Just an update to those of you that haven't given up on this newsblog... I'll be back on the Capitol and political beat next week, after seven weeks of paternity leave. Like most new parents, I'm learning to live without sleep.

See you then.

A little political intrigue for the end of the week, as a newspaper report suggests California's most recognizable conservative lawmaker may be considering a run for Congress from Sacramento.

Washington, D.C. based Roll Call reports today that state Sen. Tom McClintock (R-Thousand Oaks) may run for the U.S. House of Representatives seat representing California's 4th district. That's the seat soon vacated by Rep. John Doolittle, who has spent his final term in office under a cloud of controversy trailing back to disgraced lobbyist Jack Abramoff.

Roll Call reporter (former state Capitol scribe) David Drucker writes that a new poll conducted in the district, which stretches from the Sacramento suburbs to the Sierra foothills, shows McClintock with almost four times as much likely support as his nearest GOP challenger. And while Democrat Charlie Brown made a serious run against Doolittle in 2006, this is still one of the most solid GOP seats in the state.

It's easy to see the appeal of such a job for McClintock, whose long tenure in the state Capitol is coming to an end this year because of term limits. He gained national attention in 2003 by running as a replacement candidate in the recall election, and some die-hard California Republicans wanted him to challenge the way more moderate Arnold Schwarzenegger in the 2006 gubernatorial election. Instead, he chose to run for lieutenant governor and lost to Democrat John Garamendi. Statewide office has eluded the strong conservative before, as he lost a close race for controller in 2002 to Steve Westly.

The location of the congressional district shouldn't be too much of an issue. As Drucker reports, McClintock's familys has been living in the capital region for some time rather than commute back and forth between his legislative post in Sacramento and his Ventura county legislative district.

With the clock ticking for legislators to resolve the current year fiscal crisis, Assembly Speaker Fabian Nunez vowed today to do it without Republicans if necessary.

In comments to the Sacramento Press Club, the Los Angeles Democrat emphasized that he hopes to find common ground with GOP lawmakers on how to resolve the $3.3 billion shortfall expected in the current fiscal year. The need for a quick solution is being driven, in part, by Governor Schwarzenegger's declaration of a fiscal emergency last month. That declaration, made under 2004's Proposition 58, requires the Legislature to act on the budget crisis within 45 days of the governor's action.

That deadline is February 24, one Nunez said must be met... with or without Republicans. The speaker declined to list specific savings Democrats will ultimately endorse.

While the state constitution mandates a two-thirds vote of each chamber to pass an annual budget, the language in Prop 58 was silent on whether a mid-year budget crisis must also be approved by a supermajority. However, it seems certain that if that same budget solution included tax increases, then it would require a two-thirds vote.

Nunez called a majority vote solution (also known as one approved only by Democrats) "the last option." And it seems likely that Republicans would pounce on any deficit solution that does not have approval from their members, leaving the GOP governor squarely in the middle.

In the latest political love poem from the national media to Arnold Schwarzenegger, the new edition of Esquire magazine proclaims that the governor is leading the nation into a "new kind of politics."

The March cover story, "The President of 12% of Us," takes a quick tour of recent political goings-on in California en route to its final destination: a thesis that Schwarzenegger's brand of governing is a model that the rest of America can follow (the title of the article hints that California's large population makes it a nation state unto itself).

More on why that thesis seems somewhat specious in a moment. But first, California political watchers will enjoy some of writer Tom Junod's anecdotes, apparently culled in a short visit with Schwarzenegger in mid December. For those who have forgotten, that's when the health care reform debate was reaching its boiling point and the budget crisis was just starting to simmer.

First is Junod's recounting of the governor's private sessions with various interest groups about the budget crisis. The author was apparently in at least one of those meetings, and quotes Schwarzenegger as telling one group that this year, "Democrats are getting screwed, Republicans are getting screwed, we're all getting screwed."

In that same meeting, supposedly with advocates of the poor, the author's adulation is palpable as he recounts the governor's actions at the start of the confab:

"...the woman is meeting Arnold Schwarzenegger for the first time, and he takes her scarf in his hand, feels it, drapes it over his thick fingers, and lets it drop. Then he says, 'Cashmere-- some rich people here'... And he, the richest person in the room by many orders of magnitude, the most famous and most powerful person in the room by many more orders of magnitude than even that, gets away with it."

The author's love of all things Schwarzenegger is also seen in this description of another December meeting, this one with Senate President pro Tem Don Perata. Junod says Schwarzenegger told him that Perata was doing the "kabuki" on health care (that's the guv's favorite term for the "theatrical" part of politics):

"Perata had started the meeting doing the Kabuki, telling Arnold that it was not the right time for water and not the right time for health care, either, at least not until he saw the budget. Why did Arnold think this was the Kabuki? Well, for one thing, he thought Perata was playing for leverage because he wanted to be the man on water, and the only way he could do that was to hold out on health care."

No doubt others will take issue with that characterization, but remember, the premise of this piece is that the governor is above politics as usual. "He was sure that he was on the side of history," writes Junod of Schwarzenegger. "Hell, history was what he was offering Perata." (Their emphasis, not mine.)

Back to the thesis that Schwarzenegger's brand of politics could be emulated on the national stage. Actually, that's the thesis of Esquire's headline. The actual article seems to admit that Arnold Schwarzenegger is, as Dan Weintraub's new book calls him, a "party of one." The writer spends a lot of time talking about how unique the governor's brand of governing is, and how much of it would probably have never come to pass had it not been for the governor's star power. The governor admits as much in an interview with the author, saying about the 2003 recall election: "It was like God said, Hey you want to circumvent the Republican primaries, because you're not conservative enough for them? Here's the recall."

That doesn't sound like a political formula that's going to be copied anytime soon... which is probably why the good folks at Eqsuire and others across the nation never seem to tire of stories about the Schwarzenegger persona.

The most interesting voting controversy in the state this afternoon seems to be in Los Angeles County, where some non-partisan voters are apparently unaware that they have to fill in an extra bubble on their ballot if they want to vote in the Democratic presidential primary.

No one seems to have any real numbers to show whether this is a minor or major problem. But in a nutshell, here's the issue: all independent voters (registered as "decline to state") are supposed to be given the same ballot... but only those who mark an additional space on that ballot will have it counted in the Democratic primary.

But do those voters know this?

Democratic activists supporting candidate Barack Obama allege the ballot configuration is as bad as the infamous Florida "butterfly" ballot. Obama, so goes the conventional wisdom, is the one most likely to draw independent voters in California. And there are some 784,000 of these voters live in Los Angeles County.

And it gets even stranger. Our bureau chief in Los Angeles, Rob Schmitz, tells me he saw the DTS voter confusion first hand this morning in his polling place; there, Schmitz says poll workers were sidestepping the entire "extra bubble" issue by giving decline to state voters (what we call DTS voters) a Democratic ballot.

A spokesman for the LA County registrar of voters says officials are aware of the problem, but have no evidence yet that it's widespread. He also says officials have been trying hard to make DTS voters aware of the issue.

However, the same spokesman confirms that any DTS voter... voting on a DTS ballot and failing to fill in that extra bubble... will not have their vote counted in the Democratic presidential primary. And late word from LA is that Obama activists are keeping their options open for potential legal challenges should the problems appear to be significant.

Could we be calling this "Bubble-Gate" tomorrow morning? Stay tuned.

The sun is up, the polls are opening across the Golden State, and for political watchers one of the most interesting California primaries in modern times is finally here.

It's going to be a long day, especially for the political operatives who have pulled marathon days in support of both presidential candidates and ballot measure campaigns. That's because their job is now done... and it's all in the hands of the voters.

And there should be a lot of voters. The venerable Field Poll is predicting almost 9 million votes will be cast in California, which adds up to about 56% of the state's registered voters. One would guess that, should this estimate hold, a large number of those voters are weighing in on the most interesting presidential race in a generation. As noted here just the other day, some 400,000 Californians have registered to vote in just the last few weeks.

My KQED colleagues and I will be on the air tonight with a special election night edition of The California Report, airing on most public radio stations from San Diego to the Oregon border (station info here).

A few random thoughts as I contemplate whether to wear Mardi Gras beads with my "I Voted" sticker today...

* The Early Votes: There are estimates that suggest while a lot of Californians are voting by mail this time around, many of them had yet to turn in their ballot by today. Nonetheless, a lot of folks did vote early... and one has to wonder who won those early votes. While the Democratic presidential contest comes to mind first here (and the big lead that Hillary Clinton had in the California polls until just recently), there's also been substantial movement on ballot measures in recent weeks -- most notably, the term limits modification Proposition 93. Our best chance for assessing those early votes will come just after 8:00 p.m., when local elections officials release the only numbers they have at that point: those votes that were mailed and tabulated before today.

* Voting Changes: The most frustrated group on this election night may be those of us in the news media. That's because the many changes in voting systems this time around may push definitive results in close races into the wee hours. Several vote-rich counties are back to paper ballots after Secretary of State Debra Bowen's decision last summer to decertify most electronic touchscreen voting machines. And should some of the replacement systems stumble, there could be a lot of crticism of the voting process in the next few days.

* What If: I can't help but be struck by what voters are not considering today on the ballot. First on this list is the non-binding ballot measure that would have asked Californians whether they favor an immediate withdrawal from the war in Iraq. You may remember that the advisory measure, championed by Senate President pro Tem Don Perata and approved by the Legislature, was vetoed by Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger. But suppose he had allowed it on the ballot; how might that have driven the anti-war votes toward a candidate like, say, Barack Obama?

The "what if" category also has to include one of today's biggest subplots: the decision by the state GOP to exclude independent voters from the party's presidential primary. Democrats are allowing so-called "decline to state" voters to participate, but the Reeps are holding a closed primary. That means the man who had the most to gain from independent voters, GOP front-runner John McCain, now may find himself in a tight race... or even losing the California primary... to the more conservative candidate Mitt Romney.

* The Arnold Factor: No election analysis in California is complete these days without wondering about the impact of our most high-profile politician. Schwarzenegger's endorsement of McCain may not have been as big as it could have been if, as discussed above, independent voters could have weighed in on the race; after all, those voters are a core constituency of the governor. Schwarzenegger's real impact will be watched tonight in the ballot measures. Can he help carry Prop 93, the term limits change, over the goal line with his late-in-the-game campaigning? And what about the four Indian casino referendums, Propositions 94 through 97? While the TV ads both pro and con have helped push the campaign into record breaking territory for political spending, the deals are the handiwork of the Schwarzenegger administration. Will voters see them as a worthwhile and substantial infusion of cash for the state? Or will they decide that the deals represent an over-expansion of gambling and not nearly enough cash in exchange for more lucrative slot machines?

* Ms. Schwarzenegger? And lastly... we know the governor is a McCain Man. And this weekend, we discovered that First Lady Maria Shriver has decided to vote for Obama. That's two votes in the Schwarzenegger household. But what about the newest voting member of the family, 18-year old Katherine Schwarzenegger, who gets to cast her first vote today? Good thing it's a secret ballot.

(Sorry for the long absence with all of last month's big political news... as mentioned before, the new little one in the family has kept me away from the hustle and bustle. Look for more frequent blog entries this month! --JM)

Secretary of State Debra Bowen's new report on the number of registered voters in California shows a healthy uptick in the size of the registered electorate from the 2004 presidential race: 700,000 more voters.

But the even more interesting stat may be that some 240,000 new voters have signed up just since December. The conventional wisdom, of course, is that this could be driven by the high interest in this year's race for the White House.

And if that's true, most folks have signed up to weigh in on the Democratic presidential primary. Today's report shows that for every 1 new Republican voter since December, there were almost 4 new Democratic voters.

Still, independent voters, those who "decline to state" a party affiliation, are the fastest growing segment of registered voters. And while these voters can cast a ballot next Tuesday in the Democratic primary, they cannot do so in the GOP contest... due to a decision by party leaders to close their contest to independent voters.

Total California voter registration, per the new report (which can be read here): 15,712,753.