links for 2009-03-13

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger took dead aim Thursday at potential foes to a budget-related ballot measure he wants voters to pass in May.

In a speech at the Commonwealth Club of California, Schwarzenegger said "special interests" are trying to derail Proposition 1A, which would limit spending in good years but also extend a series of temporary tax increases. So far, no coordinated opposition has formed, but labor unions are discussing whether to mount an attack.

"And the very interests, the far left and the far right, that prefer dysfunction over change have already launched a campaign to confuse the people and to defeat the reform," Schwarzenegger told the Commonwealth Club in San Francisco. "But this time they are not going to be successful."
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These balloot propositions of Arnold's are DOA in the May Special election.

A pair of Republican activists has opened a campaign committee to recall Assemblyman Anthony Adams, chairman of the San Bernardino County GOP.

The main name on the Committee to Recall Adams is David Bauer of Sacramento. Last year, Bauer was campaign treasurer for Rep. Tom McClintock during the hard-fought race in Northern California's 4th Congressional District.

Bauer also is the chief financial officer of JohnsonClark Associates, a statewide campaign-consulting firm based in Sacramento.

That would be the same JohnsonClark that has overseen Adams' past campaigns and would be leading the fight against any recall effort.

That should make for some interesting conversations around the water cooler.

So what can Steele do in the near-term?

His advisers say he's going to shut up for a while. (They note that the GQ interview took place two weeks ago.) Steele is very confident, and he treats on-the-record interviews as if he were speaking off the record… or as if he were speaking as a Fox News commentator. The truth is that the only relevant people listening to Steele's GQ-type interviews are pro-life activists who want to find something to object to. I am told that Steele understands this now.

He's also going to focus on the party itself; watch for a series of announcements about team members over the next few days.

And he's going to focus on fundraising. He's yet to name a finance director; perhaps more pressing is a finance chairman – the person who can get other major donors to Steele's side.
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He better hurry.

As I reported (yeah, we can do that, too, MSM), one of the most notable e-mail exchanges I found in the docs (which was not spotlighted in JW’s release, but could be found by anyone who actually clicked through on JW’s site to the actual records) dealt with Pelosi’s absurd demand in December 2008 (that’s just three months ago, not “early in her tenure”) that the military move her jet from San Francisco airport to Travis Air Force base (where she had “business” and where she just so happens to have a country home nearby in Napa 30 minutes away!) Queen Pelosi didn’t want to drive 1.5 hours. She demanded that the military come to her. DoD officials pointed out that this had never been done before — not even for the Defense Secretary.

Michael Steele's days are numbered,” Rendell said. “Fortunately for us, his days are numbered."

ALSO:

"He's in trouble because I just think that those who control the Republican Party don't want a big tent," Rendell told reporters during a lunch hosted the Christian Science Monitor.

Rendell, a past chairman of the Democratic National Committee, said he believes the approaching special election in New York's 20th Congressional District – to replace Democrat Kirsten Gillibrand, who was appointed senator – is not likely a make-or-break event for Steele, whom Rendell said also faces more fundamental problems.

"I don't know if they want a chairman who is basically pro-choice," Rendell said, referring to an answer Steele gave to GQ magazine in which he described abortion as an “individual choice."

Palin will attend the Vanderburgh County Right to Life dinner in Evansville, Ind., on April 16, Stapleton said. Republican National Committee chairman Michael Steele will be a speaker at that "Freedom for Life" banquet, and a major Christian musician, Matthew West, will perform, according to the Web site for the event.

The banquet, established in the late 1980s, has become known nationwide and typically draws around 2,000 people.

The governor also will attend a celebration of special needs children in Indiana on the same trip, Stapleton said. That event is by the group S.M.I.L.E. on Down Syndrome.

RNC Chairman Michael Steele said today that despite telling an interviewer he supports "individual choice" and state-level decisions on abortion, he in fact opposes abortion and supports a Constitutional ban.

Steele said in a statement through an RNC spokesman:

Governornator urges constituents to support budget reform on the ballot in May in Thursday address to the Commonwealth Club Of California.

"Never again do we want to find ourselves wandering around in another $42 billion Valley of Doom."