Nobody won June's contract standoff between the Modesto City Council and the Modesto Police Officers Association.

Karl Rove's pitch to capitalize on health care reform and get the Republican Party back in control of the House of Representatives didn't sound like the divide-and-conquer strategist he's known to be. "We can't say 'repeal,' " he told the audience at Assemblyman Tom Berryhill's Modesto fund-raiser last week. "We must say 'revise.' "

Being labeled a "carpetbagger," a 19th century political epithet, isn't holding back Republican candidates in the Northern San Joaquin Valley. Tom Berryhill, Kurt Vander Weide, Jeff Denham and Richard Pombo are taking up new addresses to compete for different seats in the June 8 primary and none appears to be suffering as an outsider.

There's a scramble to succeed Tom Berryhill in the state Assembly. Bee columnist Adam Ashton takes a look at the endorsements for the six candidates running in the Republican primary and sizes up who represents various political interests.

Christi Falke's fears about Washington's overspending led her to pay much closer attention to the politicians in her own back yard. Now the Turlock woman is a regular at the Stanislaus County Republican Central Committee, a body that recruits, grooms and funds candidates for city council to Congress.

Sen. Dave Cogdill of Modesto represents the party of no new taxes, but he wouldn't advise his Republican colleagues to sign a pledge locking them into that position.

I first met Cathleen Galgiani in 2004 while she lobbied to bring new railroad crossings to Merced so trains wouldn't delay ambulances on their way to the city's only hospital.

Republican Anthony Cannella and Democrat Anna Caballero will be buying TV ads in three markets in the fall when they compete to represent a state Senate district that runs from Modesto to Madera to Salinas.