Michael Dukakis

Three things this week . . . .

I'd been waiting for one of them, the Los Angeles Times poll on the presidential race, to come out. It did and there was no surprise in that the poll's findings indicate that California is "reliably Democratic," as the photo caption on the story put it. ("Obama would take California in November Times/KTLA poll finds")

Maybe the headline could have been, "Duh!" given that the last Republican presidential candidate to win here was George H.W. Bush (against Michael Dukakis). More significantly, however, the story did not put into context that things change, especially in this campaign.

California lost a legend last week with the death of Hale Champion, a former Sacramento Bee and San Francisco Chronicle reporter who served as a top advisor to Governor Edmund “Pat” Brown between 1958 and 1966.  He was 85.  Champion was Brown’s press secretary when he ran for Governor in 1958 against Republican Bill Knowland, then the Minority Leader of the U.S. Senate.  He later served as the Governor’s press secretary, executive secretary (aka Chief of Staff), and as the state Finance Director.  He later taught at Harvard, served in the Carter Administration, and worked for Massachusetts Governor Michael Dukakis.