The Worst And The Dimmest

It was inevitable. Fresh off of trying to bust the Writer's Guild union, Chris Lehane is moving on from that "success" to where he's always wanted to be - safe in the arms of his Republican pals.

With no end in sight to the state's flurry of ballot initiatives and the state likely to hold a special election this year, top Republican adviser Steve Schmidt and Democratic strategist Chris Lehane are among several California heavyweights forming a new firm solely designed to work on ballot-box campaigns.

Schmidt ran Sen. John McCain's presidential campaign and Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's re-election drive, while Lehane worked in the Clinton White House and defeated a GOP attempt to change California's electoral college system.

The new firm, LFM Campaigns, also will include:
-- Democratic consultant Ace Smith, who was Hillary Clinton's California presidential campaign chairman and serves as an adviser to Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, a potential gubernatorial candidate
-- Republican strategist Adam Mendelsohn, adviser to Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and the governor's former communications director
-- Mark Fabiani, Lehane's longtime business partner and a former communications aide to President Clinton

"If you look at the history of proposition work, the ones that have been most successful from a strategic perspective are those that have crossed party lines or have been seen as bipartisan," Lehane said.

There's a Murderer's Row of willing stooges.

And people wonder why the state is perpetually in crisis. With consultants like these...

Think about the timing, too. Right now, when ballot-box budgeting is crippling the state with unworkable burdens and all energies should be focused on untangling the structural traps that make the state ungovernable, Lehane and co. happily flit around, taking corporate money for "bipartisan" ballot measures that will do precisely the opposite.

The sickest thing is that these are the people Democratic lawmakers still think it makes sense to listen to. California Democratic Party money has poured into their pockets. The consultant class of hired guns in Sacramento may be the biggest contributor to the permanent crisis mode in which we find ourselves. Hope that "bipartisan" cash satisfies you while the state burns, fellas.