Matt Ortega

Democrat Joan Buchanan swept the last remaining Republican to hold a Bay Area seat in the California State Legislature on Tuesday night.

Assembly District 15 — the bulk of which lies in Contra Costa County but portions of which also fall in Alameda, Sacramento and San Joaquin counties — is not even close to being the same district it was in 2002, when now termed-out Republican Assemblyman Guy Houston was elected to the first of three two-year stints in office.

That the political make-up of the once predominantly Republican region has changed — a fact reflected in shifting voter registration trends — was evidenced Tuesday by Democrat Joan Buchanan’s clean victory in the race over Abram Wilson, the well-liked Republican mayor of San Ramon.

Buchanan, a veteran school board trustee in the affluent San Ramon Valley suburbs where both her and Wilson’s children’s attended school, captured 99,833 votes to Wilson’s 89,013 votes, or about 52.9 percent of the total votes cast.

The implications of the Buchanan victory are many and none of them bode well for a fledgling California Republican Party.

Buchanan’s win, a historic coup for Democrats, dealt a crushing blow to the California Republican Party, which poured more than $800,000 into Wilson’s campaign in hopes of holding onto the Bay Area’s only remaining GOP-held seat in the Legislature.

“We no longer have a single Republican in the legislature,” said Hoffenblum, the current publisher of the California Target Book, a nonpartisan political publication. “It just shows the Republicans have become more of a regional party than a statewide party.”

There were a few things about Rachel Maddow that were unbeknownst to me before reading this profile in the Contra Costa Times. For one, Maddow is a native of Castro Valley, which is sandwiched between where this blogger grew up (Hayward, 1984-1996; Danville, 1996-2002, 2006; San Ramon, 2007) and she graduated from nearby Stanford.

It’s a wonder that Maddow, a Castro Valley native and Stanford grad, can sleep at all these days. The relentless blur that is her life consists of daily anchoring duties for the “Air America” radio network and blogging assignments for the Huffington Post. She is also penning a book on the heavy topic of American militarism since 1989.But the job generating the most buzz is one she has held for only a few weeks. As the liberal-minded, John McCain-bashing host of “The Rachel Maddow Show” on MSNBC, she has boldly bolted into the cable-TV boys club of political punditry while racking up mostly rave reviews and robust ratings.

“She has supernatural reserves of energy,” says Bill Wolff, Maddow’s executive producer. “She works harder and longer than anyone I’ve ever known.”

She’s also got smarts to spare. Maddow, 35, is a Rhodes scholar with a doctorate in political science from Oxford. A lesbian who came out at the age of 17, she wrote her dissertation on AIDS activism in prisons.

“She’s pretty unreal,” Wolff marvels. “Intellectually, she kind of runs laps around everyone.”

With the economic future of this nation uncertain, I am reminded of the speech delivered by environmental activist Van Jones, an icon of Bay Area activism and a true hero of mine, at the Netroots Nation conference in Austin, Texas this past summer.

Rebuild this nation from the ground-up with green collared jobs — the sooner the better.

It is a shame that no polished copy of this speech is available. It really was great from start to finish.

Adam Conner wrote in the GW Hatchet three years ago about what he described as the “Class of 9/12,” the students who entered college after the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001 — the college graduating class of 2006.

We were the first class that entered college in the world after 9/11 and our life decisions came at a time of unprecedented national uncertainty. When we submitted our applications to GW, we did so knowing that it was less then two miles from campus to the Pentagon. When our acceptance letters came there were long conversations to convince our parents that we would be safe in the midst of the next orange alert. Every commencement address we heard as we graduated from high school reminded us of the changed world that we were entering.

We chose to come to a school that sat in the center of a terrorist’s bull’s-eye at a time when no one had any idea when the next attack was going to come. Suddenly, going to school a few blocks from the White House wasn’t always something to brag about; it was now a reminder that we we’re closer than anyone to dangers of this new reality.

And maybe that’s part of what drew us here.

It is an interesting article from the perspective of someone who entered college and, simultaneously, walked into a potential terrorism target. There are few who can share their view on the matter and I, having attended the University of Arizona, am not one of them.

Conner writes about the disconnect on the George Washingtin University campus, but there is certainly a disconnect across the country. On that terrible day in 2001, there was not a point at any time in which I felt at risk, tucked away in the confines of an upper middle-class suburbia. San Ramon Valley High School better fit the profile for a school shooting, with the tragic Columbine killings just two years in the rear view mirror, than a terrorism strike.

Nate Schierhotlz, the Bay Area product out of San Ramon Valley, hit his first major league home run in a shot to right against the Pittsburgh Pirates at home in San Francisco in the Giants’ 7-6 win on Saturday.

Schierholtz, fresh off the Olympic team, made it 7-5 with his homer over the brick wall in right. Wilson gave up a run in the ninth on two singles and Ryan Doumit’s sacrifice fly, but he struck out Adam LaRoche and retired Brandon Moss on a grounder.

Schierholtz went homerless in 112 at-bats with the Giants last year. It took him 19 more at-bats this year to go deep, and his Danville-based family retrieved the ball (thanks to some negotiating) so the outfielder could store it next to his bronze medal.

“I’m a little more relaxed this year, and that’s a big difference,” said Schierholtz, who’s 9-for-19 in four starts.

Watch the video.