From the SacBee.com

Democrats are outpacing Republicans in the drive to recruit new voters in the Sacramento region ahead of the November general election.

Amid the change, Placer County has fallen from its post as California’s chief Republican stronghold, a shift that may affect a closely watched congressional race.

Since the two parties largely settled on presidential nominees in April, voter rolls have increased by roughly 19,500 – or 2 percent – in Placer, El Dorado, Sacramento and Yolo counties, according to new figures from the California secretary of state’s office. Democrats accounted for 10,500 of those new voters. Just 2,400 were Republicans. Most of the others declined to state an allegiance.

The regional numbers mirror a statewide trend. California’s Democratic voter rolls have increased by 181,118 since April while the number of Republicans grew by 6,823. Republicans saw a net loss of registered voters in 25 counties, including a loss of more than 15,000 in conservative Orange County. Similar trends are playing out nationally, in several battleground states.

“We’ve had a little weariness with the current administration,” said Craig MacGlashan, chairman of the Sacramento County Republicans, explaining the apparent preference of the new voters. But he said the numbers don’t reflect a recent wave of enthusiasm for the presidential campaign of John McCain. “I’ve seen an uptick with interest since John McCain picked Sarah Palin” as his running mate.

That interest has not been enough to counter the shift in Placer County, which since 2002 had been the state’s Republican leader.

Modoc County, in California’s rural northeastern corner, is now statistically the state’s most Republican.

And no longer are most Placer County voters registered Republicans.

The party’s share dropped from 52.2 percent before the 2004 election to 49.7 percent today.

During the past four years, the Placer County Democratic Party has grown by roughly three registered voters for every two who have joined county Republicans, state figures show.

More recently, from April though August, Placer’s Democratic tally grew by 1,269 while Republican ranks increased by 585, state figures show. Since Labor Day, Republicans have narrowed that 684-voter gap to 424, Placer election officials say.

“I’ve got to attribute that to a strong Democratic effort to get new registrants – a stronger effort than Republicans,” said Gary Dietrich, a local political analyst and president of Citizen Voice, a nonpartisan voter-awareness group.

That drive could play a role in the contest between Democrat Charlie Brown and Republican Tom McClintock to fill the seat John Doolittle now holds in the 4th Congressional District, Dietrich said.

The district, which covers Placer County and much of rural northeastern California – including Modoc County – is rated a “Race to Watch” by Congressional Quarterly.

The district still is solidly Republican, but from April to early September, Democrats added 2,649 voters in the 4th District, compared to 1,582 more Republicans.

Bill George, Placer County Republican Party communications director, dismissed the recent numbers as “statistically insignificant.”

“Those are very incremental types of moves and not indicative of any type of trend or change in the makeup of the county,” he said. “There’s no trend, no change that we see in the numbers that show that we’re becoming less of a Republican Party in this county.”

George added that the party has seen strong voter registration activity since the beginning of September – about 950 new voters registered as Republicans this month, compared to 700 Democrats.

There are, however, physical signs of change in Placer County: For the first time in roughly a decade, it has a Democratic Party headquarters. Located in Auburn, the office is paid for by the Placer County Democratic Central Committee and serves as headquarters for the Barack Obama and Charlie Brown campaigns. It’s staffed full time by volunteers, said Newcastle resident Arry Murphey-Frank, the Democrats’ district manager.

What does this say for our city…

He told delegates at the California Republican Party’s fall convention that they should take the threat from the state prison guards union seriously, even if it isn’t likely to succeed.

“I hope that I don’t have to tell you what an ill-considered idea that is. We did it once; we did not do it lightly,” he said, referring to the 2003 recall of former Gov. Gray Davis, a Democrat, an election that sent Schwarzenegger to Sacramento. “It is something that should not be taken lightly. It is an extreme measure.”

A conservative wing of the state GOP had planned to vote later Saturday on whether to endorse the recall campaign but instead decided to further investigate the effort first.

In his lunchtime speech to about 250 delegates, Wilson did not directly address the rift between the politically moderate Schwarzenegger and others in his party. Schwarzenegger also avoided the topic during brief remarks to about 300 party members and supporters Friday night.

The governor’s unpopularity with the most conservative Republicans grew this summer after he proposed a temporary increase in the state’s sales tax to help close what was then a $15.2 billion deficit. Wilson was critical of the tax plan, as were Republicans in the Legislature who successfully fought the effort.

That proposal particularly rankled rank-and-file Republicans, California Republican Assembly president Mike Spence said earlier this week.

“We’re talking about a core, central policy that has united the party _ taxes _ and the governor went back on his word,” Spence said.

Frustration with Schwarzenegger within the party’s base was widespread, he said. That’s partly because he has failed to implement many of the government reforms he promised when taking office, Spence said, pointing to the budget deficits that continue to plague the state.

In a slap to the governor, the state party’s board of directors made its frustration with him official Saturday by adopting a resolution praising legislative Republicans for “refusing to raise taxes and standing against the growth of government.”

“We encourage Governor Schwarzenegger to stand with our Republican legislators in the future,” the motion said.

The California Correctional Peace Officers Association filed formal notice this month of its effort to recall Schwarzenegger. The union criticized Schwarzenegger for what it called “catastrophic leadership failings and inept management” since he took office.

One of the motivations for recalling Davis was his deal giving prison guards a 37 percent pay raise after he had accepted $2.6 million in campaign donations from the union.

Schwarzenegger has not taken money from the prison guards and has called its recall drive a political ploy designed to pressure him to give into the union’s demands during contract negotiations. The guards union has been without a contract for two years.

After his address, Wilson told reporters that there will always be disagreements with a governor, but that a recall should be reserved for “serious dereliction of duty.”

“It’s something that you do on a really extreme provocation,” he said.

McCain had thrown debate preparation into turmoil on Wednesday afternoon after he announced that he intended to skip the debate in order to be in Washington for the negotiations. His campaign issued a statement Friday morning saying he was now “optimistic” that a bipartisan bailout agreement would be reached soon, citing “significant progress” in the talks.

The statement was sharply critical of Obama, who, like McCain, returned to Washington on Thursday to take part in the bailout talks. The statement portrayed Obama as unduly partisan and insufficiently concerned with protecting taxpayer interests in the bailout negotiations, while McCain was framed as the leader of House and Senate Republicans seeking to reach a compromise agreement.

“The difference between Barack Obama and John McCain was apparent during the White House meeting yesterday where Barack Obama’s priority was political posturing in his opening monologue defending the package as it stands,” said the McCain campaign statement.

“John McCain listened to all sides so he could help focus the debate on finding a bipartisan resolution that is in the interest of taxpayers and homeowners. The Democratic interests stood together in opposition to an agreement that would accommodate additional taxpayer protections.”

Futures spike as much as $25 on the bailout plan, the falling dollar and as the October front-month contract expires.

A spokesman for the Little Rock Police said there were no “heated words” from the suspect who was killed in a shootout with police after a 30 mile car chase, and he was not recognized by the staff.

More information is needed to determine the motive of the shooter. Was he carrying a personal grudge against Gwatney, or was this attack motivated by politics?

This Wizbang Blog post shows that the lefties aren’t waiting to find out. They are already blaming Sean Hannity, Rush Limbaugh and Michelle Malkin and calling for the wholesale shutdown of conservative Talk Radio.

The level of acrimony between the extremes of the left and right in America have increased over the years but so far have been confined to a war of words on blogs and in the editorial pages of newspapers. If this killing is politically motivated it would signal a troublesome escalation.

Are we headed for a civil war in America?

This is not very helpful to the working poor who cannot afford a Prius, and may have to choose between gas and food.

We can’t drill our way out of the foreign oil crisis, but we can’t inflate our way out of it either. Until a suitable alternative is developed, people still need to get to work.

John McCain wants to find an alternative to oil, and step up production in the meantime.