Taft City Councilman Cliff Thompson announced, this weekend, that he will be running for 4th District Kern County Supervisor against incumbent Ray Watson.

He's being backed by state Senator Dean Florez.

But the big question mark in the June race remains whether Bakersfield City Councilman David Couch plans to make the Thompson/Watson face off into a three-way battle.

Rumors have put Couch in the race for months. And Couch refuses to comment on his plans.

But rumors had also said Watson would retire — leaving the seat to others to fight over.

He's not retiring. He's running.

So we have Watson, a long-time businessman with a $35,000 war chest and the incumbency.

We have Thompson, a firey Taft boy with opinions and little fear of sharing them.

And we have Couch, who has been quiet since the dust up over his anti-illegal- immigration stance at the city council.

This race could get interesting.

What are people thinking?

Assemblywoman Nicole Parra will launch "Operation Gobble" during the Thanksgiving week with former Lt. Gov. Cruz Bustamante and actor/comedian Paul Rodriguez.

Here's the announcement from Parra's office:
 
WHO: Assemblywoman Nicole Parra (D-Hanford), former Lieutenant Governor Cruz Bustamante, and actor/comedian Paul Rodriguez
        & nbsp;       &n bsp;     
WHAT: Assemblywoman Nicole Parra (D-Hanford) has purchased 1,000 turkeys for hungry families in the 30th Assembly District. With the assistance of local community leaders businesses and nonprofit organizations, Parra will “bag and tag” and distribute turkeys on Monday (11/19), Tuesday (11/20), and Wednesday (11/21)

Joining Assemblywoman Parra will be:
·       Former Lieutenant Governor Cruz Bustamante
·       Actor/Comedian Paul Rodriguez
·       Hand-in-Hand Family Resource Center
·       Fresno Catholic Charities
·       Kern County Food Bank
·       Encourage Tomorrow
        & nbsp; 
WHEN/WHERE:      November 19 from 4:00pm to 5:00pm at Kern County Food Bank located on 1825 Felize Drive in Bakersfield. (“Bag and Tag”)

November 20 from 10:00am to 11:00am at Fresno Catholic Charities located on 149 N. Fulton Street in Fresno. (Distribute turkeys)

 November 20 from 2:00pm to 3:00pm at Central Valley Family Health Home Garden located on 11899 Shaw Place in Hanford. (Distribute turkeys)

 November 21 from 10:00am to 11:00am at the Kern County Food Bank located on 1825 Felize Drive in Bakersfield. (Distribute turkeys)        ;                 & nbsp;       &n bsp;       &nb sp;       &nbs p;         ;   

        & nbsp;  

This is the first installment of this campaign season’s Election Notebook, a place in the newspaper and on this blog for announcements, anecdotes and/or other short items related to local politics and the three — yes, three — major elections here in 2008.

Please post fodder for it here on the Politics, Anyone? blog or send it to us at  local@bakersfield.com. You can also fax stuff to us at 395-7519, Attn. News editors.PEl

Taft leader might face Watson in supervisor race
Taft City Councilman Cliff Thompson isn’t saying what a Monday political news conference is about.
But rumors have swirled that Thompson might run against 4th District Kern County Supervisor Ray Watson in next year’s election.
An e-mail sent out Thursday afternoon announcing a Monday news conference at the Park at River Walk in Bakersfield seems to indicate Thompson will put the rumors to rest.
“Council member and former Taft Mayor Cliff Thompson will make an important announcement regarding the upcoming election for supervisor of Kern County’s 4th District,” the e-mail reads.
It lists some of Thompson’s accomplishments on the Taft council.
Thompson, in a phone call Thursday evening, declined to reveal the reason for the press conference.
“I should probably wait until Monday,” he said.

Republican candidate not wasting time with entry
Jim Lopez isn’t taking any chances this year.
The state chairman of the Republican National Hispanic Assembly and a Bakersfield resident said he’s filed federal paperwork necessary to run for the 20th Congressional District seat now held by Rep. Jim Costa, D-Fresno.
Lopez tried to get on the primary ballot for the same post in 2006 but missed a filing deadline by minutes. People had urged him to run at the last minute, he said.
Then he attempted to qualify as a write-in candidate in the general election and that didn’t work out either.
“This time I don’t have to run like a chicken with his head cut off,” Lopez said Thursday.
He cited agriculture, economic development and reducing unemployment as key issues in the district. Lopez said his first concern is pressing for an ample water supply for the area’s ag base.
Lopez is a small businessman and military veteran.
He’s setting up a campaign Web site, www.jimlopez08.com.
The 20th District has all of Kings County and parts of Fresno and Kern counties. It includes Arvin, Delano, McFarland, Shafter, Wasco and parts of Bakersfield.
The congressional primary is next June; the general election is next November.
A Costa staffer said he is, indeed, running for re-election next year.

Kern not popular stop on 2008 campaign trail
Are any of the gazillion presidential candidates coming to Kern County?
Candi Easter, chairwoman of the Kern County Democratic Party, hopes to find out soon at a state Democratic Party executive board meeting.
Some of the Republican and Democratic hopefuls have dropped in on California, including Fresno, but not Kern. Easter’s been disappointed by that.
Republican Mitt Romney canceled a scheduled trip here. Locals said a few weeks ago that Democrat Hillary Clinton was on her way here for a fundraiser but that’s turning out to be wrong.
Easter guessed Thursday that candidates are more likely to come after the Iowa and New Hampshire contests early next year.
She said she heard Democrat Bill Richardson is planning a bus tour through California so he’s a possibility.
“After Iowa and New Hampshire we’re going to be important,” Easter said. “Until then, not so much.”
One problem, Easter said, is that it’s not easy for the candidates to get in and back out of Kern County.
Jack Duncan, executive director of the Kern County Republican Party, didn’t know of any planned visits here by any of the GOPers.

— By staff writers James Burger and Christine Bedell, e-mail: jburger@bakersfield.com and cbedell@bakersfield.com

For years, analyzing old and new campaign contributions to Kern County supervisors has required poring through hundreds of pages of paper filings or PDF versions of them.
It has been a pain.
So The Californian has created — and posted on its Web site — a searchable database of contributions to the supervisors plus our local Assembly members, state senators and Congressman Kevin McCarthy.
You'll find it at Bakersfield.com/electionmoney.
Take a look and tell us what you think. Find anything interesting in there?
And we'll be updating the database with new contributions and more local lawmakers, so keep checking it out!

Republicans are pushing a proposal to convert California from a winner-take-all state to an apportioning state in presidential elections. The proposal, mainly backed by Rep. Darrell Issa, would apportion the state's electoral votes by congressional district, with the two extra votes going to the statewide winner. That's how Maine and Nebraska do it.

But leaving aside the partisan implications of whether this should or should not be done, there's another way.

We could apportion our votes in proportion to how the whole state votes. Take the number of votes cast, divide by the number of electoral votes plus one, and that's the number of votes a candidate needs to get an electoral vote. (The -plus one is so that we're not left with a remaining vote that would go to a remainder, which could go to a random downballot candidate; but maybe the state wants that anyway.)

The Issa proposal would create "swing districts," but would still leave most of the state safe for one party or the other, and thus not a viable place to campaign. A full-state apportionment would put every vote up for grabs, and make every vote count -- San Francisco Republicans and Orange County Democrats alike.

What do you think?

--James Geluso

Yikes, we've been so focused on the presidential primary and who might run for what next year that we overlooked, until late last week, that there's a local election this November — Tuesday, the 6th.

Here's what's on the ballot:

• Measure I:
Delano residents will decide whether to pay a 1-cent sales tax increase for the next decade.
It would pay for police and fire services, road repairs, parks and other general fund items, the city’s election notice says. The penny increase would last 10 years.

• Delano City Council:
Candidates John Drow, Roger Gadiano and Liz Morris are competing for the remainder of a four-year term that ends in 2010.

• School bonds:
Voters in Wasco and those in Boron, North Edwards, Edwards Air Force Base and Antelope Valley will decide on bonds for, respectively, the Wasco Union High School District, the Muroc Joint Unified School District and the Antelope Valley High School District.

• Board seats:
Seats will be decided for some school and utility districts around the county.
Antelope Valley Community College District, Antelope Valley High School District, Southern Kern Unified School District and Gorman Joint School District all have positions up for grabs.
So do the Lake Isabella Community Services District, the Enos Lane Public Utility District, the Buttonwillow County Water District and the Mettler County Water District.

More information:
• Polls will be open from 7 a.m. to 8 p.m. Tuesday.
• You can find more information online at www.smartvoter.org/ca/kr and at elections.co.kern.ca.us.
• Absentee ballots can be turned into any polling place in the county.
• Questions or concerns? Call the Kern County elections division at 868-3590 or 800-452-8683.
• You can monitor returns at http://elections.co.kern.ca... Elections officials say absentee ballot results should start coming in around 8:05 p.m.; the next batch of results may not pop up until around 9:45 p.m. because some of the elections are in outlying areas.
Also get election results at Bakersfield.com.