Arnold goes to Florida and Texas

Arnold is going to Florida and Texas to raise money for his Special Election effort. Last month, Arnold backed off the so-called pension reform effort after firefighters and cops pounded him. The effort to privatize public pensions would have been heavily funded by Wallstreet since they would have been able to manage billions of dollars of pension accounts. Without Wallstreet, Arnold doesn't have the money to move his right wing agenda so he has to go to the Republican Party donors who have a partisan interest in taking out Labor. Democrats lean heavily on labor for help and if Arnold is successful in making it illegal for members of unions to contribute political money, Democrats will be in trouble in California and across the nation. Not that they aren't already in trouble.

In other news, there was an election in Los Angeles yesterday. Antonio Villaraigosa beat James Hahn and became the first Latino mayor in LA in the last 133 years. Hahn, an incumbent, had beaten Villaraigosa four years ago. Also an openly gay man, Bill Rosendahl, was elected to the Los Angeles City Council from District 11. His opponent had run an insidious and homophobic campaign against him, constantly reminding people that Bill was gay.