Carl Fogliani issued the statement on behalf of Goehring’s campaign. Fogliani, 11th Congressional District voters may remember, was the steward of then-Rep. Richard Pombo’s abysmal re-election campaign that theWashington Post criticized as among the worst of the cycle.

While campaigning for the 11th Congressional District voters often hear candidate David Harmer rail against the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) otherwise known as the stimulus that failed to stimulate the economy.  Harmer has even said “We’re disgusted by it.” Apparently Mr. Harmer’s disgust wasn’t enough to stop him from shamelessly taking over $160,000 in bailout money for himself. [...]

Carl Fogliani, spokesman for 11th Congressional District frontrunner Brad Goehring stated:

“David Harmer says he’s a conservative but lives like a San Francisco liberal.  You can’t bash the stimulus with one hand while cashing your stimulus check with the other.  Harmer calls himself a Reagan Republican but he looks more like an Obama Republican.  Brad Goehring is leading this race because he is a true constitutional conservative who will go to Washington and fight against out of control government spending.” [emphasis added]

It is a scary proposition that a candidate for a Congressional seat that voted on both pieces of legislation cannot distinguish the two from each other. Any candidate for office should very well know the difference. Goehring and his team apparently don’t seem to think so, or simply don’t care.

And by the way, the Recovery Act that Fogliani attacked as a failure was a “bigger success than expected” and attributed to creating up to 2.8 million jobs in the first quarter by the nonpartisan, Congressional Budget Office.

Brad Goehring mistakes TARP as the "stimulus."

Stockton Record reports on the goods.

Harmer’s brush with the bailout was more than ideological. Before flipping his hat into the ring for the 11th District seat, he worked for Washington Mutual.

An attorney, Harmer worked ensuring WaMu complied with federal credit regulations.

WaMu went belly-up in the mortgage meltdown. The bank was acquired by JPMorgan Chase.

JPMorgan Chase received $25 billion in federal bailout money from the Troubled Asset Relief Program, or TARP.

JPMorgan Chase laid Harmer off.

Harmer received a $75,406 bonus.

He also received $84,586 in severance, according to his federal financial disclosure forms.

Harmer’s foes interpret events this way: Harmer, who denounces bailouts, received a hefty severance – of bailout money. Harmer is guilty of hypocrisy.

Harmer’s campaign denies this “interpretation” but if opponents can get it to stick in the final march towards the June 8 primary, it could sink his second bid for Congress in seven months.

Imperial Valley Press reported:

Gubernatorial candidate Meg Whitman made a stop this morning at the El Centro Chamber of Commerce to talk to a half-empty room about what her plans are if elected California governor.

The group present included business owners and agricultural leaders, and the forum was geared toward those topics.

Recent polls showed Whitman increasing her lead back to familiar territory over Steve Poizner, the state’s insurance commissioner.

Republican congressional candidate Brad Goehring ignited a firestorm of controversy Tuesday when he made a comment on his Facebook page suggesting that liberals be hunted to “thin the herd.” [...]

His office said Tuesday evening the comment was a “metaphor” and the campaign was sorry for any misunderstanding.

The comments read: “If I could issue hunting permits, I would officially declare today opening day for liberals. The season would extend to November 2 and have no limits on how many taken as we desperately need to ‘thin’ the herd.”

Goehring’s sickening comment comes on the heels of weeks of death threats against elected officials, vandalism, and an incident of a Tea Party member spitting on a member of Congress.

Republicans immediately shot themselves in the foot. This morning, Michael Steele’s RNC issued a memo that included a peculiar attack against Kagan: she quoted her mentor — civil rights icon and the nation’s first African-American justice, Thurgood Marshall.

President Obama nominated Elena Kagan to the Supreme Court on Monday.

Marshall had stated in a bicentennial speech in 1987 that the Constitution was initially ‘defective’ for, among a number of reasons, slavery and qualification of slaves as “three-fifths.”

The argument was quickly spun back as national Republicans “defending” the institution of slavery protected in the original Constitution.

Even the conservative National Review slammed the line of attack.

Find statements from U.S. senators on the Kagan nomination here.

Steve Poizner and Meg Whitman at last week's GOP gubernatorial debate

The once large lead held by Meg Whitman in the Republican primary for governor has slimmed to just two points, according to the latest SurveyUSA poll.

Political Wire reports that Whitman maintains a 39 percent to 37 percent edge over the state’s insurance commissioner, Steve Poizner. The former eBay chief held a 22-point lead less than three weeks ago.

To date, Whitman spent nearly $60 million of her own personal wealth on the campaign and a month out from the primary, she has very little to show for it.

Update Calitics’ Robert Cruickshank says it is a whole new ballgame in California’s GOP primary. The wheels have come off the Whitman campaign at the worst possible time and probably even has Poizner staffers surprised.

Sarah Palin endorsed Carly Fiorina for Senate in California

In a note posted to Facebook on May 6, former half-term Governor of Alaska Sarah Palin endorsed failed CEO Carly Fiorina for Senate in California. The former Republican vice presidential candidate appended an update to the note expanded on her support of Fiorina’s bid with specifics.

Carly has been endorsed by the National Right to Life, the California Pro-Life Council, and the Susan B. Anthony List. She is pro-life, pro-traditional marriage, pro-military, and pro-strict border security and against amnesty. She is against Obamacare and will vote to repeal it and prevent the government takeover of private companies and industries. Carly is also a strong supporter of the Second Amendment. Like me, she is a member of the NRA, has a 100% NRA rating, and she and her husband are gun owners. She is pro-energy development and believes as I do in an all-of-the-above approach to energy independence. She is against cap and tax. And most importantly, Carly is the only conservative in the race who can beat Barbara Boxer. That’s no RINO. That’s a winner.

Fiorina does not have any such rating from the NRA. The gun lobby organization has not issued any ratings for the California Republican primary and without any legislative historical record, Fiorina has never received a rating from the NRA. Palin, or her Facebook ghostwriter, completely made up that claim.

Additionally, Palin stated Fiorina opposes cap-and-trade. Fiorina currently opposes cap-and-trade but at the Republican National Convention in Minnesota two years ago, Fiorina voiced her support for the scheme as part of John McCain energy platform.

However, Palin appears to have forgotten an incident during the 2008 presidential election when Fiorina stated on national television that neither Palin nor GOP hopeful John McCain were suited to run a large company. The remark effectively ended Fiorina’s status as a surrogate for the McCain/Palin ticket.

The endorsement sparked a fervor among conservative activists that are not pleased with the decision.

Click here to view the embedded video.

In the pages of Mount Pleasant, Poizner offered a derogatory nickname of Mount Pleasant High School in East Palo Alto: “Mount Pregnant.”

During a recent debate with Republican primary rival Meg Whitman, Poizner said the school’s many gang members “just weren’t going to end up in a college.”

Poizner says the book fairly describes the school, including positive details about it. He told The Sacramento Bee that the issue has become politicized because of the campaign.

The story first surfaced last week and continues to gain steam.

Freshman Candy Morfin, 15, said the nearly 2,000-student school, where Latinos make up by far the biggest ethnic group, was not nearly as dangerous as she said the book portrayed it to be. Poizner’s book mentions some gang activity at the school.

“He’s making fun of Mount Pleasant and how there’s a lot of pregnant people,” Morfin said. “And why is he saying there’s a lot of gangs when there isn’t.”

As Poizner’s campaign plays up the conservative fear of undocumented immigrants from Mexico, Poizner tags an inner city school’s students, a large swath of which are Latino, as destined-to-be-failures. The school has a noted history of problems with gangs and teen pregnancy and instead of approaching the problem like a serious leader, Poizner defaults to an immature and classless attack on the school’s students with a childish nickname.

No school administrator would ever think that the best way to turn around low test scores, escalating gang activity, and rising teen pregnancy, would be to insult all the students and claim they have no futures.

Poizner’s campaign posted an excerpt from the book, Mount Pleasant: What Happened When I Traded a Silicon Valley Board Room for an Inner City Classroom, is due out for release Thursday, here.

At the signing, the President was surrounded by Vice President Joe Biden, Speaker Nancy Pelosi, and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid. Seated next to the President was Rep. John Dingell whose father was a proponent of a national healthcare system.

Watch the President’s remarks:

Click here to view the embedded video.