During Schwarzenegger's special election, the California Nurses Association received a great deal of attention for aggressive politics after Ahnold talked of "kicking their butts." This year is no different with the nurses taking aggressive tactics to the battle for Proposition 89 - The Clean Money and Fair Elections act.

How aggressive? Well how many initiative campaigns get reviewed by the industry website All Hip Hop?

Now CNA is (literally) rolling out six mobile phone bank buses, with 24 lines a piece and wrapped in signage. This will allow the ability to drive to hospitals for shift changes and let nurses easily phone bank before or after shifts.

From the San Jose Mercury News:

Swanson derided supporters' glee over the Internet wave washing over the ad.

``Sixteen thousand hits? That's a drop in the bucket compared to the 4 to 5 million people they'll need to convince,'' Swanson said. ``Everyone heralded the netroots as the next great thing, and you saw it propel Howard Dean initially. But when it came to translating it to votes, it didn't happen.''

The irony is that this story is about an ad from Bill Hillsman and talks about the Lamont campaign, which translated enough votes to win, beating a sitting US Senator.

"one of the slickest and most engaging political ads in California right now...In this ad, the medium is the message. Rather than targeting corporate donations and their influence on politicians, it attacks television advertising funded by those donations."
--Robert Salladay of the LA Times on Bill Hillsman's new ad for Prop 89

In contrast to the political ads that make you want to buy a Tivo, there are ads by Bill Hillsman, who can inspire voters instead of turning them off (see Lamont, Ned).

Hillsman's new ad is for Proposition 89, the clean money and fair elections initiative in California and the ad is getting great reviews in the California Blogosphere.

With four weeks until the election, California is on pace for this record-setting election cycle to include $500,000,000 in campaign spending. That's right, a half a billion dollars.

Big Tobacco is already in for more than $50 million against Proposition 86. Big Oil is already in for more than $50 million against Proposition 87.

In Sac Town, you have to pay-to-play.

California's 2006 election will be the most expensive in the history of our state. The ship-load of special interest money dominating the debate have already pushed TV ad rates up 50% and may double rates during the final two weeks of the election.

The result of the sharp increase in ad rates is that campaigns and candidates are getting priced out. A 1,000 point California broadcast buy is running north of $5 million. This is reflecting in the types of candidates who are on the ballot, you either need to be rich or have lots of rich friends to be viable in California.

The movement for clean money, publicly financed elections dramatically reforms this system. Much like the blogs democratized media, clean money democratizes elections. The huge financial barriers to publishing media created a construct where many voices were unheard. Then blogs came along and allowed content to be judged based on it's quality, not on the amount of ink used to distribute it.

California Chamber of Commerce President Allan Zaremberg and the crack investigative team at CoC's K Street headquarters have uncovered a bombshell.

Sacramento Bee reporter Jim Sanders writes of the epiphany under the headline, Secret plan alleged on campaign financing:

A California Nurses Association publication indicates the group is pushing the Proposition 89 campaign-finance measure as a Trojan horse to get what it covets most: universal health care, opponents said Monday.

Allan Zaremberg, president of the California Chamber of Commerce, said the strategy basically was spelled out in a document that appeared on the nurses association Web site.

Whowouldthunk? Nurses support health care?

But then I started thinking, could I too scour the internet and find secret election plans? Here are some more secret plans I found on the internets.

With the Katrina anniversary, there has been lots of talk about what government needs to do to protect citizens from another disaster. The other day, California Assemblymember John Laird told the Capitol Weekly, "We have less flood protection than they had in New Orleans. Sacramento is really not protected and the thousands of people who live here are at risk." But this wasn't a story about the anniversary, this was a report on how flood protection in California died a suspicious death in the legislature:

This week, just as Senate President Pro Tem Don Perata put on hold an eight-bill package of flood-protection legislation, one of his political committees received a $500,000 donation from the California Building Industry Association (CBIA), one of the package's biggest opponents.

The donation is the single largest that a Perata committee has received since he became Senate leader in 2004.

Dan Walters has been covering Sacramento politics for decades. In California, state senate seats larger than congressional seats create a reality where the most populous state is the most expensive state when it comes to campaigning.

Last week, a solid measure for re-districting died in the legislature. The big money, special interests have a strangle-hold on Sacramento and won. Dan Walters wrote: