Last seen withdrawing from the California Gubernatorial primary against a not-yet-officially-announced Jerry Brown, San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom has entered the fray for the second spot on the ballot: Lieutenant Governor.

Why should anyone care? Well, first of all, because the Lieutenant Governor is not an entirely useless post: it comes with ex officio positions on important boards such as the State Lands Commission and the University of California Board of Regents. But with Jerry Brown uncontested at the top of the ticket, the Lieutenant Governor’s race is the highest-profile contested election on the Democratic Primary ballot this June–and Democrats are going to counted on to show up in June to support some really good measures on the statewide ballot, and defeat some really ugly ones.

Newsom still has good name recognition and a decent base of support owing to his failed run for Governor earlier in the year, and his entry into the Lt. Gov. race has prompted State Senator Dean Florez to drop out–leaving the voters to decide between Newsom and Los Angeles City Councilwoman Janice Hahn, who is seeking to be the first female Lieutenant Governor in the history of the State.

This race is going to be the top race to watch in the Democratic Primary–not only because it’s the most top-tier, but also because it’s likely to see some sparks. Garry South, who has a reputation as a hard-hitting consultant, used to work for Newsom’s Gubernatorial campaign–and he now works for Janice Hahn.

No statistically reliable polls have been done on this race yet, but I would expect Newsom to have an initial lead based on name recognition, while Hahn will spend the campaign trying to increase her own name ID and drive up Newsom’s negatives.

Meanwhile, there are some in San Francisco who are pulling for Newsom–just so he won’t be mayor any more. That’s not a good sign. Either way, it’s a shame that when we really need Democratic turnout in California, this race is the best we can do for top-tier.

By Capt. FoggAnd invoking God on our currency is not religious either, or so say the judicial theologians sometimes known as the Federal Appeals Court. The California court decided 2 to 1 to overturn their own 2002 ruling that sided with atheist …

Needless to say, California GOP gubernatorial frontrunner Meg Whitman has had a week she’d probably rather forget. After all, our own DK/R2K poll showed that despite a month of saturation level advertising, she still trails the in absentia campaign of Democrat Jerry Brown by four points. Of course, that came after her absurdly bad press availability in the Bay Area this week, where she got the “deer in the headlights” look when reporters began peppering her with questions, tagging off to her press aide who promptly ushered the reporters out of the room with great haste.

This “press event without the press” fed an already growing campaign narrative that Whitman is deeply fearful of finding herself in unscripted situations.

This will do little to disabuse people of that notion:

A funny thing happened when Camp Whitman was filming its 30-minute info-mercial last night in Orange County. Oh, besides stuff like covert filming by her opponents, cops being called, crowd screening and Meg goosing the audience for applause.

* * * * * *

The tickets to this “private” Meg event — which didn’t tell the ticket-holder that they were going to potentially be part of infomercial history — found their way into the hands of Whitman’s political opponents, both Democratic and Republican (of the Insurance Commish Steve Poizner variety.)

Somehow operatives from the two camps were giving off some sort of musk that told Team Whitman that they weren’t Meg’s type of people. The Poiz operative was told to stop filming. But before he did, he managed to get shots of Meg asking the crowd to make sure to applause loudly for her. “A lot of cheering would be good” she tells them.

The Democratic operative booted from the festivities was a Californian named Jeremy Thompson, who made the charge on his Twitter page that Team Whitman actually called the cops on him for being there, despite the fact that he had been invited to the event.

On its own, the incident probably would not amount to much embarrassment for the Whitman team. Stacking the crowd for a Town Hall is hardly political breaking news, nor is it a grand aberration for politicos or their subordinates to coach a crowd prior to cameras rolling.

But for a campaign that has already taken no small amount of heat for both secrecy, and for keeping their candidate in a hermetically sealed bubble, this was a gaffe targeted right at their Achilles’ Heel.

Jerry Brown, whose campaign as of the close of the year had spent less than Meg Whitman had on staff travel alone, has to be thanking his good fortune that the Whitman campaign is building this quite perilous narrative for their candidate without his help.

Research 2000 for Daily Kos. 3/8-10. Likely voters. MoE 4% (8/2-12/09 results)

Let’s start with the governor’s race:

Poizner is the ultra-conservative teabagger candidate in the race, and going nowhere, so we’re likely to get a Whitman/Brown matchup. Both those candidates are evenly matched in favorabilities, though the state’s Democratic tilt gives Brown a bit of a head start. The results are still a bit surprising, however. Brown has run the most invisible, stealth campaign, in state history. Seriously, the dude is nowhere to be found. Meanwhile, Whitman has spent tents of millions of dollars in her campaign, and is running on near saturation television ads:

The campaign’s Gross Rating Point report, measuring total delivery of the current week’s broadcast ad schedule in 11 markets in California, shows that eMeg’s buy is comparable to what a fully-loaded campaign might ordinarily deliver in the closing weeks of a heated race – not three months before a primary that she’s prohibitively leading.

“These are some big fuckin’ numbers,” said Bill Carrick, the veteran Democratic media consultant after reviewing the report. “She’s buying the whole shebang.”

While she may be the prohibitive favorite in the primary, it’s done little to bolster her general election standing. She’s gained just two points on Jerry Brown since last August. And remember, that’s against Brown’s invisible campaign.

Brown dominates in the Bay Area 61-22, while Whitman does best down South, around San Diego, 56-34. Independents split 41-40, with Brown with the small but statistically insignificant edge. 19 percent of independents remain undecided.

The biggest undecided block are African Americans, who break 66-6 for Brown, but with 28 percent undecided. Getting them out to vote will be key for Brown. Same with Latinos, who give Brown a 60-27 edge, with 13 percent undecided.

Brown may be 255 years old (give or take a decade), but voters over 60 go for Whitman 45-38. The Millennials  remain the strongest Democratic age group — 49-37 for Brown. They are also the least likely to vote. Thus Brown’s early edge is one built on a shaky foundation — strong support from the demographics least likely to turn out and vote. Whitman has been running a gaffe prone campaign thus far. If she gets her act together, this could be a real dogfight.

In the Senate race:

Boxer has the early edge, but she’s under the magical 50 percent safe mark. Fiorina and DeVore have terrible favorability numbers, leaving Campbell as Boxer’s most serious competition.

Of course, this is familiar territory for her. In 2004 — another strong GOP year — the scary accurate Field Poll had Boxer head just 48-38 in February of that year. Boxer didn’t break the 50 percent mark in that key California poll until May, and she never looked back. We’ll see if she can repeat history in this, yet another challenging year for Democrats.

Against Campbell, who runs strongest against her, Boxer dominates the bay Area (63-24) and leads 2-1 in LA County (58-28). The Central Valley and San Diego area, on the other hand, are problems. Also, like Brown, her strongest demographics are also those least likely to vote — young voters, African Americans and Latinos.

Still, Boxer starts off with the edge. And Campbell is nowhere near locking down his primary like Whitman. That contest appears to be anyone’s game, especially with 36 percent still undecided.

Update: Oops, sorry for the dead crosstabs. That page is now working properly.

During the Winter Olympiad out here in California, it became obvious that a big part of Meg Whitman’s strategy for getting elected Governor of California was going to be flooding the zone with ads, drowning out her opponents with her burgeoning bankbook.

Yesterday, Californians got another insight into Whitman’s recipe for victory in 2010: avoid unscripted situations with the press, even at the risk of looking completely ridiculous:

Reporters from Bay Area media outlets — TV, print and radio — turned up for Whitman’s advertised campaign stop in Oakland, where the former eBay CEO had announced a campaign stop and press event.

But once at the Union Pacific Railroad site, the assembled reporters were not allowed to view her tour — and herded into a holding room instead.

Then came the news that Whitman also wouldn’t take questions; reporters had been called in to “see” her make statements on “how she could be helpful as governor” on jobs and the economy, Whitman spokeswoman Sarah Pompei said.

Veteran reporters, who included KTVU’s Randy Shandobil and KPIX’s Hank Plante, were among the crowd that wasn’t amused. Question: is Whitman a candidate for governor, or a museum piece to be “watched” by reporters?

In case there was any doubt that the press did not take well to being reduced to the role of stenographers for the Meg 2010 campaign, check out this absolutely withering treatment of the event by the aforementioned Hank Plante of KPIX. The commentary by the anchors at the close of the video is particularly devastating:

(Notice that while the YouTube clip is merely a re-airing of the KPIX evening news segment on the Whitman event, it is being shopped around on Youtube cheerfully by the campaign of GOP rival Steve Poizner. They clearly know an opportunity when they see it.)

KPIX, not content with merely kicking dirt on Whitman for her campaign’s poor behavior during the press availability, portrayed it as part of a pattern, courtesy of a quip from Democratic consultant Dan Newman:

NEWMAN: She refuses to release her tax returns…refuses to release documentation about her flights on the corporate jet for personal purposes. She refuses to tell us what happened on the board of Goldman Sachs at that critical time.

The rationale given for Whitman’s refusal to take questions was an unyielding schedule. But the Chronicle’s Carla Marinucci was not so sure about the validity of that excuse:

Reason, we were told: Whitman was running late. But Whitman lingered for some time with railroad officials in the same room — just feet away from the press, who refused to leave. Finally, they were herded out, at which point Whitman’s campaign drew the blinds and put up a movie screen to block them from seeing the candidate.

Whitman did sit down to talk for 30 minutes with the Chronicle’s Republican op-ed columnist, Debra J. Saunders — but the rest were shut out.

California is on the DK/R2K polling calendar, with results coming soon. Given her multi-million dollar advertising blitz during the Olympics, it would be shocking to see Whitman leading Democrat Jerry Brown (who seems to be intent to become the first Governor elected without anyone actually knowing he is running for the job).

The question is: can Whitman maintain enough of a reservoir of goodwill with voters if she continues to refuse to speak to them beyond anything other than rehearsed press availabilities and 30-second/60-second advertisements?

“Strategic default” involves homeowners deciding to walk away from their homes and mortgages, not because they cannot afford to pay, but because they owe more than their homes are worth. Read the news, and you’ll see that a lot of experts and pundits believe this is unethical.
At the same time, investors routinely “strategically” default [...]

BURBANK, Calif. — Willie Davis, a speedy center fielder who collected two World Series rings, three Gold Gloves and was a two-time All-Star during his 14 seasons with the Los Angeles Dodgers, has died. He was 69.

Davis was found dead Tu…