I received my Democratic primary ballot in the mail and I was pleased to see right there at the top of page 1 these fateful words: "NONPARTISAN VOTERS ARE NO LONGER REQUIRED TO MARK AN ADDITIONAL BUBBLE TO CROSSOVER."

Check it:

The Courage Campaign led the charge not only to educate DTS voters in LA County about the bizarre requirement to fill out the "Democratic Party" bubble in addition to requesting a Democratic ballot but then faught hard to get the LA County Registrar of Voters to count the votes of DTS voters in February 5th's primary. Thanks to that effort, acting LA County Registrar Dean Logan reversed himself and ended up counting 50,000 or so Democratic presidential votes where the intent of unaffiliated voters was clear.

What's great about the disclaimer at the top of the LA County Democratic ballot is that it signals that the victory was not fleeting and it was not merely putting a bandaid on a wound. Thanks to the mobilization of progressives by the Courage Campaign and Secretary of State Debra Bowen's leadership, thousands of DTS voters will no longer have to fear being disenfranchised because of a stupid rule and a poorly designed ballot.

Back in December, I announced with some caution that the CA Dirty Tricks Initiative had been "delayed." Indeed, the CA right-wing's best bet at passage, i.e. getting on the June ballot, was not going to happen, but I still was taking nothing for granted. As I wrote at the time:

...if we've learned one thing about right-wing dirty tricksters, it's that they're not to be underestimated. So chalk this up as one battle won, but not yet the war. I expect we'll see plenty of dirty tricks to come.

Well, we just won the war.

Proponents of a controversial proposed ballot measure that would have reallocated California's electoral college votes by congressional district -- instead of the current winner-take-all system -- have abandoned their effort.

 "It's not going to make the ballot this year," said David Gilliard, a Republican political strategist organizing the campaign. "The money never materialized to put it on the ballot."

The deadline to get the signatures in to the Secretary of State's office was Monday and let's just say they didn't. It's sort of an anti-climactic end to what could have been a dramatic twist in this already dramatic election season but the Republicans saw the writing on the wall; with the excitement generated by the Democratic candidates, there was no way they'd ever pass this thing in California on the November ballot.

This is great news and a real testament to the grassroots/netroots rapid response instigated by The Courage Campaign. Our No Dirty Tricks campaign should really serve as a model for how local netroots working outside of the establishment party system can provide much needed pushback to the right-wing dirty trick machine that used to be so effective.

Used to be.

Money drying up...signature gathering falling short...it seems the Republicans are slowly realizing that, thanks to the proliferation of organizations like The Courage Campaign, these tactics are simply no longer viable.

Chalk another one up for the good guys.

There's been some discussion on the left as to whether a partisan primary should be influenced by voters who don't belong to either party. No matter where you come down on that issue, in my mind, if election laws allow an open primary, we should be encouraging all voters to take advantage of the opportunity to make their voice heard in the Democratic primary, since, as Rick Jacobs puts it at The Huffington Post:

With literally hundreds of thousands of young first time voters getting into the fray this year, we have an ideal opportunity to get them to vote Democratic. And if they vote this time, as Governor Dean says, they'll likely vote for Democrats in the future.

In California, unaffiliated voters can register as Decline To State (or DTS.) This is an important voting bloc in California as their numbers are the only ones that are steadily rising. According to the California Secretary of State's website, DTS voters make up just over 19% of all registered voters in the state, double their percentage from 1992. During that same period, Democratic registration has dropped about 6% and Republican registration has dropped 5%. This should come as no surprise to anyone who knows what incumbency rackets the state parties run.

Now, the reason these voters are important in terms of our primary on February 5th is that, while DTS voters are not allowed to vote in the Republican primary, they are permitted to vote in the Democratic primary. The problem is, DTS voters don't seem to know this, or at least they don't seem to know how to go about doing it. According to Jacobs, in the 2004 Democratic primary, 30% of DTS voters cast ballots but only 8% voted in the presidential primary.

How can this be? California law states that DTS voters may vote in the Dem primary but to do so must request a Democratic ballot. This may sound simple, but the thing is, if DTS voters don't make this request on Tuesday, they will be handed a non-partisan ballot, which will have everything but the presidential contest on it.

This is why The Courage Campaign, a California grassroots progressive organization (for whom I do part time work) is launching a DTS education campaign to reach 300,000 DTS voters over the coming week via telephone and e-mail to let them know that they are able to vote in the Democratic primary in California but they must ASK FOR A DEMOCRATIC BALLOT.

If you are a California DTS voter or who have friends or family who are, I highly recommend the Courage Campaign's excellent FAQ page with all the information you could possibly need to make your voice heard on Tuesday. It's no accident that it's the Democratic Party that allows DTS voters to vote in our primary, we are after all the party of inclusion, so I'm glad the Courage Campaign is launching this campaign to encourage participation in Tuesday's primary and to reduce the barriers that are in place that would prevent our being yet another state with off the charts Democratic primary turnout.

(cross-posted at MyDD)

We may have gotten beaten in the two congressional special elections that were held yesterday, but there was one little election here in California where the good guys won...and won big.

Private mercenary firm Blackwater USA is best known for the private armies it has deployed in Iraq and the lack of accountability and oversight that have come with that. But less is known about their activities here in the US, for instance, where this private army is trained.

Right now, Blackwater has two training facilities, one in Moyock, North Carolina -- the home of their headquarters, as well as 100 miles west of Chicago, a facility referred to creepily as Blackwater North. Well guess what, Blackwater is expanding...or at least they'd like to.

Starting around the middle of last year, Blackwater began to lay the groundwork for building a third training camp in the tiny rural town of Potrero in San Diego County, California. The proposed facility would be housed on 824 acres in the pristine Round Potrero Valley and is in danger of turning this peaceful wilderness into a private army training zone.

Well, their plans may have just gotten a little more difficult.

Late last year, after Blackwater had spent months stealthily lobbying local officials, the local planning group (an advisory body) approved the Blackwater West proposal. Once local residents and activists got wind of Blackwater's infiltration into their tiny peaceful town, they launched a grassroots effort to block Blackwater. First they circulated a petition to the fewer than 500 registered voters in Potrero to keep Blackwater out and even launched recall of the members of the planning board who voted in favor of Blackwater. Last night the returns came in and the results were overwhelming.

Julia at calitics has the details:

The recall was an overwhelming success.  All five members of the Planning Group who voted to approve Blackwater's plans were recalled by unbelievable margins.  The election will be certified within two days and the Save Potero slate will take office, hopefully in time for their Thursday meeting.

Keep in mind that Bush won by 25.8% in 2008.  Everybody was recalled by over 60% of the vote.  Gordon Hammers, who has been the most vocal Blackwater supporter and served as chair of the group, was recalled by nearly 70% of the vote.

Just an incredible victory.  They did a phenomenal job on GOTV, getting 160 or so out of the 190 who signed the original petition against Blackwater to turn in their ballots.

My friends at the Courage Campaign (for whom I do part time work) headed up the GOTV effort and have been instrumental in getting the word out and building support for this local effort. From this little people-powered revolution has come the first electoral referendum on Blackwater, and the vote is clear: Blackwater, get the hell out!

Yesterday's recall was only the first step. Another vote on Blackwater West will be held, but as it is only advisory, a resounding NO! from the local board will not be able in itself to block the facility; that lies in the hands of the San Diego County Board of Supervisors. From what I've heard, as of right now, the board would approve the facility, but the vote won't be until some time next year as Blackwater jumps through more re-zoning and environmental impact report hoops. In the meantime, Courage Campaign has set its sights on the Board of Supes and you can be sure they're taking note of the fact that every pro-Blackwater planning group member was recalled yesterday.

To find out more about this effort and to join the fight to keep Blackwater out of California's pristine wilderness, head on over to BlockBlackwater.com where you can also watch a great video featuring accidental activist and, as of yesterday, new chair of the Potrero Planning Group, Carl Meyer.

The right-wingers pushing the Dirty Tricks initiative here in California are desperate. They've been making a final fundraising and signature gathering push over the past month in hopes of getting the initiative, which, if passed, would deliver 20 or so of California's 55 electoral votes to the Republican candidate, onto the June 2008 ballot. But looks like it's not going quite as planned.

On Saturday, the LA Times reported that they had missed a deadline set by the Secretary of State for turning in signatures because they still lacked enough money to pay all of their signature gatherers and they didn't want to turn in fewer than 700,000 or so for fear that the final count would result in fewer than the 434,000 valid signatures required by law. The actual deadline to qualify for the ballot is January 24 but now that they've missed their submission date, as yesterday's Sacramento Bee explains (h/t calitics):

...backers of an initiative to change how California's electoral votes are counted are at risk of missing the June ballot because it will be difficult to finish counting signatures by a state deadline next month.

Of course, if they do miss the June ballot deadline, they'll still shoot for the November ballot, but in the meantime they're in desperation mode and the tricks they've been resorting to in order to qualify for June have gotten dirtier and dirtier.

As I wrote last week, my colleagues at The Courage Campaign (for whom I do part-time work) caught some Dirty Tricks signature gatherers on tape luring unsuspecting signers with a petition funding children's cancer research. As Courage's intrepid investigative blogger Erik Love reported at the time:

the petitioners said that their petition would "help children with cancer," and then proceeded to instruct well-meaning students to sign several petitions that were attached together on a single clipboard.  The petitioners clearly tried to obscure the language on the petitions, using a rubber band to make it difficult for anyone signing to read beyond the first page.  When pressed, the petitioners described some of the other issues (besides curing cancer) they were advocating, but their descriptions of the petition language on eminent domain and presidential election reform was unclear or inaccurate.

Based on the video footage Erik took, Courage Campaign has requested a formal investigation into the right-wingers' signature gathering practices and now CBS news has picked up the story using the actual footage Erik took.

Watch the report below:

This is a great example of the local netroots taking a local story and pushing it up, not only through the netroots but into traditional media and having a real world impact. This is really at the heart of the power and influence of the netroots. Too bad we weren't around to push back against the recall back in 2003. Of course, we haven't won yet. The Courage Campaign will continue to fight this right-wing power grab (is there any other kind?) and you can join the effort over at NoDirtyTricks.com or help build the CA progressive infrastructure by giving a little to them over at ActBlue.

This is outrageous.

Anti-war vets have been banned from marching in the 11th Veterans Day Parade in Long Beach.

A participation application filed by Iraq Veterans Against the War, Veterans for Peace and Military Families Speak Out was turned down because organizers want Saturday's parade free from politics.

"They do not fit the spirit of the parade, the spirit being one of gratitude for what the veterans have done," said Martha Thuente, coordinator for the nonprofit Veterans Day Parade Committee.

"We do not want groups of a political nature, advocating the troops' withdrawal from Iraq," she added.

Banning veterans from a Veterans Day parade? Really? Yet pro-war veterans from VFW and the American Legion were allowed to march. Perhaps this should come as little surprise considering the ongoing effort to marginalize the voices of veterans or members of the military who want to end the war ("phony soldiers" anyone?) when those are the very voices we should be heeding. This sentiment was crystallized for me in an e-mail blast I received today from DFA:

Veterans Day is an important day to reflect on our veterans, and their sacrifices. I've done some reflecting myself.

My name is Elliot Anderson, I'm a marine Afghanistan vet and I first started volunteering with Democracy for America when I attended the Nevada training in February of this year.

I think it's high time we stop making combat veterans and disabled veterans unnecessarily. In Iraq, it's high time to let the civil war we are mediating run its course, and get our troops out of the crossfire. Here at home it's high time to stop the drum beat of war with Iran.  It isn't helping veterans to send them overseas into un-just wars.

The best way to pay tribute to our veterans is to make sure "we stop making combat veterans and disabled veterans unnecessarily." It's so simple. In addition, it's imperative that we honor their service by taking care of them upon their return. Those forces who think paying tribute to our veterans means cheerleading war have let down our veterans. Again, from Anderson.

For a lot of our homeless veterans they have Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) and are unemployable.  In the meantime because of the neglect of the veterans administration there is a backlog for claims which can take up to 6 months to fix. So what is an unemployable veteran supposed to do for 6 months? The answer, of course, is end up on the streets.

Let's resolve this Veterans Day to remember our veterans 365 days a year and unlike the right wing, continue to put our money where our mouth is. Everyday you can make a difference in a veteran's life. May I suggest a fantastic organization which gets vets off the streets and rehabilitates them?

You can help today at:

http://www.usvetsinc.org

I hope today and over the weekend you were able to pay tribute to those who are serving and who have served. Anderson offers us a reminder of the importance of listening to our veterans and paying tribute to them not just one day a year, but every day.

As I wrote last week, the Dirty Trick initiative to steal 20+ of California's electoral votes for the Republican candidate is back from the dead, and with just 2 weeks left to gather hundreds of thousands of signatures, they've got a funder lined up in Rep. Darrell Issa, the man behind the recall.

Lucas O'Connor provides some background over at Calitics:

Issa, who represents the 49th Congressional District, is one of the richest people in Congress, making a fortune off the Viper car alarm (step back, you are too close to the vehicle).  Issa is a veteran of throwing gobs of personal money into campaigns.  He dropped $12 million of his own money to lose the Republican Senate primary in 1998.  He was a bit more successful in 2003 when he dug into his wallet for $1.6 million in personal cash to fund the signature gathering for the Gray Davis recall which, when asked if it was worth it earlier this month, he said "Yes, of course."  Well, Rep. Issa is ponying up the big bucks again, lining up behind Dirty Tricks in its hour of need.

According to the Riverside Press Enterprise, the amount of money Issa is donating remains "fluid" but will likely be well under the $1.6 million he gave to the recall effort. But no matter how much he donates to this latest scheme, if we've learned one thing since 2003 it's not to underestimate the right-wing's capacity for dirty tricks.

So this time we're ready, because if there's one thing Issa didn't have to deal with in the recall effort it was an organized opposition; things are different now. Thanks to my colleagues at the Courage Campaign, the California netroots is mobilized against this initiative, no matter how many lives it has. We killed it once, we'll kill it again and we have Bradley Whitford on board to help us.

Check out his latest video in support of our effort:

But we are going to need some help. If this thing gets on the ballot, it's going to take millions of dollars to defeat it, money and effort that should be going to electing and re-electing California Democrats. That's why it's so important to help our early effort to keep the initiative off the ballot in the first place. If you can, contribute at the Courage Campaign's ActBlue page and as always check out NoDirtyTricks.com for ongoing updates.

Update [2007-10-31 22:11:20 by Todd Beeton]: Ahh, was just alerted to this article in The Hill, in which Issa claims his donation isn't terribly large at all.

"I have made a small contribution [to the campaign behind the proposal]," said Issa, who refused to disclose exactly how much he gave. He did say the amount was in the tens of thousands of dollars, not hundreds of thousands of dollars.

Issa also confirmed that he would additionally provide access to his own extensive fundraising network, which includes e-mails, as well as home addresses, of those who helped out in the 2003 recall.

Getting this on the ballot is going to require at least $2 million. What do they have up their sleeve?

A message from Rick Jacobs on what each of us can do to stop the Republican attempt to steal the White House in 2008 - Todd

A few weeks ago, a scathing New York Times editorial told you about how Republicans were springing another "elaborate dirty trick" on us — an unbelievable California ballot initiative to steal 20 electoral college votes for the Republican presidential nominee, thus hijacking the White House for four more disastrous years.

You're outraged. And so are we. That's why the Courage Campaign has decided enough is enough. No more dirty tricks. Not in California. Not in America.

Over 7,000 of you signed a pledge to fight this dirty trick. When Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger played dumb, saying he hadn’t read the ballot initiative, you sent over 2,000 copies of the initiative to him to read over the Labor Day weekend.

Now, you have a chance to send Arnold and the entire California Republican Party a loud and clear message before their convention starts this Friday: No more excuses. No more dirty tricks. No more partisan power-grabs.

To build our people-powered campaign to kill this dirty trick dead, we need you to support our 20/20 vision by this Friday's convention: Can you contribute $20 to Courage to save 20 California electoral votes right now?

http://www.couragecampaign.org/20for20onActBlue

What will twenty dollars — the price of a movie, popcorn and a soda — get you? A campaign of, by and for the netroots and grassroots.

At the YearlyKos blogger convention last month, I talked with an amazing group of online leaders — including several folks from the Calitics blogging community — about how we could defeat this dirty trick together. I left Chicago inspired and days later, we formed a "No Dirty Tricks" netroots advisory team driven by California online organizers and bloggers like Eden James, Miles Kurland, Julia Rosen, Bob Brigham, Julie Bergman Sender and Todd Beeton. Endorsements came pouring in as well from national leaders like Arianna Huffington, Markos Moulitsas Zuniga, Sherry Lansing, Jane Hamsher, Eleanor Smeal and Bradley Whitford (click here to see the powerful lineup of bloggers and leaders endorsing our "No Dirty Tricks" campaign).

Courage Campaign is uniting netroots and grassroots progressives to build a people-powered online infrastructure in California that will defeat this initiative in June even as we build a winning progressive agenda. One way we’re building online infrastructure is by using and supporting ActBlue, an exciting web community tool that empowers anyone — individuals, local groups, and national organizations — to raise funds online for their favorite candidate or cause. ActBlue is campaign finance reform because it empowers each of us to democratize politics from the bottom up.

By helping the Courage Campaign defeat this dirty trick, you can also help ActBlue empower us to change the role of money in American politics. After you contribute $20 to Courage to save 20 California electoral votes, you'll be given an option to add a small "tip" for ActBlue. A few dollars can make a big difference:

http://www.couragecampaign.org/20for20onActBlue

On Wednesday, we'll tell you much more about our plans to use ActBlue to help us build a transformative team that can turn online activism into offline action, kill this dirty trick dead, and take back the White House in 2008.

If you care deeply about building a people-powered movement to end politics as usual, we need your support right now. By contributing "20 for 20" through ActBlue, you can help us build a progressive netroots-driven organization in California that is a model for America. This is your moment.

This is your movement. Please join with us by acting now to support Courage Campaign before Friday's California Republican Party convention.

Rick Jacobs Courage Campaign

P.S. Yes, our team is working on Labor Day. I’m sure you noticed that President Bush is as well, this time in Iraq. That's why we won’t rest until we put an end to the dirty tricks. With that in mind, I recorded this one-minute YouTube video over the weekend to talk with you about how the "Sons of Nixon" dirty tricksters are trying to steal the presidency. I hope you enjoy it.

As the fight against the right-wing electoral vote stealing initiative here in California gains steam, it has begun to take on a national profile, as it should considering that if it passes it could mean that a low turnout June election in California determines who becomes president in 2008.

Since The New York Times weighed in with their editorial slamming the initiative as a right-wing "dirty trick," it's begun to gain the attention of the presidential candidates. FairElectionReform.com has launched a petition urging the presidential candidates of both parties to publicly oppose  the measure. The first to do so was Chris Dodd, who called the initiative a "blatant power grab" saying:

"The process of elections should be above partisanship and I hope all Presidential candidates - Democrats and Republicans alike - will join me in standing up for fair and honest elections."

Next, John Edwards not only came out against the measure but sent his own e-mail blast urging us to do the same:

Help us send a message to these political operatives that their Karl Rove tactics will not work. We, the people, will not allow you to get away with this naked partisan power grab.

As a result, momentum against the measure is growing back here in California, even among local Republicans. The vice-chair of the CA Republican Party Thomas del Baccaro came out against the measure on his blog; in addition The OC Register, no liberal rag they, in an editorial called the initiative a "nakedly partisan and profoundly subversive of our constitutional system;" and when asked about the initiative, Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger seemed unenthusiastic at best, likening the measure to "changing the rules in the middle of the game." Schwarzenegger refused to officially comment, however, as he claimed not to have read the initiative yet. Well, let's help him out with that, shall we?

The next step in opposing this measure is to force Schwarzenegger to comment publicly. Surely such a post-partisan as he would have nothing to do with such a partisan dirty trick as this, so my colleagues at Courage Campaign have launched a new effort to "Educate Arnold" and send him one copy of the 3 page initiative for every person who signs up.

by Todd Beeton

Here's a really nice video of the Dreams Across America trip so far.

by Todd Beeton

Yesterday, the Dreams Across America train took off from L.A.'s Union Station, one of four trains around the country carrying 100 "dreamers" to Washington, D.C. to tell either their own immigration stories or how immigrants have touched their lives. There will be blogging from the train (Courage Campaign's own Rick Jacobs will have daily updates) to capture these stories both in written and video form, the goal being to humanize and personalize immigration the way a rally of hundreds of thousands in the street can't.

All of the immigrants on the train are legal American citizens but that didn't stop Lou Dobbs from attacking the Dreams Across America campaign yesterday. He likes to call it "The Amnesty Train" or "A Train" for short (ain't he clever!) So today, one of the dreamers, Cathy Gurney, shot back, challenging him to get on the train to hear the real stories of immigration in this country.

Cathy Gurney's statement:

To me, talking about fixing a broken immigration system is not about policy; it's about my life. I work hard each and everyday to live the American dream, which is really the American story:  to be my own boss, to run my own business that I can pass along to my children. My husband and I have worked very hard to build our dream.

Mr. Dobbs has one opinion on the broken immigration system in this country. I am part of a group telling a hundred stories of real people who deal with this issue everyday. Therefore, I call on Mr. Dobbs to join us on this tour, to see the real America and hear the real stories of our broken immigration system.

More on Gurney and how you can join the dreamers over the flip...

by Crystal Tran

Here's a great first-hand account of Monday's O.C. Obama fundraiser - Todd

It seemed rather fitting that Senator Obama would select Newport Coast as the venue for his latest Southern Californian fundraiser. It's the kind of city that epitomizes images of the "The OC" that many have programmed into their minds. Fundraisers are common in the neighborhood that Kobe Bryant calls home. Its many multi-million dollar ocean view homes, nestled into hillsides and tucked into tree lined cul-de-sacs suggest exclusivity and make the $1000 ticket price for breakfast seem reasonable. For $4600, you could receive VIP status with extended face time and a personalized picture on the ocean-front balcony.

Luckily for me and the rest of the interns at the Democratic Party of Orange County, we were allowed into the event in exchange for our free labor. Security was tight, in order to work the event, all the interns had to be cleared by the Secret Service, when we got there they had blocked the entire cul-de-sac. Another intern and I were assigned to greet guests and divert them to either the guest check-in or upstairs to the VIP area where Barack was going to spend time meeting the hosts.

It's the third time I've seen Senator Obama as an intern for the Democratic Party. Each time I've seen him, I've always been impressed by Obama's ability to reach a vast and varied audience. The attendees of his events are always varied and despite the ticket price of $1000, this event was no different. Range Rovers and Mercedes Benz's pulled up to the valet but behind those were old Volvo station wagons, Toyota Camry's, and the liberal car-of-cars, multiple Toyota Priuses.

by Todd Beeton

Here's a tired looking John McCain on a campaign swing through Modesto, CA yesterday trying to convince us once again that he's perfectly happy with where he is in the polls. He always was uncomfortable with dispensing bullshit, I'll give him that.

McCain also weighs in on the impact of the Feb. 5th California primary and makes the case that no Republican can write off California in the general election:

It's too big, it's too diverse, it has too much effect on America. I will compete and compete successfully in California. I am a western senator, I understand the issues and the challenges that we in the west face.

He also talks about the Central Valley's importance as a national agriculture center and ground zero in the west's water shortage. In addition, he cracks:

It's also a good place to be a Republican...most of the time.

Watch the video below. 

"Mistakenly deported."

the Sheriff's Department identified him as a non-citizen, obtained his signature for voluntary removal from the United States and turned him over to federal authorities for deportation.

To this day his family doesn't know where he is or if he is even still alive.

More...

by Lucas O'Connor

(originally posted at calitics)

Bill Richardson was in Los Angeles yesterday talking mass transit.  He was touting the success of commuter light rail in New Mexico and said light rail would be equal to highways in a Richardson administration.

“I believe light rail is for the future,” he said. “The president can be a partner, working with state and city and local communities in joint funding.”

This obviously is a nice compliment to recent Calitics discussions about High Speed Rail in California and the broader concerns over responsible growth management and community development.  But what strikes me most is that Bill Richardson isn't talking about Iraq.  He's free to talk about things like light rail because for him, Iraq is no longer an issue.  Bill Richardson unequivocally wants all troops out of Iraq now.  He thinks that congress should de-authorize the war, and if he were to become president, all American personnel would leave Iraq.  That's it, next question.  Say what you will about the rest of his platform and framing (I have), but by dispatching with Iraq and leaving no doubt about his plan and commitment to ending the war, Richardson is free to talk about everything else.  You know...the stuff that actually makes up a presidency.

by Todd Beeton

The LA Times has an interesting piece about Southern California's disproportionate contribution to the presidential fundraising game. It has a cool interactive function where you can check out candidate contributions by zipcode.

For example, in mine, the 91201, which is in Glendale in the San Fernando Valley just northeast of Hollywood, 60% of donations went to Romney and 33% went to Obama. The total raised by candidates here was only about $3300. Throughout all of SoCal, Romney raised an impressive $1.9m, which was 9.2% of his national total and only $500k less than Obama raised here, an amount that was 7.7% of his national total.

It also shows you the top 20 zip codes from 90210 ($765,425, 40% of which went to Clinton,) down to 90405 in Santa Monica ($97,251, 39% of which went to Clinton.) Clinton had the largest SoCal haul, taking in $2,865,475 or 11% of her national total.

by Todd Beeton

For those of you in L.A., you know how strange the weather has been this year. January and February were dry as a bone, and April and May have been overcast and breezy -- everything's upside down. And while I have to admit I haven't missed sharing the roads with Angelenos who are incapable of driving when a drop of water has fallen from the sky, the fact is this drought we're experiencing is truly freakish and should cause us all concern.

With downtown Los Angeles seeing a record low of 4 inches of rain since July 2006 -- less than a quarter of normal -- and with a hot, dry summer ahead, Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa said the city needed "to change course and conserve water to steer clear of this perfect storm."

It is the driest year since rainfall records began 130 years ago.

The lowrainfall plus the smaller than average Sierra Nevada snowpack, where L.A. gets much of its water, led the mayor today to call on all L.A. residents to cut water usage by 10% over the summer. While our water supply is not threatened at the moment, the mayor's plea is a pre-emptive measure in the event of prolonged drought.

Per The LA Times, 10 ways to conserve over the flip: 

by Todd Beeton

Considering the hard time I gave Senator Obama the other night for flying in to NorCal on Saturday, attending four fundraisers, and flying out again, I thought this e-mail from his campaign was interesting.

Most political fundraisers are hosted by lobbyists and filled with representatives of special interests.

Yes they are.

But our campaign is different.

Oh, reallly?

Our funding comes from a movement of Americans giving whatever they can afford, even $5, and Barack wants to sit down with supporters like you.

A-ha. Now that's more like it. So how does it work? Well, literally, Obama wants to sit down with four of his supporters who donate any amount of money online (HERE.) Details:

In the next week, four donors will be selected for a new kind of fundraising dinner. If you make a donation in any amount between now and 11:59 pm EDT on Wednesday, June 13, you could join Barack and three other supporters for an intimate dinner for five.

How are they selected? No clue. So it's essentially the lottery? Pretty much. But the intention is in the right place.

The dinner for five is an opportunity for you to sit down with Barack and your fellow supporters and talk about what matters to you.

Get the kind of treatment other politicians reserve for special interests.

Nice job, Senator.