Will the dog bark?

Chuck Poochigian is running for Attorney General, I wonder what that means to him? Apparently it means he cares about identity theft. The State Senator has taken a page (or two) from Arnold Schwarzenegger's book (no surprise.) The Arnold ran an education initiative and ran for Governor. That tactic was a tear sheet from Pete Wilson's playbook when his consultants ran statewide initiatives for fun and profit. Now it's Pooch's turn. to run a ballot initiative or are his consultants running him?

The Sacramento Bee writes "Matt Rexroad, who is managing the identity-theft ballot campaign said there won't be much legwork needed to sell the idea to the public. "This doesn't even require much of a campaign," he said." In Martha Stewart's lexicon, is that a good thing?

Rexroad, a former Marine, is a bit under the gun, shall we say? Rexroad's firm, Meridian Pacific, the architect of last year's amazing incumbent retention election in the Assembly (Republicans held just as many seats going in and coming out), is consulting for Chuck Poochigian. But the Sacramento News and Review tells us: "Now PG&E is accusing Meridian Pacific of unethical behavior. According to a letter from PG&E to SSJID officials, an unnamed Meridian Pacific employee used a laptop computer last week to access the district's wireless network while attending a public meeting at the SSJID's offices."

SSJID stands for the South San Joaquin Irrigation District, clearly not as powerful a regulatory agency as the California Department of Justice. But if this suspected electronic hacking job had been directed at the Cal DOJ, what would Poochigian do in his desired role as Attorney General?
Anthony York of Capitol Weekly and our favorite daily email, The Roundup, wrote "It's part CSI, part Twilight Zone. A PR firm says it has done nothing wrong, only to be accused by their client of corporate espionage. Attorneys are brought in, the FBI is called and computer forensic experts arrive to hack suspect laptops."

Perhaps Senator Poochigian IS worried about losing his identity in a high-tech electronic heist. But will he take aim at the consultants accused of corporate espionage? Is stealing intellectual property of a governmental agency not the same as stealing my identity? If he wins, how will he regulate the consultants who allegedly defrauded a public utility and the people? Who will Senator Poochigian protect?