Can The Progressive Wave Hold Water?
Votes are in from Coast to Coast and the Democratic left is feeling good. That said, the Democratic center is hardly in retreat. First of course, there were shockwaves when Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, a 28-year-old Democratic activist and a member of the Democratic Socialists of America who was running her first campaign, beat 10-term incumbent Congressman Joe Crowley […]
Speaker Nancy Pelosi…Again?
Even as Democrats appear to be poised to regain a majority in the House of Representatives, Congresswoman Nancy Pelosi, now the House Minority Leader, has emerged as the political punching bag of 2018. She is taking heat from all sides. Republicans revile her as “a San Francisco liberal” who will lead America down the path […]
Blue Wave Threatens GOP’s Surfer Congressman
It appears there is a good chance that Congress’ Surfer-in-Chief is about to be swept up by a big blue wave. In an Orange County district that once was the heart of GOP conservatism, 15-term Republican Congressman Dana Rohrabacher finds himself on the political endangered species list in the 2018 election. In many ways, Rep. […]
A Bridgebuilder Who Will Be Missed
Juxtaposed against the chaos and cruelty that defined last week’s national political scene was an event in Los Angeles that highlighted what real civic engagement and civil collaboration can look like. The memorial service for long-time civil rights advocate and community leader John Mack brought together a cross section of California’s and Los Angeles’ political […]
“Top Two” Takes California
Despite the grumbling of pundits and partisans, California’s top-two primary is almost certainly here to stay. The voters like it and the system fits the realities of this state’s politics. California no longer has a functioning two-party system and that is not going to change anytime soon. The presidency of Donald Trump has served to […]
Post-Primary Ponderings
After all the hand-wringing by Inside the Beltway pundits and politicos, the so-called “Jungle Primary” nightmare scenario failed to materialize, when none of the highly contested California Congressional races produced a GOP vs GOP runoff that would have shut out Democrats from contesting a potentially winnable district in November. If, and it is a big […]
RFK
Fifty years ago, this week, while celebrating his victory in the hard-fought 1968 California Democratic Presidential primary, Senator Robert F. Kennedy was assassinated at the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles. That tragedy was a seminal event in a tumultuous year; it was a year in which the political landscape was upended. Politics in California and […]
Polling, the Astrology of Politics
The most recent polls on the California gubernatorial race are out and anyone who thinks he or she can predict what is going to happen on June 5th is probably smoking too much of the state’s newly legalized cannabis. With the state in pretty good economic and fiscal shape, voters simply aren’t engaged in a race […]
George Deukmejian: The Anti-Trump
The passing of former Governor George Deukmejian is a reminder of how much has changed in our political environment, particularly on the GOP side of the aisle. In virtually every way, Governor Deukmejian was the opposite of Donald Trump. A thoroughly decent man, Deukmejian displayed less ego than almost any politician you can think of. The Trumpian “politics of […]
Trump v California—the OC Battleground
Donald Trump’s war with California is raging on all fronts—health care, climate change, environmental regulation, taxes, land use and, of course, immigration. Nowhere are the battles fiercer or the stakes higher than in Orange County, the one-time bastion of conservative Republican politics that has morphed from solid red to purple. Hillary Clinton carried Orange County […]