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Protesters from the California Nurses Association and other unions plan to tail Republican gubernatorial candidate Meg Whitman for the last 12 days of the campaign, said CNA spokeswoman Liz Jacobs. The union started this morning when its members and other protesters appeared at a Whitman event held at the business Ramcast Ornamental Supply Co. in Los Angeles. The protest included the satirical character Queen Meg, a send-up of Whitman played by actress Elaine Burn, and a bus printed with the words "Queen Meg Farewell Tour" and "Lies, Hypocrisy & Pink Slips."

Top state Democrats acknowledged Wednesday that they'll face an uphill climb to turn out voters next month given the sour national mood and a massive Republican get-out-the-vote operation financed by billionaire GOP gubernatorial candidate Meg Whitman. California Labor Federation head Art Pulaski said the GOP's turnout advantage could give Republican candidates an extra percentage point or two of voter support on Election Day. Steve Glazer, campaign manager for Democratic gubernatorial candidate Jerry Brown, cited polls projecting only a six-point Democratic turnout advantage over Republicans on Election Day. That's less than half the Democratic margin over Republicans among all registered voters....

SFChron political reporter Joe Garafoli reports that at Willie Brown's annual pre-election breakfast he criticized the CA democrats' GOTV effort. Brown said, "I do not believe that Jerry Brown has a ground operation." Brown "also wonders if it is a good idea for the Dems to rely so heavily on labor for their ground operation." And dem political consultant Garry South "told the gathering that unless Jerry Brown has a lead of 7 or 8 points going into election day, 'we're in serious trouble.'" Video of Brown's remarks are embedded on the SFChro web site.

Democrats Jerry Brown and Barbara Boxer hold single-digit leads over their Republican opponents, according to the latest Public Policy Institute of California poll. The survey, which was conducted between Oct. 10-17, polled 1,067 likely California voters. The poll shows Brown's lead expanding over Republican Meg Whitman in their gubernatorial contest, while in the U.S. Senate race, Republican Carly Fiorina seems to be slowly closing the gap between her and incumbent Boxer. Brown holds a 44%-36% lead over Whitman. Boxer's lead over Fiorina is 43%-38%. In the last PPIC survey, Whitman and Brown were in a statistical dead heat, with Whitman...

SAN FRANCISCO -- Democrat Jerry Brown has broken open the dead-heat contest for California governor, leading Republican Meg Whitman by 8 points going into the final two weeks of the campaign after massing robust backing from Latinos and eclipsing her support in the crucial Central Valley, a new Public Policy Institute of California poll shows. In the first major nonpartisan survey since a series of statewide televised debates and revelations of Whitman's hiring and firing of an undocumented Mexican immigrant maid, Brown has 44 percent of likely voters to 36 percent for Whitman, with 16 percent undecided and other candidates...

Democrat Jerry Brown has broken open the dead-heat contest for California governor, leading Republican Meg Whitman by 8 points going into the final two weeks of the campaign after massing robust backing from Latinos and eclipsing her support in the crucial Central Valley, a new Public Policy Institute of California poll shows. In the first major nonpartisan survey since a series of statewide televised debates and revelations of Whitman's hiring and firing of an undocumented Mexican immigrant maid, Brown has 44 percent of likely voters to 36 percent for Whitman, with 16 percent undecided and other candidates drawing 4 percent,...

Early today, I expressed reservations about a new Wilson Research Strategies poll showing Carly Fiorina leading Barbara Boxer by three points and Meg Whitman leading Jerry Brown by one. The methodology seemed unusual, and without crosstabs to analyze, the poll looked more like an outlier. After I posted that this morning, Wilson contacted me, providing me with the raw poll data (which they have also posted at their site), and asked me to take a second look.Just to refresh everyone’s memory, these are the toplines of the survey: Carly Fiorina currently leads by three points against Barbara Boxer in the...

The California gubernatorial candidate's spokeswoman, Sarah Pompei, sent a link to an endorsement from the Deputy Sheriffs' Association of San Diego County. Or so she thought. Her tweet had read: "SD Cnty Sheriff Assoc says @Whitman2010 4 gov! RT: @Murphy4MegNews: CA Cops get it: Jerry Brown is too soft on crime." The tweet also included a link: http://bit.ly/bNCAV. Instead, the link directed traffic to a YouTube video of a man in a pink tutu, playing a guitar. The link was apparently missing a very critical letter "r." When contacted about the mistake, Pompei reportedly responded with a laugh and simply...

Meg Whitman and Jerry Brown have found a new way to win voters' hearts: compare the other to Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, the embattled incumbent whose popularity is in the tank. Brown, the Democratic nominee for governor, started airing a TV ad Tuesday sampling video clips of Schwarzenegger and Whitman, years apart, making sometimes-verbatim appeals about their qualifications and ideas. It suggests the Republican governor failed in office and Whitman would too. Whitman's campaign returned fire within hours, saying Brown, on certain environmental and tax policies, is the candidate more like Schwarzenegger. It was a lot of dumping for one day...

With some of Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's former top advisers on her payroll, it isn't surprising that Republican gubernatorial candidate Meg Whitman espouses many of the same policies he has - from tax cuts to stimulate the economy to promises to run California more like a business. Those similarities are why one prominent California politician said electing Whitman would be the equivalent of another Schwarzenegger term. The politician who said that was Republican Rep. Tom McClintock of Elk Grove (Sacramento County), a Tea Party favorite who backed Whitman's primary rival, state Insurance Commissioner Steve Poizner.Shortly after taking office in 2004, Schwarzenegger...

WASHINGTON – They may not agree on much, but Democratic Sen. Barbara Boxer and her GOP rival, former businesswoman Carly Fiorina, are eagerly airing the federal stimulus program in this fall's red-hot Senate campaign. Both have been using human examples to argue their case. For Boxer, who says the stimulus spending has been a success, it's Sean Stevens, a 36-year-old electrician from Elverta. He says he wouldn't be working at an expansion project at Sacramento International Airport if Congress hadn't approved its $787 billion stimulus package last year. "I'd be unemployed, like many of my fellow electricians," said Stevens. For...

We're all whores on the hamster wheel of life. And I mean that in the most respectful sense.The w-word has taken a ride through the cultural wash/dry/spin cycles after someone in Jerry Brown's camp used it to describe rival Meg Whitman's alleged deal for police union support in a recorded conversation that was made public.People reacted as if we were still living in Puritan Massachusetts. It was "hate speech," said the National Organization for Women's president. "Women know exactly what's going on here," Whitman scolded at last week's gubernatorial debate. Yes, we all do: politics. The same as when Whitman's...

“Our leadership in Washington is at war with American business,” former Alaska governor Sarah Palin said in a speech to Sacramento business leaders Friday. “We just need to turn this thing around,” she said. [...] Palin had both praise and criticism for California’s recently signed state budget. Pointing to her own record of scaling back pension benefits for new state workers in Alaska — and a switch from a defined benefit plan to a defined contribution — she applauded pension reform in California that curtails benefits for new workers. “But how long can you all keep kicking the can down...

Some of the biggest political names in the nation are in California for one final party push three weeks before the election. Senator John McCain was in San Diego Saturday, stumping for GOP Senate hopeful Carly Fiorina. "My friends, I know what a quality and outstanding individual this is," McCain said. "And this person will never wave the white flag of surrender the way Barbara Boxer has tried to do every single time we have been in a conflict." … Later this week, President Obama will continue his campaign support tour by backing Boxer during a trip to California. …...

You know the phrase "a disaster waiting to happen?" For over a decade now I've been waiting and watching, knowing that the National Organization for Women would inevitably have a very public nervous breakdown brought on by the pressures of using women's issues to further the misogynist leftist agenda. The only questions were when it would happen and how public the collapse would be. I now have my answer--October 2010. After years of slouching into obscurity, NOW finally got some attention last week, much like car wrecks do on the freeway. By now you all know the details--a week ago...

Each of the polls use a random sampling of 500 Likely Voters (unless otherwise stated) and has a +/- 5% margin of error (M.o.E). Poll that don’t add up to 100 are due to rounding. Commentary on the following results will be posted in a follow-up post. Delaware Senate: 50%- (D)Chris Coons, 42%- (R)Christine O’Donnell, 5%- Undecided, 3%- Some other candidate Pennsylvania Senate: 49%- (R)Pat Toomey, 42%- (D)Joe Sestak, 9%- Undecided Connecticut Senate: 50%- (D)Richard Blumenthal, 47%- (R)Linda McMahon, 3%- Undecided California Senate: 49%- (R)Carly Fiorina, 48%- (D)Barbara Boxer, 3%- Undecided California Governor: 52%- (D)Jerry Brown, 47%- (R)Meg Whitman, 1%-...

Until Jerry Brown came along, Trice Harvey had offered the worst apology for calling someone a "whore" – and ole Trice wasn't trying to be sincere. Harvey was a Republican assemblyman from Bakersfield in 1994 when Republicans won control of the lower house and thought they could elect a speaker. Willie Brown didn't give up without a fight. Calling in a chit, he persuaded Republican Paul Horcher to vote for him, ensuring the San Francisco Democrat could retain his speakership for a little longer. Harvey denounced Horcher as, what else, a "political whore." Democrats demanded an apology, and Harvey obliged:...

California NOW Chief: Calling Whitman a 'Whore' is Accurate Published October 15, 2010 | FoxNews.com The president of the National Organization for Women may have said it's wrong for anyone to call a woman a "whore," but the head of the California NOW affiliate says Republican gubernatorial candidate Meg Whitman is one. California NOW President Parry Bellasalma told the TPM blog on Thursday that the description of the Republican candidate for governor of California is accurate. "Meg Whitman could be described as 'a political whore.' Yes, that's an accurate statement," Bellasalma said after a TPM blogger called to ask her...

Coming off a bare-knuckles debate this week, Democrat Jerry Brown hits his highest level of support to date in his race against Republican Meg Whitman to be the next governor of California. The latest Rasmussen Reports telephone survey of Likely Voters in the state finds Brown with 50% of the vote to Whitman’s 44%. Two percent (2%) like some other candidate in the race, and four percent (4%) are undecided. (To see survey question wording, click here.) The race remains Leans Democrat in the Rasmussen Reports Election 2010 Gubernatorial Scorecard. At the beginning of the month, Brown posted a similar...

Although many California voters might not know it, the state could make history next month by electing Meg Whitman as its first woman governor. The Republican candidate certainly hasn't made much of that fact in her speeches or paid ads, and neither has her Democratic rival Jerry Brown. In fact, gender had largely stayed out of this high-profile race, as Whitman and Brown tussled over creating jobs and tackling the state's multibillion-dollar budget deficits. That all changed last week when a member of the Brown campaign – a woman – was overheard in a voice mail recording suggesting that his...