California Insider

The governor tells the Chronicle ed board that paycheck protection is not one of the "good ideas" that he will revisit if reelected.

You know how movie producers like to pull dramatic quotes from the reviews and highlight them in their promotions? The same is true with political consultants. The Garamendi campaign is doing that now with the Bee's review of McClintock's latest ad.

In this ad watch, Amy Chance said one snippet of film was "completely misleading." The clip in question was of Garamendi at a hearing. Most of the ad is about his role in the Executive Life insurance mess, and at the end of the commercial, the announcer asks:

"Can you afford to trust Garamendi again?"

At which point Garamendi, in the clip, says:

"I'm not prepared at this time to answer that question."

And the ad ends there.

My colleague found that misleading because the question to which Garamendi was repsonding had nothing to do with Executive Life. But when I saw the ad I never assumed that it did. I thought it was simply a creative way to use Garamendi answering, or not answering, their question: can you trust him?

At any rate, The Garamendi camp has now taken the Bee's complaint about context out of context. Here's the headline on their latest press release:

"SACRAMENTO BEE CALLS McCLINTOCK ATTACK AD “COMPLETELY MISLEADING”

They're asking stations to pull the ad, calling it “manifestly defamatory and actionable."

I've always wondered if movie reviewers try to write blurbs that will be quoted in the ads, or try not to. Do political writers have to worry about that too?

You can see the ad for yourself here.

This is far from the best political ad, or even the best attack ad, you will see this year, or even this month. But it might be the most controversial.

A huge supporter of public financing says the "Clean Money" initiative is dirty:

This measure is terminally flawed by the other half of what it does -- its selective restrictions on contributions to ballot propositions. This provision represents a blatant attempt by one special interest to neutralize its potential opponents. It is a corruption of the "clean money" concept.

But the paper would still like to see some eminent domain reform.

Another thing on which they agree: Poochigian and Brown are both distancing themselves from Lockyer's global warming lawsuit against the auto companies.

Chiang's penchant for investment activism rubs the Register the wrong way.

Another paper sets aside its qualms about ballot-box budgeting and endorses the tobacco tax increase.