Abramoff on Prop 89

I got this email from "Jack Abramoff" today. He's very concerned about Prop 89. Sara

Dear Reform-Minded Voter,

If Prop 89 becomes law, lobbyists like me will not have the power we once did. This would be a huge problem for my friends and clients.

I was the Capitol’s top lobbyist and I had Washington wired. And now some people call me the poster boy for reform. Boy, that ticks me off. Do people understand that Prop 89 would make people like me and my clients less powerful in Sacramento?

California’s nurses, who are leading the campaign for Prop 89, claim they want to protect voters like they protect patients every day.

HMOs, drug makers, insurers and oil companies don’t need the nurses’ help, which is why they've put up millions to defeat Prop 89. Trust me, the special interests have things totally under control in California and it is working just great. That’s why my old lobbying firm set up shop in Sacramento recently. What will happen to them if Californians enact the tough reforms in Prop 89? Is anyone thinking about the lobbyists?

Prop 89 even bans lobbyists from making donations. How would we ever get anything done? Prop 89 strictly limits campaign contributions to ballot measure committees and politicians. You know what that’ll do? Leave us with fewer political ads. Whose idea was that?

And do you really want tougher laws to put politicians and lobbyists in jail? Aren’t California’s jails overcrowded enough?

Please, as my last request before I enter my own prison cell next week, don’t believe the California Nurses Association and the League of Women Voters’ campaign for Yes on 89. California politics has been working just great (for my clients anyway).

Most sincerely,
Jack Abramoff
Please forward my message on to your friends and family.

Editor's Note: Prop 89, a campaign reform measure sponsored by the California Nurses Association, dramatically reduces the power of special interests over California politicians and limits out-of-control spending on ballot measures. Prop 89 bars lobbyists and state contractors from making political contributions and limits the amount that corporations, unions and other interest groups can contribute to politicians. Prop 89 allows candidates with broad grassroots support to receive funding for their campaigns in exchange for agreeing not to fundraise from special interests (or anyone). Prop 89 also limits corporate contributions to initiative campaigns to $10,000. Learn more about Prop 89.

LA Times Blogger Mocks my Prayer

A few days ago, in the waning days of the campaign, I wrote a private prayer for the Proposition 89 campaign team and sent it everyone inside the campaign by email. I got a number of private emails back from staff thanking me for it and admitting that they too believed in the power of affirmative prayer and wished they had known sooner that I did too. We all vowed to keep in touch and I felt good.

Two days later, the prayer surfaces on Los Angeles Times reporter and blogger Bob Salladay's blog Political Muscle

I don't much mind having my prayer posted on the internet because I believed that prayer and I like the words being read by more people.

And I don't much mind being mocked for it; that's something I kind of expected. Salladay is good at mocking and it's one reason I'm glad he started blogging. By the way, Bob, I can tell that you've been to Harbin Hot Springs too. Glad I didn't see you naked in the cold pool!

On mockery: I was just reading a hilarious account by Anne Lamont of the self-appointed pastor and monologist of the Church of 80% Sincerity. I love the idea of being 80% sincere. I think that's about where I aspire to operate these days.

However, on Salladay's part this was a low blow, beyond the boundaries of politeness. I mind it.

And what I especially mind, and I mind quite a bit, is that someone with whom I worked, with whom I entrusted my private prayer, valued his relationship with Bob Salladay more than he did his relationship with me or the Proposition 89 campaign and saw fit to violate our trust by cynically shooting this sweet little message to god over to be treated with contempt.

It's okay, though, to borrow from Jack on Will and Grace when he's trying to keep from punching Karen in the face, "I see the face of god in everyone."

Watch this video: Don't it Make my Red State Blue?

I don't know who made this, but I got sent this YouTube link and it's really mandatory viewing, hilarious (and not related to my paid employment gig this time). It's a jazzy piano solo with some good video interposed of Bush and close congressional races around the country and some fun racey lyrics which are mostly intelligible.

It took a while to discern the first line, which is very funny, so I'll repeat it for you:

"Don't know who Mark Foley blew. Denny says he never knew."

Enjoy!

Bill Magavern's California & Sacramento ballot recommendations

Once again, it's time for my husband Bill Magavern's ballot recommendations for California and Sacramento. Bill's been sending these out for several years now and has, without trying, created a large demand for them. I frequently get begging, pleading emails from people all over the state (and even California absentee voters out of the country) asking for these recommendations as early as mid-October. I in turn beg Bill for them and he says: give me a break, it's mid-October! So they tend to come a week or two before the election.

Most of you who are reading this know me and Bill personally. For those who don't, Bill Magavern is the senior advocate for Sierra Club California. He is a former director of the Public Citizen's Critical Mass Energy Project and Congress Watch.

He hasn't opined on candidates, so I will a little bit. Although I occasionally veer to the Green Party, I am pretty much planning to vote a straight Democratic line this year (note: I won't vote to re-elect U.S. Senator Dianne Feinstein, I just have to work too hard to get her to do the right thing especially on the Judiciary Committee).

I'll note that consumer advocate (and personal hero of mine) Harvey Rosenfield, founder of the Foundation for Taxpayer and Consumer Rights and architect of the successful insurance reform measure Proposition 103 has endorsed Republican Steve Poizner for State Insurance Commissioner.

I'll also note that while Republican incumbent Secretary of State Bruce McPherson is not the worst Republican on the planet, in my opinion his Democratic opponent State Senator Debra Bowen is perfect for the job of Secretary of State. She is clean. She is smart. She cares deeply about these issues and knows the details really well. She is a person who cares deeply about doing public policy right and she is not a party hack. She's in a tight race and I'd personally like to see everyone give her as much as they can in the next day or two.

Click here to donate to Debra Bowen's campaign on-line.

And now, the moment you've all been waiting for:

Bill Magavern's Recommendations:

BALLOT MEASURES, NOVEMBER 2006

CALIFORNIA-WIDE PROPOSITIONS

1-A, NO

This is a bad idea – channel all sales taxes on gasoline to transportation projects, mostly roads. Note that these are sales taxes, not gas taxes. All sales taxes should go to the General Fund, where they can be directed to the greatest needs in a given budget year.

1-B, NO

I’ve wavered on this one, because I do think we need to invest in improved transportation infrastructure. But the price tag is too high, almost $40 billion by the time it’s paid off. We should not borrow from our future when an increase in the gas tax could fund these investments on a pay-as-you-go basis, without paying interest. And not enough of the money would go to public transportation.

1-C, YES

Affordable housing and emergency shelters are badly needed, and appropriate uses of bond funds. There’s also money here for smart growth planning

1-D, YES

Many of our school facilities still are overcrowded or in need of repair, and it’s hard to think of a better public investment than public education.

1-E, YES

I’d be a lot more enthusiastic about it if the Legislature had accompanied this funding with the necessary policy reforms, but we’ve got to get the levees fixed before a Katrina-type flood hits the Central Valley.

83, NO

This was put on the ballot by publicity-seeking politicians, and will waste a lot of money that could be better spent on actually catching sex offenders. The odd thing about this measure, which is sure to pass, is that it will require sex offenders to move out of urban areas and into the rural and exurban areas that are usually represented by the Republicans who are supporting this so they can look tough on crime.

84, YES

This bond would supply needed funds for water quality, parks and land conservation, as previous funding is running out.

85, NO

Sure, it would be great if minors discussed all important life decisions with their parents, but having government require it is not going to make it happen.

86, YES

Taxing cigarettes is a good way to stop teens from ever getting addicted. Plus, the money would go to good causes like children’s health insurance, smoking cessation programs, and emergency rooms. Don’t bother waiting for the Legislature to raise tobacco taxes – it takes a 2/3 vote in each house, and almost every Republican legislator has taken a no-tax-increase pledge. In an interesting controversy, the national NAACP has endorsed this initiative, overruling its California branch.

87, YES

California is the only oil-producing state without an extraction tax, and that tax is a suitable way to fund clean-energy programs. I think the governance could have been structured better, but, again, the tax would never pass the Legislature, so this is our best chance to direct this money to a good cause, instead of boosting the profits of oil companies.

88, NO

As a parent of 2 public-school students, I’m in favor of putting more money into education, but this is the wrong way to do it: a regressive new tax that invades the turf of local government.

89, YES

Clean Money is the reform that makes other reforms possible. It’s already worked in Maine and Arizona, and California badly needs an alternative to dirty-money politics. I see the corrupting influence of campaign contributions all the time in the Capitol. The public funding system envisioned under 89 would allow candidates to run competitive races without being independently wealthy or dependent on the special interests.

90, NO

This is the most dangerous measure on the ballot, because it would create a huge obstacle to planning and land-use protections. Don’t be fooled by the “save your home” rhetoric – the poison pill here is the provision requiring that property owners be compensated for any governmental action that reduces the theoretical value of their property. So a restriction on building in a wetland, for example, or a zoning that prevents your neighbor from putting a nuisance next door to you, would cost local governments so much that they’d probably let the property owner do whatever he wanted (which is what is happening in Oregon after passage of a similar measure).

These recommendations are my personal opinions. You can find a full list of Sierra Club California’s endorsements of candidates and ballot measures at http://www.sierraclubcalifornia.org/elections/index.shtml.

SACRAMENTO COUNTY MEASURES

J and K, YES

I think district elections for school board should make the members more responsive, and more knowledgeable about the community’s needs.

L, YES

SMUD isn’t perfect, but it has lower rates, a cleaner environmental record and more responsive leadership than PG&E. Expanding SMUD into Yolo County will bring that better service to Yolo, while giving Sacramento ratepayers some economies of scale.

Q and R, NO

It’s amazing that so many of our local “leaders” have lined up behind a proposal to raise our sales tax to fund an arena that would not have to be located at the railyard, would not necessarily keep the Kings in town, and would require a contribution of only 10-15% by the wealthy Maloofs – who aren’t even talking to those local leaders. I’m a Kings fan, and would love to see the railyards redeveloped, but putting all the risk on the public and all the profit on the Maloofs is not prudent or fair.

Prop 89 May Hire Sweet Tired Cat

In his weblog today, Dan Weintraub recognizes that the new Prop 89 ad I blogged about yesterday is today the top political ad being viewed on-line--16,000 viewings on YouTube in less 48 hours (10 times more than Bill Clinton's 87 ad). He also suggests that we consider hiring "Sweet Tired Cat" which apparently got a couple few more viewings on YouTube.

Dan, we're working on it. It's been tricky because of how tired the cat is, but given that it's also sweet we have a shot. If we can put it together, can you join a conference call tomorrow with the me, Joe Trippi and the cat?

Seriously though--this video is catching on like wildfire. Bill Hillsman who created the ad said today, "this kind of insurgent internet campaign with an ad like this can amplify the paid media campaign by 1 1/2 to 3 times what you pay for it initially."

Doing the math, this week's internet explosion has turned this from $2 million to a $6 million ad buy--in other words, folks, we're in the game.

People Love Stop the Pounding Ad

Yesterday, the Prop 89 campaign went statewide with a new television ad and today the remarkable ad is the number one rated news video on YouTube. “Stop the Pounding” is the brainchild of Bill Hillsman, who engineered Jesse Ventura’s victory, as well as Ned Lamont’s primary win.

Los Angeles Times reporter Bob Salladay wrote this morning that the new ad "is one of the slickest and most engaging political ads in California right now. Which is ironic, because the ad argues for a halt to the oleaginous, overly simplistic but sometimes engaging political ads that dominate the airwaves during election season."

Watch the Ad:
http://www.89now.org/

Read Salladay’s review:
“Initiative Backers Produce Ad Calling For End To TV Ads”

Please help keep this ad on the air by making a contribution on the campaign’s secure online server:
https://secure.ga1.org/05/cleanmoney

For the latest campaign roundup, see yesterday’s Sacramento Bee:
http://www.consumerwatchdog.org/nw/?postId=6960&pageTitle=Proposition+89%3A+Public+financing+measure+an+election+fix+or+a+bigger+mess%3F

This May be the Best Political Ad of the Election!

Reminder: I'm a paid operative right now, communications director for the Proposition 89 Campaign. But I want everyone I know to see this new spot. We’ve got 3 weeks left in the 89 campaign, and despite the opposition’s corporate ed board strategy, our reckoning shows we’re within reach of victory. C.N.A. has produced the perfect TV ad spot which is unique, hilarious, and created by Bill Hillsman, the media genius who vaulted Paul Wellstone and Jesse Ventura to national prominence and has an online cult following.

See the Hillsman Pounding Ad

It's airing starting today in every major media market in California. Please go look at this ad on YouTube and send it to everyone you know.

Please forward the link to everyone on your email lists by noon Tuesday, October 17.

See the Hillsman Pounding Ad

Note: Bill Hillsman is CEO and Chief Creative Officer of North Woods Advertising, a marketing communications and political and public affairs consulting company based in Minneapolis. His work for Paul Wellstone's U.S. Senate campaign won the 1990 Grand EFFIE, awarded by the American Marketing Association for the most effective marketing and advertising campaign of the year. His work for Jesse Ventura's gubernatorial campaign in 1998 and Ralph Nader's presidential campaign in 2000 received many more accolades. Bill has been named one of America's top 100 marketing people and one of the 50 media people in America who most influence our world.

About Time for 89

Hey, you should watch and listen to (and pass around) this great soulful rap song video, About Time for 89, that the California Nurses Association created to show the need to stop political corruption in California and pass Proposition 89. It's on uTube and it's fabulous!

Sara (full disclosure, I am now the Communications Director for Clean Money Now--Yes on 89). For more information go to www.89now.org.

The gay problem in the GOP

In the depths of a campaign haze, I emerge briefly from retirement to post this, my friend David Link's beautifully written and thoughtful piece in the Boston Globe on the Foley scandal's insight into the GOP "gay problem."

By David Link | October 5, 2006

THE TRAGIC OPERA of former congressman Mark Foley is the revenge of don't ask, don't tell.

Foley, a Republican from Florida, resigned Friday after e-mails and instant messages between him and several teenage congressional pages surfaced. The Republican leadership knew that at least one page had gotten e-mails where Foley admired the body of one of the page's friends, and asked the page for a picture of himself, e-mails the page naturally found sick and a bit creepy.

Republican leaders responded to the potential political problem by telling Foley to knock it off. With respect to the larger issue, though, there was no asking or telling. The boy's own revulsion at the obviously inappropriate attention was ignored, not only by Foley's partisan fellows, but by some news outlets that also had seen the e-mails.

If this has a familiar ring, look in the Catholic Church for the bell. Republican leadership was acting like the Catholic hierarchy, which played shell games with men accused of sexually abusing children. And there's a good reason for the similarity. The inability to deal straightforwardly with gay people leads to other kinds of truth-avoidance when things go south. But that's what comes from not wanting to know something, and going out of your way to remain ignorant.

We've come a long way since homosexuals had two basic options: the closet or jail. But a good portion of the electorate, most of them Republican, still seems to long for the good old days when we didn't have to think about ``those people." Both Libertarians and, generally, the Democratic Party have withdrawn their official support for the closet over time. States, too, are seeing what a losing battle this is, and allowing homosexuals to live their lives in conformity with, rather than opposition to, the law.

But that leaves Republicans and the religious right trying to live a 1950s lie in the new millennium. As Foley prepared in 2003 to run for the Senate, newspapers in Florida and elsewhere published stories about his homosexuality. But you'd never hear any of his colleagues saying such a thing. And Foley himself refused to discuss the issue, until his lawyer acknowledged Wednesday that the former congressman is indeed gay.

Being in the closet is hard to pull off without help, and for years Foley was eagerly abetted by his Republican brethren, whose willful blindness is at the heart of the current tragedy. Speaker J. Dennis Hastert, majority leader John Boehner, and others in the House leadership are still under the impression that the closet, like Tinkerbell, will continue to live as long as we all believe. And believe, they do -- against all the evidence.

But the number of people who believe in the closet is declining day by day and generation by generation. Hastert and the rest of his cronies are their own victims. The political turmoil they caused for themselves is only just.

But their failure to acknowledge the obvious reality has other victims as well: the boys whom Foley apparently pursued. Some of the messages show some tolerance of Foley's advances, but not much more. This was no one's ``Summer of '42." The healthy disgust in one boy's use of the word ``sick" repeated 13 times seems about right.

But what can one expect from denying grown men -- and women -- a normal, adult sex life? Whether the denial of adult intimacy comes from religious conviction or the ordinary urge toward conformity, people who run away from their sexuality nearly always have to answer to nature somehow. For people who fear abiding and mutual love, the trust and confusion of the young is a godsend. Add to that the perquisites of power, and a degenerate is born.

Fortunately for the arc of justice, the closet ultimately works against itself. Foley's case and the Catholic Church's sex abuse scandal are the last screams of the dinosaurs. It took the dinosaurs a long time to finally die off, or evolve into creatures that could continue to survive, and the same will be true of the closet's final supporters. But they will look more and more ridiculous each time that they take pride in holding up the ruins of this particular antiquity while tending to the wounded when the building again collapses.

Like the Catholic Church, the Republican Party in Washington guarantees its own future calamities in its enduring and steadfast habit of pretending that, unlike heterosexuality, homosexuality can be either denied or suppressed.

David Link is a writer and attorney in Sacramento, and a member of the Independent Gay Forum.

Thoughts on the California Primary Election

Too tired to say much, but before the week passes I'll just observe a few things:

1) Although I voted for Westly, I am perfectly happy to see Angelides win. I'm told he gives a helluva barnburner on the stump and as the more progressive choice if he can pull it off against Schwarzenegger, that'll be magnificent. Trouble is Ah-nold has done a good job repositioning himself since last year. Insider consensus has it that the only choice for Angelides is for him to try to paint a giant W on our superhero Guvna's chest--tough to do unless it is just, as one pundit put it, a democratic year in a democratic state.

2) It was surprising, but gratifying, that Debra Bowen won the democratic primary for Secretary of State by a huge margin--she would be a wonderful SS. Now she needs to run against Republican Bruce McPherson who is also generally perceived to be even-handed and honest prior to being appointed to Secretary of State. There are rumblings of dark dealings by McPherson; Debra will probably need to go negative on Bruce to win.

3) For the few of my readers who care, it looks like the chamber of commerce picked up business Democrats in 3 or 4 state Senate primaries and lost to progressives in 3 or 4 Assembly primaries. Assuming most of the seats don't change parties in the general, the Assembly and the Senate are somewhat equalized with a split between more progressive and more business-oriented democrats in power.

3 Snouts Up for An Inconvenient Truth

(:)(:)(:) for An Inconvenient Truth better known as "that Al Gore global warming movie."

Despite the lack of a 4th snout, this is a must see. The movie is basically a high tech version of Al Gore's internationally shown slide show on global warming interspersed with learning more about Gore's life and why he cares so much about this issue.

At first Gore's droning southern baritone has the usual soporific effect, but after a while it kind of mesmerizes you so that you get drawn into the narrative and grasp, in a way you never have before, the threat to our survival in this lifetime that global warming promises.

Highlights for me were Gore's wry humor and changing body shape (the dude gives Oprah a run from her honey) along with a very real sense of urgency that we all take this problem seriously. For some reason I was fascinated by the very fact of Gore's choosing to show this slide show painstakingly all over the world--truly deciding to pursue one thing with excellence so as to make a difference.

Don't skip the imaginative and inspiring ending credits and music.

It WAS a booth BTW

A number of people have asked if I was REALLY in a booth a week before election day. The answer is yes. And no, not a booth at Denny's, or a fair. A real elections booth at the County Board of Elections.

Of course, there was no reason I needed to darken my absentee ovals in the confines of the booth--I could just have easily sat on one of their couches. But then I couldn't have said referenced the booth...

Weintraub--right and wrong

I'm grateful to have my last post be referenced by Dan Weintraub in his Insider blog today, although it makes me nervous if it means that he agrees with my reasoning--Dan and I don't usually agree.

In particular, I thought he missed the boat in a recent column of his. Although he properly decried the amount of special interest money in the governor's race, I think he was wrong to reject public financing of elections as a likely way out of this morass of corruption and greed.

True, getting clean money into politics would not be a panacea--but the real evidence from 2 full publicly-financed elections cycles in Maine and Arizona suggests strongly that having a clean mechanism for running for office makes a difference. More average people run for office and win. More people register to vote and vote.

And yes, business as usual continues: public officials still vote with the people who financed their elections.

The difference? With public financing it's the voters who financed the elections. Visit www.caclean.org to find out more about how you can help pass clean money legislation in California.

Why I voted for Steve Westly Today

I have never been as undecided in a primary election before as I was filling out the ovals today to elect who would be the Democrat to challenge Arnold Schwarzenegger for Governor of California.

I stood for a full 10 minutes in the booth reviewing what I know about the candidates and the race. Ultimately--my headline spoils the surprise--I voted for Steve Westly.

In the final analysis, I voted for Westly because I believe he is the best candidate to beat Arnold in the general election and because the race is so close between him and Angelides that I believe my vote matters. The pivotal issue for me is the role of special interest money in the race. I believe that the unheard of $7 million independent expenditure on advertisements in favor of Phil Angelides by a father-daughter team of Sacramento developers renders it impossible for Angelides and the Democrats to run against Arnold on the issue of his being beholden to special interests.

Seven Million Dollars?!@#$ This is largest single contribution to any race other than self-financed millionaires.

Before they put this money in, Angelides was badly behind Westly, not getting his message out. Now, especially with having a ground operation (Westly is said to have none--Angelides has all the big union endorsements), Angelides is positioned to win the primary. If he does, he will quite literally owe his election to the Tsakapoulouses (or howsomever you spell it).

Morever the most recent polls show Westly beating Schwarzenegger with Angelides losing badly-- and I really don't want the Democrats to lose. It's imperative to defeat this Governor.

All other things being equal, I'd be inclined to support Angelides over Westly. I think he's more of a real progressive. He's endorsed by all the groups I care about. And I think he'd be a good governor.

But neither are the differences between these two candidates especially stark. Both are socially liberal and fiscally conservative (in the sense of being anti deficit spending). Both support public financing of elections. Both have strong environmental records (there seems to be a real split among environmentalists I know as to whom they prefer, but it is clearly a subject about which reasonable minds can differ).

There are two important policy differences that I am aware of:

1) Phil has openly advocated an income tax increase, while Westly has not.
2) Westly has supported the San Francisco District Attorney's forward thinking reforms for prisons and penalties for drug offenders, while Phil as not.

As to the first difference, while I agree strongly with Angelides that an increase in the income tax is the wiser public policy for creating a fiscally sound government, I do worry that it is politically suicidal of him to espouse it and am concerned that that alone could tank the general election for him.

As to the second, I think the lack of political courage to reform and cut back the prison industry in this state is of vital importance.

So, at the end of the day, I voted for Westly. Now let me have it--why was I wrong?

Clinton and McCain--Through the Looking Glass

I can't be the only one who has noticed the unpleasant parallels between Hillary Clinton and John McCain's candidacies for president, all of which spell doom for Democrats (which is kind of like cuckoo for Cocoapuffs, but less sweet).

Actually I miswrite when I call them "parallels." These eerie resemblances between the candidates show up more like a funhouse mirror reflection of each other than anything else.

First (and probably most significant) distorted resemblance: Hillary is a centrist (whom most of the country mistakes for a feminazi) while McCain is a maverick conservative (whom most of the country mistakes for a centrist).

Second distorted resemblance: Hillary is highly likely to win to her party's nomination despite her recent pandering to social conservatives while McCain will have to fight to win his party's nomination despite his recent pandering to social conservatives.

Third eerie resemblance (which itself strangely resembles #1): due to eerie resemblance #1, if Hillary wins the nomination (no matter who is the Republican nominee), all her pandering to the right will have been for naught and she will go down in flames as the poster child for limousine liberals. Due to resemblance #2, in the unlikely event that McCain wins the nomination, he wins the Presidency easily owing a lot to social conservatives, with whom he has consistently voted (adopted black children notwithstanding) and governs accordingly.

D-O-O-M for Democrats no matter how you spell it--S O S!!!

Fifty Angry Citizens (including me) Storm Capitol Leaders’ Offices

Read what two other bloggers had to say about it--in the Daily Kos and in Frank Russo's The California Progress Report (which has pictures of the sit-in).

Since these guys cover it well, I'll refrain from writing about it because I'm now banned from the Senate leader's office and don't want to doing anything to give them one more excuse to tank my favorite reform.

Will the Senate Dems Do the Right Thing?

In a year with the public clamoring for reform in Washington and Sacramento, the California Legislature seems poised to kill AB 583, the California Clean Money and Clean Elections bill by Assemblymember Loni Hancock (D-Berkeley) tomorrow in the Senate Elections Committee.

The bill, which would create a broad-based system of public financing of elections in California modeled on successful systems in Arizona and Maine, passed the California State Assembly earlier this year on a party line vote with 47 out of 48 Democrats voting for the bill and no Republican votes. Early in the State Senate, the bill received the public support of Senate Leader Pro Tem Don Perata (D-Oakland).

Perata, who has been mired in his own campaign finance scandals for over a year, promised he would move the bill out of the Senate Elections Committee but as of today all indications were that he had yet to twist the arms of his Democratic colleagues. The committee is chaired by Senator Debra Bowen (D-Redondo Beach), who is a co-author and strong supporter of the legislation (she is also a candidate for Secretary of State). The bill also needs two other votes from the five member committee to pass and both Republican members of the committee have long made it clear they intend to vote no.

That leaves Senators Kevin Murray (D-Hollywood) and Gloria Romero (D-San Gabriel Valley) who have been looking to direction from the Senate Leader on this bill that could affect every Senator’s political path. Oddly, while centrist Murray seems open to voting for the bill, the usually liberal Senator Romero seems to be fervently opposed to the measure. The bill needs both their votes to pass.

Earlier this week it was announced that hundreds of signatures were turned in to the Secretary of State possibly qualifying an initiative which would create public financing of elections in California.

The bill comes to a vote tomorrow in the Senate Elections Committee meeting at 9:30am in Room 3191 of the State Capitol.

Must See TV--the Colbert Clip

I'm very late on this, behind virtually every blogger in America, but if there's any chance that you haven't yet watched Stephen Colbert's performance at the White House correspondence dinner, click above to get it.

Even though all of it is devastatingly funny, it's much more courageous and important than it is funny. He stood there, a few feet from the President, and engaged in the most scathing satire of conservatism and this administration that anyone could imagine.

With lines like "we all know that reality has a liberal bias," it was clear that many people in the room had no idea how to react. It is actually painful to watch some parts of it because he is speaking so much truth to power that you have to keep thinking he's going to be killed or at a minimum forcibly ejected.

People in the blogosphere are comparing him to Mark Twain and the best American political satirists and I think they are spot on.

Can Wal-Mart ever do the right thing?

This is a reprinting of my quarterly column Eye on the Pie, Spring 2006--but I'm gonna start writing again!

In the classic choice, people almost always pick the bad news to hear first—they want to cut to the chase. But when the bad news is Wal-Mart, Philip Morris and Coors, unless the good news is “what is the answer to the question which three multi-national corporations are destined to go out of business in the next year,” let’s face facts, you don’t want to hear it.

So what is the good news really? It’s that socially responsible business is hot hot hot. Every company in America is scrambling to prove that that it contributes to the commonweal. And the bad news is, you guessed it, this includes Wal-Mart, Philip Morris and Coors.

Or is it bad? Let’s examine the trends and the opportunities here. Other than the tardy dawning of the Age of Aquarius, it would seem that the main reason for corporate America to go ethical is a market segment called LOHAS.

According to Wikipedia, LOHAS stands for Lifestyles Of Health And Sustainability and describes a $227 billion, 68 million person segment of the American marketplace, 32.3% of all American adults.

This fascinating group of people defies traditional market categorization—they cannot be defined by age, gender, education, or money alone. What defines them is their values, what they want to have happen in the world and how they want their consumer dollars to drive what wants to happen.

No company better meets the needs of this market segment than Whole Foods, whose 100s of stores across the country stock organic and sustainably harvested foods, body care products and, increasingly, clothing and household products.

After decades of double digit growth in the American economy, companies like Safeway and Wal-Mart have developed their own organic lines to go onion to onion with Whole Foods, local natural foods co-ops and Trader Joe’s.

And this is good news, right? This is what we wanted to happen—consumers would make it clear that they wanted environmentally sustainable, naturally pure products and giant corporations would eventually have to respond, right?

Well, maybe. According to Hijacked: Businesses for Social Responsibility by the ubiquitous megaphone-wielding Russell Mokhiber, editor of the Washington-based Corporate Crime Reporter, in an effort to tarnish their terrible images, giant massively unethical corporations including Philip Morris tobacco holding company have taken over a once legitimate business group called Businesses for Social Responsibility.

Soon it seems, the phrase social responsible business may have no meaning whatsoever. If all businesses claim this, how do you discern from whom and what to buy?

The real good news may be that the very qualities that make a member of the LOHAS market buy organic, make them want the product to actually be what it says it is. Accordingly to market research, people who shop this way defy traditional marketing strategies. They mistrust all advertising, read newspapers and books and make their own decisions on the basis of what they believe about what is true.

Invariably, that may leave Wal-Mart, Coors and Philip Morris out in the cold.

©Sara S. Nichols, 2006

Sara is a founding partner of the Gross National Happiness Team, a business that gives away 50% of its sales to organizations promoting peace and justice.

Pray for George

This a reprinting of my quarterly column--Eye on the Pie which appears in Rudolf's Diner. Please pass it on and Pray for George.

I am beginning to believe that we need to start a national movement called “Pray for George” in which we concertedly pray for George Bush to be a better President. The reasons are straightforward: first of all, he is our President for the next three years, like it or not (not) and it would literally be better for the world if he would behave better/differently; secondly, it is painful and divisive to hold so much hatred and anger towards anyone, least of all the most important world leader—it is not a peaceful decision; thirdly, it would be useful to show the nation that we can pray too, that prayer is not reserved for people who hate gay marriage.

The first reason is the hardest for people who aren’t fans of the President to swallow: “Why would I want to pray for George Bush to be a better President? I don’t want him to be President at all. I don’t want for him to succeed. I don’t want him to improve. I want this administration to pull the Republican party down the toilet with it for a generation.”

Alrighty then. But do you really mean what you say? Do you really want things to get worse before they get better? If you could snap your fingers and George Bush could suddenly improve the environment, create a real universal health care system and establish world peace, wouldn’t you want him to, even though he’s George Bush? I’m not saying that this is a likely scenario. But I am saying that by freezing in our collective conscious and unconscious minds a vision of George Bush that is evil, incompetent and unsuccessful, we enshrine that George Bush and insure that that is whom he shows up as each and every day.

Second reason, closely related to the first: it is painful to hate someone as much as many of us hate George Bush. To have a significant portion of the world population filled with bitterness, bile and hatred at our leader is really terrifying. Ghandi said it best, “be the change you want to see.” So it starts here with us—praying for George will be healing for us all.

Actually it is easy with this man—he’s so clearly human. He’s so clearly flawed. He’s so clearly in over his head. I’m not asking you to forgive or pray for Dick Cheney—we no doubt should, but somehow “Pray for Dick” has a different ring and it might get some of our email diverted by anti-porn programs.

Third reason, which probably has the most cynical appeal, although I don’t personally mean it that way: show middle America that we can pray too. This proposed action really performs a bit of political jiujitsu on the Christian right. It takes up a bit where Martin Luther King, Jr. left off. Pray for George is there to help the President be the best that he can be. Pray for George out Christians the Christians by loving the man we have hated most (well almost the most, see Pray for Dick discussion above).

Let’s flesh the Pray for George campaign out a bit. How would it work? Set up a website at www.prayforgeorge.com (I just bought the domain name, $8.95 at www.godaddy.com, I am telling you) which has a prayer kit for any individual, church or organization that wants to pray for George. Also buttons, t-shirts, hats, etc. Spread the word through existing churches, networks, viral email campaigns.

There are those among us who fret about a couple of other factors: won’t Pray for George distract people from “real” action like working to change the Congress? Won’t Pray for George be a diversion from the real issues? I argue no. For one thing, the amount of media attention this campaign is likely to get once it takes off will significantly help those efforts.

More importantly, this campaign might be able to open some ears to hear our message. When you proceed from love instead of hate, people who haven’t been your allies relax, let down their guard and can hear you. The best kept secret in American politics is that Americans agree on far more than we disagree on. We have a wealth of shared values. We have a wealth of shared experiences. We have a wealth of shared dreams.

Yet partisan handlers highlight and distort our differences so we're unlikely to ever get close enough to "the other" to find out that, hey, they're actually remarkably similar to us.

Like virtually all Americans, we share a core set of values, including: respect, responsibility, fairness, and belief in a greater power. We all want:
• The best for our children
• Plentiful and safe food, water, and air
• Peaceful and livable communities with good schools
• Meaningful jobs, businesses, and opportunities for advancement
• Freedom to make our own decisions

Let’s pray for George so that we can hear each other clearly.

So here is my prayer for George:
I know there is only one power of love within and without us that connects us all.
It runs through us and in us and around us.
Where there is the appearance of dischord, there is only harmony.
Where there is the appearance of violence, there is only peace.
Where there is the appearance of incompetence and chaos, there is only divine right order.
We are swimming in that harmony, peace and divine right order.
And we call it love.
And we call it God.
And we call it good.

And I know that I am a unique manifestation of this power of love.
And as I know this for me, I know this for George Bush, President of the United States of America.
George is a powerful manifestation of this love and power for good that connects us all.
Where George appears to be incompetent, he is capability itself.
Where George appears to be warlike, he is peace itself.
Where George appears to be mean-spirited, his heart is open, gracious, loving and good; He wants the best for his people.

And he produces the best for his people.
Since there is only one mind and George is a product of that one mind,
George has access to all that mind knows.
George has always believed that his top advisor is Jesus the Christ.
George’s heart is now open so that he can listen to the Christ.
George’s body is imbued with Christ consciousness, the Christ of love, the Christ of forgiveness, the Christ of peace, the Christ of charity, the Christ of abundance, the Christ of mercy.

And with this Christ consciousness and the awareness of his role in the world, comes a call to action:
A call to change.
A call to love.
George’s spirit is courageous and true and able to manifest the true spiritual teachings of this consciousness.
George lives and embodies these changes.
George is peace, order, capability and harmony itself.
He is a true leader.

And so I am profoundly humbled and grateful as I utter these words.
I know them to be true.
I know them to be so true and so right and so good that I weep with joy.
I weep with joy at the knowledge that God has a better world
already built for us then the one we think we live in.
I weep with joy at the knowledge that the kingdom of heaven is at hand.

And so, knowing that it has been done and that George and the world are good, I ask only that this good be revealed to us right here and right now.

I take my hands off it and let it go, knowing that my word spoken into the law of God will make it so.

And so it is. Thank you infinite spirit. Amen.

Medicare hell

First blog in over a month. I am consumed with getting my business off the ground and passing the public financing of elections bill through the California legislature and can't seem to fit the daily blog into my busy routine.

Howsomever.

I need to observe that my pharmacist, Lloyd Ouye of Ouye's Pharmacy on 10th street in Sacramento, one of the few real conscientious neighborhood pharmacists around, now has a recording on his machine that says that due to the new Medicare changes, all prescription drug fulfillment, no matter who is paying for them, will be delayed by 2 to 3 days!@#

I try and try not to be this cynical, but it's impossible to believe anything other than that the Republicans are trying to destroy public support for Medicare by making the prescription drug benefit a nightmare for everyone.

Will it work? I hope not. I hope it backfires big time. Write your congressman. After I talked to him, Lloyd called his (Doris Matsui of Sacto) for the first time.