Rep. Ellen Tauscher, D-Alamo

Rep. Ellen Tauscher, D-Alamo, announced today her engagement to retired Delta Airlines pilot and widower James Cieslak.

Her office says Cieslak proposed to Tauscher over the holidays.  Tauscher’s sister Sally introduced the two at a family function in the fall of 2007.  Cieslak, a father of two, retired from the Marines after serving as an aviator with the rank of colonel.

No word yet on the wedding date or location.

Tauscher’s romance comes a decade after a painful and public divorce from computer company tycoon Bill Tauscher. She told me in late 2007 that the experience left her with little interest in marriage. Instead, she focused on her job as a congresswoman and on raising her now 17-year-old daughter, Katherine.

But Katherine is shopping for colleges now, and that leaves her mother with a little extra time for herself.

The reports on Cieslak are very good. Tauscher’s closest friends say Cieslak is highly supportive of his fiance’s high-profile career. More important, he is quietly self-confident and has no need to compete with his future wife for attention.

I’ve met Cieslak several times, most recently during my interview with Tauscher at the Democratic National Convention in Denver where the two held hands beneath the restaurant table. I was impressed with him. He is tall and distinguished-looking, as you would expect in a pilot. He pulled out my chair. He poured me a cup of coffee. At a later event, he brought me a diet soda and even offered to bring me food! (This might surprise you but the press isn’t used to such nice treatment.)

Best wishes to the happy couple.

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State Sen. Mark DeSaulnier, D-Concord

State Sen. Mark DeSaulnier in his first appearance as a senator on the locally hosted cable show “Friendly Fire” — the host is Contra Costa County Assessor Gus Kramer — apparently predicts the state budget fight in Sacramento will be over by the time the show airs.

Really? Does anyone have a calendar and a red marker handy? That’s the most optimistic anyone has been about the state budget stalemate in, well, months.

“Friendly Fire” airs on the Comcast public access station in eastern Contra Costa County on Jan. 5 and Jan. 19 at 7 p.m. and in central Contra Costa County on Jan. 8 and Jan. 22 at 10 p.m.

I made my 2009 resolutions this morning.

It all started on my way to work when a driver swerved in front of me on Interstate 680 and forced me to slam on my brakes. I resolved to stop swearing at people who cannot hear me. How dumb is that?

Then I got to thinking about how my real first resolution emerged earlier this morning after I got up the nerve to get on the scale. I resolved to lose the 10 pounds (more or less, mostly more) I gained while I was on vacation in December.  This will no doubt surprise my husband and my son, who will come downstairs and find in the garbage all the leftover fudge, ice cream, pie, ambrosia and frozen cookie dough.

Here at the office, more 2009 resolutions reluctantly emerged.

I resolved to throw out the 50 pounds of 2008 campaign mailers on my desk. It’s not like they contain any facts worthy of the space they occupy.

What about all the political books on my shelf? I’ll never have time to read all these books and more will pour in this year. Maybe I should resolve to read more books in 2009? Or maybe I should just resolve to free up space for the new arrivals. That’s dooable.

And what should I do with all my research files on Dean Andal, the unsuccessful GOP congressional contender? If I toss them out, he’ll run again and I’ll be sorry. I’d better keep them for a while longer.

I have all these boxes of local campaign finance reports, too. I resolve to hound local officials to put these reports online so that I don’t have to slaughter so many trees and store the bones under my desk. That’s better. Badgering people who can hear me is a better use of my time, right?

My best resolution (this one is for my editor, in case she is reading this post) is to revisit my long list of undone stories that went by wayside in the insanity of the 2008 election season.

Given the shaky economy and poor outlook in the newspaper business, I resolve to try and keep my job.

Tell me, what are your 2009 resolutions?

The advisories out of the inauguration offices make the historic event sound so appealing: Long lines, crowded trains, expensive hotel rooms, hours of standing in the rain or sleet or snow, and a security ban on umbrellas and strollers for those getting-heavier-by-the-minute children.

So, don’t go. Instead, attend the inauguration on-line via LINK-live, a collaboration involving a social networking system with live, web-streaming and plenty of opportunity to participate via Twitter and Flickr. Check out the details and links below:

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Two of those obnoxious automated campaign phone calls from the 2008 California election made the National Political Do Not Contact Registry’s Top 10 Hall of Robocall Shame.

Ranked No. 2 is the infamous sex call financed by a Republican challenger in an uphill fight to unseat incumbent Rep. Mike Thompson, D-Napa.  “Mike Thompson has been a baaaaaad boy!” says a throaty woman in a breathy voice.

And in the No. 10 spot is the robocall from conservative group ProtectMarriage.com that used Barack Obama’s words about gay marriage in an anti-Proposition 8 call.

Click here for the full Top 10 list and audio links to the calls, along with a chance to vote for your favorite.

Not that you would know it but robocalls are illegal in California unless introduced by a live caller. Then why do we get so many? Campaigns get around the law by hiring out-of-state call centers beyond the jurisdictional reach of the California Public Utility Commission.

The National Political Do Not Contact project is lobbying for national legislation to bar or restrict the use of robocalls but critics say a prohibition is a violation of Free Speech rights.

The deadline to file as a delegate candidate to the California Democratic Party’s 2009 state convention is Dec. 31 at noon. Click here for an online application.

Party members will gather at caucuses to elect 12 representatives per each of the state’s 80 Assembly districts on Jan. 10-11. Click here for the caucus schedule.

The party will select its platform, elect its leaders, vote on other party issues and generally gloat about its 2008 election successes on April 24-26, 2009, in Sacramento.

Sans the gloating, the state Republican Party will also hold a convention in Sacramento this spring — Feb. 20-22. Click here for the GOP convention web site.

The Center for Political Accountability wants you to know more about how corporate America influences politics through its campaign finance activities.

It has unveiled www.politicalaccountability.net, a website that allows the public, media and shareholders to review corporate political spending disclosure documents of some of the nation’s largest companies.

The CPA is a nonpartisan watchdog group based in Washington, D.C.

This humorous political photo has been making the rounds on the Internet:

Assemblywoman Joan Buchanan, D-San Ramon

Fox and Hounds Daily conservative blogger Patrick Dorinson, also the former state GOP communications chief, incinerated four newly elected Assembly Democrats including Joan Buchanan in District 15 for failing to cast either yes or no votes on recent state budget votes.

In a piece titled “Profiles in Cowardice,” he accuses the four of abstaining on the critical votes in order to avoid attack ads in those inevitable 2010 re-election campaign tying them to “tax and spend” Democrats.

“Vote your conscience but vote,” Dorinson said via telephone today. “The people sent you to Sacramento to get something done.”

Dorinson’s biting commentary begins with with:

Congratulations to new Democratic Assembly members Alyson Huber of El Dorado Hills, Marty Block of San Diego, Joan Buchanan of Alamo and Manuel Perez of Coachella. In the first important vote of your careers, you demonstrated that all the fancy words from your campaigns about “changing the system” and “not a career politician” as well as “ready to go to work” and “performance not politics” were as empty as California’s bank accounts.

The four of you, joined by wily political veteran Charles Calderon of Whittier, abstained from voting on the tax hikes proposed by your own party. You didn’t vote yes or no, you abstained. Merriam-Webster’s online dictionary says that to abstain means, “to refrain deliberately and often with an effort of self-denial from an action or practice”.

Is it because you all got elected from swing districts and you fear the wrath of the voters in two years? Is this about maintaining “political viability” for higher office and are worried about future campaign attack ads that would include you vote for higher taxes? Did Speaker Bass give you “get out of jail free” cards on the vote because she knew it would not pass without three Republicans, and therefore you would not have a “tax increase” vote on your record? Or is it that you don’t have the guts to stand up and vote “yes or no” because you believe it is the right thing to do, political consequences be damned?

I don’t know your motives, but I would bet dollars to doughnuts that it was, dare I say the word, politics - pure politics.(Click here to read full column.)

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Barack Obama: The 44th or the 43rd U.S. president, depending on how you count it

One of my editors asked me this afternoon why everyone keeps referring to Barack Obama as the pending 44th president of the United States when, in fact, he will be the 43rd man to serve as president.

For an inexplicable reason, the commonly accepted presidential numbering system lists Grover Cleveland twice — No.’s 22 and 24 — because he served two non-consecutive terms. Hence, Obama is said to be the 44th president while only 42 other men have held the job. Interestingly, the men who served two consecutive terms are listed only once. (Check out Wikipedia’s list.)

Does anyone know how this decision to count Cleveland twice came about? (I put this question to a couple of crack U.S. presidential history buffs and I’ll let you know what they say.)

Whatever the reason, it aggravates my accuracy-is-paramount editor and even a third-grade teacher who wrote to Newsday.

“It seems to me like they just started doing it a LONG time ago on faulty logic and everybody has just fallen into step,” my editor says. “Stupid geese that we are … ”

I Googled “Obama” and “44th president” and found 2,160 entries under news.

Honk. Honk.

UPDATE: My friend Tim Farley, presidential buff extradordinaire, has this to say about the question: “A ruling by the State Department said that Cleveland should be listed as both the 22nd and 24th president as the administrations were not consecutive. They  were two different administrations all together. They had different VP’s and a different cabinet. So, the standard answer is ‘a ruling by the State Department.’ “