News

The Skinny

Here’s some advice to all you budding political consultants out there. Got something to sell? Grab a firefighter. Seems like all the political ad makers have followed that advice this time around. If you’re pushing an initiative to guarantee community college funding, get a firefighter to briefly, busily extol the virtues of community college. If you’re pushing a change in the state’s term limits law, get emergency medical technician Tim Heard to make some strange connection between term limits and Hurricane Katrina (hey, we don’t write this stuff). And if you’ve got Indian gaming deals to sell, grab fire chief August Ghio, who looks like he came straight from central casting, complete with horseshoe moustache, to tell voters how the deals “provide billions to help fund fire and emergency response.” It’s good to know that firefighters aren’t just for women’s office calendars anymore. … From our Mr. Bigstuff files, when the health care proposal died in Senate Health Committee, this paper reached out to the lone Yes vote on the committee, even suggesting this unnamed senator may want to articulate the reasons for his vote in a 700-word commentary. He readily accepted, and we reserved space for him in this week’s paper. But he was a late scrub yesterday, when we all learned that a certain Los Angeles daily paper would be running the commentary that we suggested he write. We understand that this unnamed senator is running for LA County supervisor, so we’re just going to look at the bright side: We may have lost a commentary, but we gained a Skinny item …
Feed the skinny. Send your tips to theskinny@capitolweekly.net.

Want to see more stories like this? Sign up for The Roundup, the free daily newsletter about California politics from the editors of Capitol Weekly. Stay up to date on the news you need to know.

Sign up below, then look for a confirmation email in your inbox.

 

Support for Capitol Weekly is Provided by: