"The most consistent and smartest thinking and writing about progressive politics isn't happening in Sacramento, but being churned out day after day on sites and by organizations like Calitics, Orange County Progressive, and the California Budget Project." - CalBuzz
Overall, I thought The LA Times put an interesting editorial in its paper today on the ever-worsening budget crisis. They rightly call out Arnold and his GOP for their frighteningly disgusting cut proposals that would destroy the social safety net that the working poor (and increasingly now, middle class) depend upon for survival. However, there was something about it that just did not make sense.
Via the San Francicso Press Club we find data that shows that the Orange County Register has the largest circulation drop of any major paper in the state over the last ten year period.
For the period from 1999 to 2009, for seven California dailies, the circulation drops ranged from 0.8% per cent at the Contra Costa Times to a whopping 37.1% at our local fish wrap.
The Register has slipped from being the third largest daily to the fifth largest daily, and their performance is pathetic when you compare them to areas with similar demographics, like Contra Costa county.
We knew the Register was a third rate paper sliding downhill, and we knew that the dead tree news industry was staggering, but it's interesting to see that the Register is at the bottom of the pack.
Part of the explanation comes from disastrous strategy like the OC Post debacle, but we have to think that another element causing the decline is the abject failure of the Register editorial and news staff to adjust to the changing political affiliations of their marketplace. Educated consumers aren't interested in anti-science rantings and the fervid swamp of right-wing ideologues the Register publishes.
Who wants a daily diet of wacky, unfair and unbalanced wingnuttery?
It's a huge story, with tremendous implications for our county government and its budget.
You could read about it in America's great national newspaper in this article on Tuesday,
The California prison system must reduce overcrowding by as many as 55,000 inmates within three years to provide a constitutional level of medical and mental health care, a federal three-judge panel tentatively ruled Monday.
You can read about it in the LA Times news story and a
follow-up today, or you can use Rough and Tumble or Calitics (see our list of links) to follow the story.
But there's no mention of it in the Orange County Register, which had the resources to do a typical gotcha story on Orange County Supervisors' lunches, but seems to have abandoned covering the critical issues in the state of California. Or maybe this issue has flummoxed them, and they just can't figure out how to spin it editorially until Todd Spitzer or Chuck Devore can churn out a lock-em-all-up op-ed.
(ed. note: Michael Fox is the creator and writer of the Moving Target blog.)
The Obama campaign should serve as a master class in winning elections for Democrats.
Unfortunately, not enough California Democrats are playing attention to the Obama campaign's most important lessons.
As the effects of the state's budget crisis and the nation's economic meltdown hit more and more California voters, the Democratic Party has a once in a generation opportunity to convince voters that it that will protect and defend their interests far better than the Republicans, as well as make fundamental and progressive changes in the way that California is governed.
But to do so will require that Democrats embrace and implement the lessons of the Obama campaign.
These lessons are:
1. Blame Republicans and Present a Democratic Solution
2. Use the Internet
3. Expand the Electorate
4. Champion the Middle Class
