n just two weeks from now Californians are scheduled to vote in the Democratic primary for governor. The estimates are that vast numbers, bored by frequent elections and unenthused by either of the leading candidates, will stay home and not vote.
The choice is between the State Controller Steve Westly who is considered to be a fiscal conservative and labels himself as "a different kind of Democrat." Westly wants to reinvent how government spends money, provides benefits and delivers services.
State Treasurer Phil Angelides, endorsed by both of California's Senators, Feinstein and Boxer, wants to raise taxes on the wealthy, give driver's licenses to undocumented immigrants and legalize gay marriages. He bills himself as "the anti-Arnold" and is a staunch liberal.
They both have lots of money to spend on their campaigns and they are doing so. Both men are rich, but in the case of Westly, he is exceptionally well-heeled. Word has it that he has already spent over $32 million of his own money on seeking the office. (He was formerly an executive at e-Bay where he made his fortune.)
Meanwhile, Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger has no serious Republican challengers in his run for a second term. The election, almost certainly, will be a referendum on the incumbent and how he has being doing as Governor. The general election campaign will provide the Republicans with a whole lot of material taken from the bitter lashing-out at each other by the two Democrats in their televised debates.
How do the Democrat members of the Senate and Assembly feel about the election.? Well they certainly don't hate Arnold and as long as they are in the majority in both houses, maybe they don't care too much about who the governor is.
One thing I do know is the California deserves a different Lieutenant Governor. The position has very little influence, but we certainly deserve a more active Number 2 than the incumbent Democrat, Bustamente. I have no idea where he has been and what he's been doing.

On the national scene, John Hughes, the former editor of the Christian Science Monitor (who currently is the editor and chief operating officer of the Deseret Morning News) writing in the Monitor commenced his column with the following, "The other night I was at a dinner in New York where 20-or-so journalistic heavy-hitters were chatting about the next presidential election. "how many of you think Hillary Clinton is going to be the next president", asked the conversation meister of the evening. Not a single hand was raised. "Well, if she did get the Democratic nomination, could she be beaten by some Republican like Virginia Senator George Allen or Kansas Senator Sam Brownback?" Not a single hand was raised.
It maybe early in the game, but if the Republicans want to retain the White House they are going to have to find someone who won't be blown away by her... and his (yes, of course Bill will be alongside her all the way) Clintonian charisma.

With the passage of time it becomes more and more clear, to more and more people, that Vice President Dick Cheney was at the epicenter of the White House campaign to discredit Ambassador Joseph Wilson, simply because he was a critic of the President's logic for going to war against Iraq. The campaign ultimately also outed Wilson's wife, Valerie Plame as a CIA operative. It is just possible that the special prosecutor, Patrick J. Fitzgerald's grand jury will get the opportunity to have the Vice President as a witness! I hope so.

Much more, soon.