Recently in Politics Category

In keeping with the tradition of releasing bad news on a Friday, state officials put out the monthly jobs report today. The headline is that California's unemployment rate ticked up to 12.5%.

But the state also put out a bunch of data for local cities. Here, then, are the unemployment rates for the cities of the South Bay. As with many things, it gets worse the farther you get from the ocean.

- Carson: 12.7%
- El Segundo: 5.9%
- Gardena: 11.8%
- Hawthorne: 16.3%
- Hermosa Beach: 5.3%
- Inglewood: 15.7%
- Lawndale: 12.5%
- Lomita: 8.7%
- Los Angeles: 13.9%
- Manhattan Beach: 4.5%
- Palos Verdes Estates: 2.6%
- Rancho Palos Verdes: 4.4%
- Redondo Beach: 6.8%
- Rolling Hills: 1.2%
- Rolling Hills Estates: 3.4%
- Torrance: 6.4%

These numbers are based on a monthly federal survey of 5,500 Californians, so there's probably a pretty high margin of error when you get down to the city-by-city data. There's also some odd quirks in there, such as the purported fact that Rolling Hills has zero unemployed people, but an unemployment rate of 1.2%. Huh?

Steve Bradford, Sacramento's newest legislator, was given his committee assignments this week.

Like his predecessor, Curren Price, he will chair the Assembly Select Committee on Procurement. The committee is responsible for helping small and "disadvantaged" businesses to compete for state contracts.

Here's a statement from Bradford, which was released through the office of Speaker Karen Bass:

"A small business owner may not be aware of the process necessary to compete for state government contracts.  I hope that we can make that process more transparent and readily understandable."

Bradford was also appointed to serve on committees for Appropriations, Housing and Community Development, Insurance, and Governmental Organization.

L.A. Councilwoman Janice Hahn is gearing up to run for lieutenant governor, which means broadening her appeal beyond Los Angeles. She recently met (in what appears to be a hotel room somewhere in the San Diego area) with the folks at the state politics site Calitics, who came away impressed with her liberal positions on a range of state issues:

Ultimately I think she is a very compelling candidate - not just for this office, but for California Democrats as a whole. Whereas Jerry Brown isn't willing to offer a clear progressive path forward for the state, it seems Janice Hahn is very much interested in doing that.

The video, which Hahn's campaign has placed on her Web site, lacks a certain something in the way of production values. But here it is:

South Bay Reps. Jane Harman and Dana Rohrabacher have something in common these days: Both are sounding very skeptical about sending more troops to Afghanistan.

Harman returned yesterday from a trip to the region in a very pessimistic mood. Rohrabacher, who famously hung out with the mujahideen back in the 1980s, is sounding more and more like he thinks this is a lost cause.

In a recent speech on the House floor, Rohrabacher said he does not blame President Obama for taking his time to think about things. He also put much of the blame for the current situation on President Bush. He noted that while he supported the surge in Iraq, he believed the strategy was wrong:

I tried to be supportive but we were obviously doing the wrong thing. We obviously used the wrong strategy. The competence of the last administration in carrying out that war and building the peace was abysmal.

The video, as captured by Media Matters:

Rep. Jane Harman's tone earlier today on MSNBC echoed  this afternoon over on CNN, where she chatted with Wolf Blitzer about her recent trip to Afghanistan and Pakistan.

Rather than sending 30,000 to 40,000 additional U.S. troops to Afghanistan, the president should use his "leverage" to get the Karzai government to clean up its "rampant corruption," the El Segundo-based Democrat said.

"This kind of corruption is intolerable," Harman said.

Blitzer asked a couple times about when the government should pull out U.S. troops, but Harman avoided suggesting any deadline.

As an aside, the pair also talked a bit about Maj. Nidal Hasan, the alleged Ft. Hood gunman. Harman was reluctant to call him a terrorist, but said Hasan's alleged crime was an "act of terrorism."

When I can find some video, I'll post it.

Rep. Jane Harman has returned from a trip to Afghanistan and Pakistan with a fresh dose of what Washington calls "ground truth."

She went on Andrea Mitchell's show on MSBNC today and sounded a very pessimistic note, explicitly siding with Ambassador Karl Eikenberry, who has warned against sending more troops to Afghanistan.

Her bottom line: "I'm very, very skeptical that anything like the (Gen. Stanley) McChrystal recommendations make any sense in Afghanistan... I'm not for leaving Afghanistan, but what I am against ... is sending another 30,000 to 40,000 troops."

Watch the video:

Ted Lieu's one-man debate on Monday night, hosted by the Asian American Action Fund, was billed as a forum for all attorney general candidates.

But there was another element that may explain why the other candidates stayed away: the straw poll.

After Lieu debated himself for about a half hour, the guests -- an assortment of attorneys and API political hacks -- voted on their favorite candidate. The results are here. Lieu got 54 of 57 votes. Assemblyman Alberto Torrico, who had RSVP'd before backing out at the last minute, got 2 votes. San Francisco D.A. Kamala Harris (who, by the way, is the favorite) got 1 vote.

In other words, it was a pro-Lieu crowd. From the perspective of Torrico and Assemblyman Pedro Nava, who also RSVP'd before bailing out, it probably looked like an ambush.

What have we learned? That Lieu is capable of a certain amount of organization and guile, I suppose. Whether that will be enough to win this thing... well. It's a long way to June.

Here's a statement from the campaign of Alberto Torrico, who didn't show up at last night's AAAF forum, leaving Ted Lieu to debate himself:

"The Assemblyman regrets scheduling conflicts required him to return to
Sacramento rather than attending the straw poll," says consultant Eric Jaye. "He appreciates the invitation and he hopes to find the opportunity to meet with the sponsors in the future."

But here's some video of Torrico talking about his support for the Assembly prison reform bill, which both Lieu and Pedro Nava voted against:

Ted Lieu's Twitter feed today:

Sun Tzu: "To subdue the enemy without fighting is the acme of skill."

If that makes no sense to you, then perhaps you weren't at the L.A. Area Chamber of Commerce last night, where Lieu was scheduled to debate two Attorney General opponents: Pedro Nava and Alberto Torrico.

Torrico and Nava backed out at the last minute, so Lieu was left to debate himself.

They did not give a reason, but perhaps they sensed a trap. The debate was hosted by the Asian American Action Fund, which at this stage is officially neutral in the race. However, the moderator, Gautam Dutta, used to work as a tax counselor in the office of Controller John Chiang, who is a Torrance resident and a Lieu supporter.

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger says his wife, Maria Shriver, is not interested in running for governor.

This announcement comes after former Speaker Willie Brown mentioned Shriver and Jane Harman as potential Democratic candidates in his weekly column.

"Willie loves drama. Willie loves entertainment," Schwarzenegger told the Sacramento Bee's editorial board. "It fills his column, so God bless him. ... I can guarantee you that my wife has absolutely no interest in the job."

Ditto for Harman.

Keep that track record in mind when you read Brown's latest column, wherein he posits Dianne Feinstein as a potential candidate.