It’s got to be pretty lonely out there on the 2014 gubernatorial campaign trail for the former Lite Guv under Arnold Schwarzenegger whom Gavin Newsom easily dispatched in the last election. Not only is Maldonado a Republican in a state controlled by Democrats, he’s a self-styled moderate Republican, which makes him unpalatable to the far right in his own party. And now comes news via the Chronicle’s Carla Marinucci that his chief strategist, John Weaver, has left the campaign along with the rest of Weaver’s D.C.-based political team. (Too many lonely nights in Bakersfield?).The 2010 photo (from the LA Times) captures the weirdly memorable occasion of Maldonado having coffee at a Los Angeles café while Newsom held a meet-and-greet with Latino leaders there.
