FullosseousFlap’s Dental Blog

Flap is off in a few hours to the Bear Flag League Summer Conference.

Blogging will be light until Flap plugs in……after lunch of course.

Update #1

Dan Weintraub from the Sacramento Bee and the California Insider Blog has just finished speaking and answering questions. He questioned the current model of newspaper journalism and forsees a great role for citizen journalists.

Los Angeles Mayoral candidate and former California Assembly Speaker Bob Hertzberg is now speaking.

Hertzberg is talking about the blogging world and his campaign for Mayor. The role of endorsements from bloggers and the spin thus resulted and how it affected his donor base.

He just called the MSM a bunch of “lazy bums.”

Continuing…..

He calls himself a shit-stirrer and wants to push the blogging community forward. He doesn’t know where it is going but will push the envelope.

He wants to take a subject area and outline ten ideas on how to collect trash, for example. Go to his Big Ideas blog folks, calendarize the ideas and hold government responsible.

Keep the pressure on government, issue press releases and move debate forward.

Have a catalyst for new ideas - figure out a way to capture energy and freshness of the internet like he witnessed during his last campaign.

More…

Joe Phillips will now discuss blogging and politics.

Bob Hertzberg being interviewed by Sacramento Bee reporter, Dam Weintraub with Independent Sources Blog A Senior Administration Official in the background.

Update #2

Check out TDM over at West Coast Bored of Exchange. He is live blogging as well.

Ted Costa who was behind the Gray Davis recall and a sponsor of Prop. 77, the redistricting measure on the November Special Election ballot is now speaking.

Alan Hoffenblum just finished speaking about the impact of the world wide web, and the blogs on political campaigns and campaign finance reform. He tells the story of an incumbent legislator, elected in a competive district and how immediate communication on the internet will affect his responsiveness to his constituents. Immediacy of response and the threat of instant communication within your own district to voters will do more than McCain-Feingold ever could.

Kevin Drum has DOUBLE SUPER SECRET MISSION TO THE DARK SIDE

As an enemy combatant to the LEFT……. we aren’t so bad.

Thanks for coming Kevin!

Update 11:30 PM

Flap has lots of photos and will be posting them over the next day.

Is California Governor, Arnold Schwarzenegger finally getting the message? Daniel Weintraub, a featured speaker at the Bear Flag League Summer Conference today (actually in a few hours) has this piece, Governor finally gets the message.

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s decision on Friday to stop taking money from two bodybuilding magazines closely tied to the nutritional supplements industry was smart, even if it hurt his pride and his pocketbook. Although he still doesn’t plan to give back the money he has taken from the magazines since becoming governor, this move is at least a small sign that Schwarzenegger is starting to realize how bad he looks to the people who elected him and hoped that he would be a force for reform.

Flap is not so sure.

The Governor’s apparent squishiness on the special election he called, his lack of response to devastating union protestors and television commercials and the behind the scenes deal making on special election initiatives that worries Republicans.

Arnold has to decide he wants to be a POLITICIAN not a Hollywood Star. Otherwise, he will emulate another Predator actor, Jesse Ventura, the failed and former Governor of Minnesota.

Ventura has been criticized for privately profiting from his heightened popularity. He was hired as host for the failed XFL football enterprise, served as a referee at a WWE wrestling match, and published several books during his tenure as governor. On his weekly radio show, he often criticized the media for focusing on these deals rather than on his policy proposals.

Dan Walters in Schwarzenegger, Cunningham: Conduct crosses ethical line supports this thesis.

Nevertheless, the flap was another example of the governor’s somewhat tone-deaf approach to politics. He has assumed from the onset of his governorship that because he was a famous bodybuilder and movie star entering politics as a civic gesture, the ordinary - if unwritten - rules of political conduct didn’t apply. That attitude has manifested itself in what can only be described as sloppiness, whether it be in his often contradictory public pronouncements, his inartful drafting of ballot measures that he says are vital policy reforms or his raising huge amounts of campaign money while decrying the influence in the Capitol of special interests.

Somehow, Schwarzenegger convinced himself that he was immune to the political effects of that sloppiness - that the purity of his motives would be obvious and compelling - but each instance provided his enemies, who never wanted him to succeed as governor, with more ammunition to undercut his standing with voters, a standing that now is only slightly more than half of his sky-high approval nine months ago.

Perhaps Schwarzenegger finally understands that he’s fighting for his political life, and arrogant disregard for the niceties could be his undoing.

Calling Steve Westly and Phil Angelides……..Flap bets Lockyer is kicking himself.