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Flap’s Links and Comments for April 15th on 05:14
These are my links for April 15th from 05:14 to 05:41:
- Boston Marathon 2011 Guide: Where to Watch & Who to Look For – The 115th running of the Boston Marathon is on for Monday, April 18, 2011 and that's big news for Beantown. Every year, on the third Monday in April, at least 500,000 spectators turn up to watch more than 20,000 runners compete in the 26-mile race.
Here's a comprehensive guide on how to watch the race, who to look for on the course (top runners, celebrity runners, and other notable names), and loads of other details to help you make the most of Marathon Monday.
- Hispanic Growth Ahead of Political Participation – The Texas Tribune's Ross Ramsey makes an important point that often gets overlooked in the discussion about rapid Hispanic growth across the country.
As the newly-released 2010 Census figures illustrate, the growth among Latinos across the country is impressive and has made battleground Southwestern states more Democratic in recent years. Democrats, like Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee Chair Patty Murray are openly talking about contesting Texas in next year's Senate election
But growth isn't the same as voter participation. And Hispanics aren't participating at nearly the same rate as non-Hispanics – and there are few signs that's changing anytime soon.
Ramsey points to his home state of Texas as an example. The population of the Republican-friendly Dallas suburb of Collin County (782,341) is about the same as the Democratic-friendly, heavily-Hispanic El Paso County (800,647). But voter turnout last year was nearly twice as high in Collin County than in El Paso, 156,668 to 88,505.
It's a similar situation in Arizona, where Rep. Raul Grijalva (D-Ariz.) found himself in a surprisingly close contest last year, even though his district is majority-Hispanic and solidly Democratic. But voter participation there was just under 160,000 – one of the lowest totals in any House district in the country – meaning a relatively small proportion of Latinos actually showed up at the polls.
It's something to consider as we look at the presidential battlegrounds, where President Obama is counting on significant Hispanic turnout and support to contest pivotal states like Florida, Nevada, Colorado and even Arizona. Democrats have been more effective at registering Hispanic voters in Nevada, but less so in Arizona and Texas where turnout has been anemic in many of the heavily-Hispanic seats.
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President Obama will have a difficult time turning out Hispanic voters unless he turns up the PANDER machine pretty quickly.
With a GOP House, any such attempt will go nowhere as will the Hispanic vote for him in 2012.
- Employees Now Asking Companies to Leave California – While Sacramento remains fuzzy-headed about California's hostile business climate, the state is experiencing the fastest rate of company out-of-state and out-of-country relocations since I put a specialized tracking system into place two years ago. Activity from Jan. 1 through April 12 of this year shows that 69 California company disinvestment events have occurred, an average of 4.7 per week – greater than the 3.9 average per week last year. See more at Calif. ‘Disinvestment Events' Reach New High As Companies Opt for Other States, Nations posted yesterday.
By the way, the number one location for California companies to relocate to, or to divert capital for facilities that in the past used to be built here, is Texas with 14 such events.
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And, when utility costs go up because of legislation Jerry Brown signed this past week, more will leave or refuse to relocate to California.
Yet, Lt Gov. Gavin Newsom goes to Texas?
- Boston Marathon 2011 Guide: Where to Watch & Who to Look For – The 115th running of the Boston Marathon is on for Monday, April 18, 2011 and that's big news for Beantown. Every year, on the third Monday in April, at least 500,000 spectators turn up to watch more than 20,000 runners compete in the 26-mile race.
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Flap’s Links and Comments for March 28th on 18:00
These are my links for March 28th from 18:00 to 18:03:
- California Republicans: State GOP trying to craft its own mail-in primary before open primary law takes effect – When the California Republican Party adopted a plan to survey the state's 5.3 million GOP voters to decide who should be their party's standard-bearer in future elections, the move provided a compromise ending to a contentious battle over how to blunt the voter-approved "top two" primary system.
But there are deep questions and some skepticism over whether the party will be able to afford and administer such an ambitious undertaking.
"I don't think it will ever be implemented," said Allan Hoffenblum, a former GOP strategist and publisher of the nonpartisan California Target Book, which handicaps legislative races. "They punted.… I wouldn't be a bit surprised to see the state party change its mind between now and June 2014."
The move, made at the California Republican Party convention last weekend, was prompted by Proposition 14, which changed the state's electoral system. Under it, candidates from all parties compete in a primary, after which the top two vote-getters compete in a general election — even if they are members of the same party. The ballot measure, approved last year, was intended to create competition and loosen the grip that the state's most partisan voters have on primary elections.
Democrats are expected to take up the matter when they hold their convention next month.
Under the GOP measure approved last week, the candidate who wins a mail-in nomination contest will be listed as the official Republican candidate on party mailers and will have access to party resources. The plan beat out two competing proposals — one by party leaders in which a small number of insiders would anoint nominees, and one by elected officials where in most cases incumbents would be automatically endorsed.
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Read it all.
This mail-in proposal will never be implemented.
- California GOP hits sharp skid – Demographics and Decline of So Cal Defense Industry – There's more to the Republican decline than demography. The near-demise of the Southern California defense industry after the end of the Cold War sparked an exodus of defense workers out of the state and that, coupled with an inflow of immigrants, shifted the politics of Los Angeles County from party-neutral to strongly Democratic, thus tilting the whole state.
Simultaneously, the state GOP changed itself. What was once a middle-of-the-road party that dominated California as Democrats paddled on the left reconfigured itself into a right-wing party.
The party's stridency on taxes, illegal immigration, abortion and other hot-button issues alienated both white moderates – most noticeably in the suburbs – and the surging numbers of Latino and Asian voters.
The GOP's incoming state chairman, Tom Del Beccaro, acknowledged the party's deterioration during its recent convention in Sacramento.
"We do not pay enough attention to our next generation," Del Beccaro told delegates. "We are not talking to enough minority voters, we are not talking to enough independents and we are not even talking to enough Democrats. Quite frankly, we have trapped ourselves into talking to the converted instead of inspiring a new generation of voters."
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Southern California is rapidly changing from the California of my youth.
I am in the aging white population which will soon die off and not be replaced by migration from other areas of the USA.
I wonder if my children, will have a future in California as one is already relocating to the Mid-West.
- California Republicans: State GOP trying to craft its own mail-in primary before open primary law takes effect – When the California Republican Party adopted a plan to survey the state's 5.3 million GOP voters to decide who should be their party's standard-bearer in future elections, the move provided a compromise ending to a contentious battle over how to blunt the voter-approved "top two" primary system.