Former Utah Governor Jon Huntsman said that the historically close Iowa Caucus results show that the race is still “wide open” for Republican contenders. He had better hope so, because he finished in last place in the caucuses, although he also did not actively campaign in Iowa.
Despite the close results and surge by former Pennsylvania Senator Rick Santorum, the smart money is still on Mitt Romney emerging as the ultimate challenger to Barack Obama.
John Garamendi represented Davis once previously, as State Senator. In fact, every time he comes back to Davis to speak, he remembers the community fondly.
Yolo County officials are necessarily concerned that the county is currently slated to be cut into thirds, separating, of all things, Woodland from Davis, two communities just seven miles apart.
“The maps could disenfranchise the interests of Yolo County citizens,” wrote Supervisors Jim Provenza and Don Saylor, speaking on behalf of the county Board of Supervisors in a letter to the California Citizens Redistricting Commission
Since 1996, Davis has been represented in the Assembly by a Davis resident. Starting with Helen Thomson, continuing with Lois Wolk and now Mariko Yamada, a Davis resident has held the Assembly seat in a district that included most of Yolo and Eastern Solano County.
While that was one of the few districts that really made demographical and geographical sense, that is now in doubt with the district maps that were released Friday.
Assuming that the issue of choice voting is not completely dead in Davis, the Oakland Mayor’s race might give us insight into how choice voting could work in Davis. It would undoubtedly give fodder to both sides of the fence.
In 2006, Davis’ voters heavily endorsed the advisory measure that instructed the city to consider enacting a choice voting system, in which the voters, rather than vote for a single candidate, would rank order their candidates by preference.
I was watching this whole flap develop about Christine O’Donnell and whether or not she is ignorant of the First Amendment and whether there is a separation of church and state.
As I listened to the flap I did not really think it was a big deal. The conservative argument on the separation of church and state, after all, points out, correctly that there are no words “separation of church and state” found in the constitution. That is an accurate statement.
I had an interesting moment this week, after talking with Tom Torlakson and then going over my recording of his speech and interview. Mr. Torlakson is currently an Assemblymember, and is running to replace Jack O’Connell as the next Secretary of Public Instruction.
He has a calm and quiet confidence, almost optimism, about him. He was able to speak passionately, yet clearly and rationally.
I would be remiss if I did not comment on the extraordinary chain of events that occurred on a Friday before the Fourth of July weekend when Alaskan Governor Sarah Palin who has made a career our of being a maverick and unpredictable, took that to another level by announcing she would resign by August.
Naturally this has touched off speculation ranging from her trying to avoid some sort of scandal to using the extra time to run for President and become the leader in the Republican Party.
The SpeechThose perhaps expecting Barack Obama to issue forth a speech on par with Lincoln’s Second Inaugural, Roosevelt, and Kennedy were likely disappointed. It was a good speech, it accomplished much of what he wanted to do, but it was not one of his great speeches. It was not on par with his speech after the New Hampshire Primary or even the Iowa Primary, it was not on par with his speech on race following Reverend Wright. Nor was it on par with his acceptance speech in Denver or his victory speech on November 4, 2008.
I am sure this will get me into a lot of hot water with those on the left. But so far so good with Barack Obama. I am not going to argue he’s not going to make a good deal of mistakes along the way. What I am going to say is I like his governing philosophy so far. He is bringing in high profile people, who he doesn’t necessarily agree with on everything, people with stature, experience, people who can challenge his assumptions. The biggest flaw of the Bush administration is that Bush never allowed his core assumptions to be challenged.
I will grant anyone that on paper his foreign policy team should have been able to do that–Powell, Rumsfeld, and Rice should have been formidable. However, Powell was marginalized from the beginning, and everyone fell into dangerous group-think. Under other conditions, Rice might have been more effective. So naming a strong team on paper is no guarantee. However, that’s where the mentality of the leader comes into play. Bush never had a day of intellectual curiosity or philosophical doubt in his life. Obama from all accounts likes to be challenged, likes to consider opposing viewpoints, and I think that mindset will serve him well as long as he remains true to it.
I do not remember how old I as, but I remember as a child my mother mentioning to me with excitement that Raplh Nader was going to come to town. She described him as a consumer advocate who stood up to big business and who was incorruptible. They tried to discredit Nader, hiring all sorts of independent investigators and tried to corrupt him with prostitutes to trap him into uncompromising positions, but they could not.
Ralph Nader’s expose on automobile safety, “Unsafe At Any Speed” is still a classic work of investigative journalism. His advocacy lead to many of the safety features that have made modern automobiles a good deal safer.
While election day brought great news to many at both the national and the local level, it…
The headline in the New York Times this morning, says it all really. I use the imagery…
So tonight the Vanguard will be live blogging various election results from both around the country, the…
Tomorrow we actually have some important local news that we have to cover, so today is going…
At the risk of trying to tie some otherwise disparate pieces of information together into a single…
It seems that Joe Biden is not the only Democrat with a propensity to shoot his mouth…
Given the dynamics of this year, it would take a lot for us to have to cover…
Michele Bachmann appeared last week on Chris Matthews show as many have time and time before. And…
There were rumors and speculation all week that Obama would get General Powell’s endorsement, so it was…