California Insider

How bad is it? Jon Fleischman is asking his readers to pray for Dick Mountjoy's campaign against Dianne Feinstein. Seriously.

Political analyst Gary Dietrich has posted unedited online audio interviews with all the major party candidates for statewide office at his Citizen Voice Web site. All except one. Gov. Schwarzenegger, Dietrich says, is the only candidate who has not agreed to an interview.

The former employee who accused Jerry Brown of going soft on his longtime aide, friend and guru in a sexual harassment case is going public with her allegations.

The fundamentals of this SurveyUSA poll are very similar to the PPIC poll released Thursday. Even the margin is the same, although the 55 percent top line is kind of eye-popping. One thing they do is reduce the "other and undecided" vote by focusing the question on the two main candidates.

In a long and comprehensive piece, Jackie Speier lays out her take on what ails the state's prison system, and how to fix it.

San Francisco has 11 local measures on the ballot Nov. 7, from mandatory sick pay for all employees to "question time" for the mayor and impeachment proceedings for the president. I hadn't realized that any four members of the 11-member board of supervisors can get together and slap something on the ballot with no hearings or analysis. The Chronicle editorial board offers a rundown of the choices here.

The LA Times thinks California should follow New Jersey's example and grant all the rights of marriage to domestic partners. I think we pretty much have already, in a piecemeal fashion.

The Union-Tribune remembers when Clinton and Gore were centrists. Then lobs this bomb:

With Clinton, we suspect he is trying to cuddle up to Hollywood tycoon Steve Bing, the prodigious Democratic donor and 87 supporter whose help Sen. Hillary Clinton covets in her expected 2008 presidential bid.

With Gore, we assume it is just one more manifestation of his frenzied attempt to establish himself as secular pope of the global green cult. No one should be surprised if Gore someday becomes the first nanny-state politician to be more upset with fast-food restaurants because of their discarded food wrappers than their unhealthy burgers and fries.

Whatever Clinton and Gore are up to, we hope Californians recognize their malarkey for what it is and remember the basics about Proposition 87. It won't reduce our dependence on foreign oil or reduce the cost of gasoline. It is a badly drafted mess. Its crucial initial support came from a businessman who hopes to take advantage of it. In considering how to describe Proposition 87, a long list of adjectives comes to mind, but “moral” is not one of them.

Like almost every other paper in the state, the Mercury News says the nurses overeached when they tried to rig the initiative process with unbalanced contribution limits.