William Bradley is an award-winning columnist and former political advisor. His NewWestNotes.com is the California leader in real-time political analysis.

Bradley has been a senior advisor in several U.S. presidential and California gubernatorial campaigns, was senior advisor of Shadow Conventions 2000, and advised political parties in Mexico, Japan, Germany, and Russia. The former chief political writer for the LA Weekly and California Business has served in various state and local posts, co-founded a newspaper in California's capital, dabbles as a Hollywood consultant/producer and Screen Actors Guild member, hosted a national radio show, and has written for a score of major national and international publications.

A Berkeley grad who was in the U.S. Navy, the former VISTA Volunteer and national merit scholar with honors in several fields is an analyst for XM Sirius Radio and Al Jazeera, USC's first senior fellow for online journalism, and a third generation Californian.

Blog Entries by William Bradley

Obama's Off To A Very Good Start

16 Comments | Posted November 4, 2009 | 10:45 AM (EST)


One year ago, Barack Obama was elected president of the United States. Is his presidency delivering on the promise of his candidacy? Yes. I think he's off to a very good start. But I'm not doing handstands.

I keep Obama's book containing his campaign program, Change We Can Believe In,...

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It's November 22, 1963 On Mad Men: HuffPost Review

98 Comments | Posted November 2, 2009 | 06:41 PM (EST)


"Everything's going to be okay."

-- Don Draper

No, Don. It won't. It really won't.


A day we've long awaited on Mad Men, November 22, 1963, has arrived in "The Grown-Ups," the second to last episode of this very fine third season.

As always in these reviews, there...

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Afghanistan, Again: The Thicket Obama's Not Getting Out Of

118 Comments | Posted October 29, 2009 | 02:23 PM (EST)


President Barack Obama is getting ready to reveal his latest strategy for Afghanistan, perhaps after the election a week from Friday. He appears to be preparing to split the difference. Perhaps he should be preparing to split the territory.

Afghanistan has a government, of a sort, but it doesn't really...

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Mad Men: "The Gypsy and the Hobo" -- HuffPost Review

116 Comments | Posted October 26, 2009 | 11:08 PM (EST)


"The Gypsy and the Hobo" is a great episode of Mad Men. For those who've been thinking that the pace of the show was more than a bit slow earlier in the season, that's certainly not the case now.

As always with these reviews, there be spoilers ahead, so...

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Chinatown's 35th Anniversary Edition and the Polanski Scandal

72 Comments | Posted October 23, 2009 | 08:15 PM (EST)


In one of the great ironies, the 35th anniversary edition of Chinatown came out this month, nearly at the same time that its director, Roman Polanski, was arrested in Switzerland after fleeing Los Angeles over 30 years ago following a downward guilty plea and brief imprisonment for unlawful sex with...

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Obama in the Thicket of "Afghaniranistan"

101 Comments | Posted October 21, 2009 | 04:12 PM (EST)


Considering that he is the most recent winner of the Nobel Peace Prize, President Barack Obama is in a seemingly curious set of positions. He's spurred major military offensives in Afghanistan and Pakistan, and has been deeply enmeshed in a tense stand-off with Iran.

There are many complex things...

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Mad Men: "The Color Blue" -- HuffPost Review

88 Comments | Posted October 19, 2009 | 05:17 PM (EST)


Last night's "The Color Blue" was a cracking good episode that, after last week's rushed and rather arbitrary plot developments, returned Mad Men to its strongest ground. That's the advertising business and the mystery of Don Draper.

As always in these reviews, there be spoilers ahead, so you've been warned.

...
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Mad Men: "Wee Small Hours" -- HuffPost Review

78 Comments | Posted October 12, 2009 | 03:33 PM (EST)


No, we don't get the classic Sinatra song in this episode. What we do get is an hour of people behaving stupidly and making big mistakes. And a few things I don't necessarily buy.

As always in these reviews, there be spoilers ahead, so you've been warned.

Don Draper is...

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Why Obama Doesn't Deserve the Nobel Peace Prize, Or the Olympics Rap

241 Comments | Posted October 9, 2009 | 04:18 PM (EST)


When the Vulcans finally make first contact with the peoples of Spaceship Earth, there's no doubt who most will choose to represent us. Which is when we may learn that President Barack Obama really is a "Manchurian candidate," an alien agent, albeit not of the sort featured in even the...

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Arnold Schwarzenegger, Jerry Brown, Bill Clinton and That Crazy California Governorship

62 Comments | Posted October 8, 2009 | 04:49 PM (EST)


Six years ago last night, Arnold Schwarzenegger was elected governor of California in a 17-point landslide. It was the dramatic California recall election, and I spoke with Schwarzenegger in his suite at the Century Plaza Hotel in Los Angeles before he went downstairs to deliver his victory speech in the...

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Mad Men: "Souvenir" -- HuffPost Review

85 Comments | Posted October 5, 2009 | 05:26 PM (EST)


The eighth episode of this Mad Men season is really the Betty Draper show, We learn some key things here. Not the least of which is that Don Draper is not as suave as we, and he, think. And that it is Betty who may have made the mistake in...

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Iranian Crisis: Progress, Problems

154 Comments | Posted October 2, 2009 | 04:45 PM (EST)


There was some good progress in Thursday's international negotiation sessions with Iran on its nuclear program. But anyone who imagines the problem is solved is quite delusional.

Let's focus first on the positive from Geneva.

Contrary to much posturing by Iran and its advocates around the world, the Tehran regime's...

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Iranian Crisis: The Run-Up To Negotiation

130 Comments | Posted September 30, 2009 | 11:45 AM (EST)


On the eve of the first formal negotiations between America and Iran in 30 years, there's been a flurry of activity on all sides. Especially so since the sides include the other parties to negotiation -- Britain, France, China, Germany, and Russia -- as well as Israel.

All this comes...

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Mad Men: "Seven Twenty Three" -- HuffPost Review

103 Comments | Posted September 28, 2009 | 04:41 PM (EST)


In history, the solar eclipse is an omen of things to come, frequently upsetting. And so it is with "Seven Twenty Three," an episode which caused some confusion in advance. And some after as well, with a major newspaper blog still failing to grasp what the title is about, mistakenly...

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Obama's Summiteering: High Altitude Headaches and Rumors of War

128 Comments | Posted September 25, 2009 | 02:15 PM (EST)


As any hiker knows, high altitudes often lead to headaches, and President Barack Obama has had a few at his New York summits. They center around AfPak, the perennial question of Israel and Palestine, and Iran. And today the latter went front and center, with war a real possibility in...

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Mad Men's Emmy Triumph Comes As "Guy Walks Into An Advertising Agency" -- HuffPost Review

68 Comments | Posted September 21, 2009 | 09:28 AM (EST)


Last night's repeat win at the Emmy Awards further enshrined Mad Men as television's best series on a night when it aired a consequential new episode.

Before getting to the review of "Guy Walks Into An Advertising Agency" -- a very ironic title, as it happens -- replete with...

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Obama and Al Qaeda: New Moves Show Success May Not Depend On Afghanistan

122 Comments | Posted September 17, 2009 | 07:55 PM (EST)


While things are going quite ruggedly for America in Afghanistan, they may be going worse for Al Qaeda everywhere. Osama bin Laden's taunting 9/11 anniversary message was days late and very lame. And President Barack Obama's lethal approach to dealing with the organization that attacked America on 9/11 took a...

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Mad Men: "The Fog" -- HuffPost Review

44 Comments | Posted September 14, 2009 | 05:39 PM (EST)


The rather slow-developing third season of Mad Men continues gathering steam in its fifth episode, "The Fog," with five major plot developments. As always in these reviews, there be spoilers ahead. So if you haven't seen the episode yet, consider yourself warned.

Five major plot developments in this episode --...

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9/11 + 8: Where We've Been, Where We're Going

66 Comments | Posted September 11, 2009 | 09:00 AM (EST)


Eight years since 9/11. It feels like 18 years, if not 80.

So much has changed since then, yet so much is still the same.

We all remember how America seemed unified in 9/11's aftermath, especially in contrast to the disunity engendered by the Florida election debacle. And much of...

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Mad Men: "The Arrangements" -- HuffPost Review

84 Comments | Posted September 7, 2009 | 05:48 PM (EST)


In an unusual move, AMC chose to air the fourth episode of this season's Mad Men on Labor Day weekend. As it happens, after a couple of episodes marked mainly by mood, texture, and positioning of plot points and character arcs -- which left some viewers a tad bored --...

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