The Political Landscape:

State Sen. Mimi Walters (R-Laguna Hills) is recusing herself from voting on Assembly Bill 1590, which aims to rescind an earlier assembly bill that authorized the sale of the Orange County Fairgrounds.

Walters said she wouldn’t take part in the assembly vote because her husband, David Walters, had been approached by a potential fairgrounds buyer. The potential buyer asked David Walters, who works in the financial industry, to help him find investors and funds to buy the fairgrounds from the state.

“I know I can’t vote on the issue because it’s a potential conflict of interest,” Walters said Wednesday.

When asked who the potential buyer is, Walters said she is not at liberty to disclose that information.

When pressed for an answer, she said she does not know who the potential buyer is.

Bids on the fairgrounds are due to the state Friday.

The state put the fairgrounds up for sale in October, as part of a plan to liquidate state-owned properties to help close the gap in the state budget deficit. The state hopes to fetch between $90 million and $180 million from the sale of the fairgrounds.

AB 1590, which was introduced by Assemblyman Jose Solorio, is going before the Business and Professions Committee on Tuesday.

Assemblyman Van Tran co-wrote the bill.

At least 50,000 petitions and postcards from people opposed to the sale of the fairgrounds will be delivered to Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s office by Tran and Solorio on Tuesday, said Brian Lochrie, spokesman for the Orange County Fairgrounds Preservation Society.

DEVORE: ‘MORE THE MERRIER’

Assemblyman Chuck DeVore could get an unexpected boost in his bid to unseat Sen. Barbara Boxer from GOP gubernatorial hopeful Tom Campbell.

Rumors are swirling that Campbell, a former congressman, might jump ship from the gubernatorial race to chase Boxer’s senate seat. The switch would pit DeVore, Campbell and former Hewlett-Packard executive Carly Fiorina against each other in a three-way Republican primary in June.

If Campbell joins the fray, he and Fiorina would probably split the moderate wing of the party, leaving DeVore to pick up all of the conservative votes.

“More the merrier, I say,” DeVore wrote via Twitter on Tuesday.

ROHRABACHER BLASTS U.S. POLICY IN AFGHANISTAN

In a recent appearance on Russian television, Rep. Dana Rohrabacher lambasted the Obama Administration’s decision to send 30,000 additional troops to Afghanistan.

Speaking to the English-language Russian television network Russia Today, Rohrabacher called the troop surge “counterproductive” and compared Obama’s policy on Afghanistan to that of the Soviet Union in the 1980s.

“How ironic it is that we now have an American policy that seems to me exactly what the Soviet policy was,” Rohrabacher said. “It failed, and it will fail for us as well.”