On Tuesday night we were all (including me) counting Jim Costa amongst the casualties of the 2010 GOP wave. After all he was trailing Republican challenger Andy Vidak by 1823 votes with 100% of precincts reporting.
Fortunately that judgement seems to have been premature. :)
With 2 weeks left until E-Day, California Progressives have been building a firewall to beat back the tide of the Red Menace. We are walking precincts, knocking on doors, engaging voters neighbor to neighbor, and phonebanking, phonebanking, phonebanking!
The task at hand is daunting and morale may flag and spirits may dwindle, but I say we must stand together! We must show not just California, but the nation that we will not go quietly into the night; that we, the Progressive Movement, on principle will not go down without a fight.
In this this vien, the acronym G.R.I.T. should serve as a rally cry to all activists in our movement.
Grim Determination:We may not have the enthusiasm of the other side, but we have the intestinal fortitude to soldier on in the face of long odds and short tempers. We will snatch victory from the jaws of defeat.
Regain the Momentum:Very soon...maybe not today, maybe not tommorrow, and because of our efforts we will regain the momentum. Maintaing a positive attitude leads to positive results.
Intensify the Effort:Every waking moment and every single body should be focused on winning this election. If we are not exhausted by the time this thing is over, then we have not done enough.
Turn the Tide:Our organization is better than the Teabaggers and thier allies, our determination is greater, our GOTV is legendary! We can win this!
Cross posted on my blog http://frogandturtle.blogspot.... which you should visit for more election analysis in California and the U.S.
With Arnold Schwarzenegger retiring, Democrats thought they would have a great shot at picking up California's Governorship. Then, they ran into problems. Jerry Brown who is the Attorney General and former Governor decided to run. He has material to attack and he knocked other candidates out of the primary who would have won the general election more easily like Antonio Villaraigosa. Then Meg Whitman, former CEO of ebay from Silicon Valley decided to run and brought all her money with her. The worst part is that this is a Republican year, putting the national mood against Democrats. Now Jerry Brown is running a tight race with Meg Whitman which is finally going his way with the news story about Nicky Diaz Santiallo. Whitman's ex-nanny, Jill Armstrong is also supporting Santiallo so this story is not leaving. Meg Whitman though can just write herself another check to defend herself. Anyway, this could become a dead heat again. This is why I created the baselines for the race. I factored in Presidential results from 2008 and Attorney General results from 2006.
The baselines are predictions for county percentages if the race is tied. These are NOT my predictions for the actual vote count, it just shows how the county map will look if there is a tie. The baselines show Brown doing well in the Bay Area but getting crushed in the Central Valley. He also carries two of three bellwether counties. He wins Lake and San Benito counties but loses Santa Barbara County. He also does poorly in Southern California except for LA County which he wins by 16 points. Also, I have the vote totals for each county below too. I had the turnout levels be 65% of 2008. I did not take into account the fact that some parts of the state might have 55% turnout of 2008 or 75%. For Jerry Brown to win, he will have to either increase turnout in the Bay Area or increase his vote percentage there. Okay, here are the baselines and a few links:
http://quickfacts.census.gov/q... clearer map of California
http://uselectionatlas.org/RES... 2008 results
http://www.sos.ca.gov/election... 2006 Attorney General results
Event to include voter outreach to over 200,000 Californians!
"BlogMobile" to gather American stories while traveling from LA to DC
CALIFORNIA (September 21, 2010) - Responding to a call to restore opportunity for Americans and pull America back together, One Nation Working Together - California will hold a massive day of action on October 2, 2010. The event, to be held at Los Angeles City College, will bring thousands of Los Angeles area residents together in an effort to re-energize voters for this November's election, and call for an end to the polarizing tactics that are being used to divide our country.
One Nation Working Together - California will also be sending a group of 'citizen journalists' via RV who will be blogging about the concerns of those they meet as they travel from Los Angeles to Washington DC. The 'BlogMobile' will depart Los Angeles on September 24 and arrive in Washington, DC for the national rally also being held on October 2.
"One Nation Working Together - California is a grassroots movement that will fight for future opportunities for our students and the unemployed, regain the hope we held so proudly in 2008, redefine the future, and move our country forward," said Laphonza Butler, President of SEIU ULTCW (United Long Term Care Workers' Union).
When we first started Democracy for America, one of our goals was to help ordinary people get involved in grassroots politics. Thousands of you joined our community and brought about real change by making phone calls, sending emails, and knocking on doors.
I need your help for someone who, just like you, stood up for change.
In 2006, Jerry McNerney, a wind energy engineer, defeated one of the country's most corrupt members of Congress, Richard Pombo. Jerry was one of the first DFA Grassroots All-Stars and thousands of volunteers, including so many of you, came together for his campaign and achieved what many said was impossible - sending a seven-term committee Chairman packing.
I honestly believe that the actions you take for the next 60 days will change the course of California and the Nation.
Please take five minutes out of your life today to view the video (may load slowly) and the message that follows.
The November elections will decide whether Democrats can continue to move America forward or whether Republicans will be given the power to move us backward into the failed policies of the past. We are counting on you to relay to voters what's at stake this fall, the choice they'll have to make, and why it's crucial they participate.
Our plan, as always, revolves around working hard on the ground all across the country from here until Election Day. Here's how:
FACE TO FACE, NEIGHBOR TO NEIGHBOR. We know that the single most effective messenger is a friend, a family member, or a neighbor. This kind of face-to-face interaction from someone familiar is incredibly effective at persuading and getting folks to participate in our democracy. That's why we ask OFA supporters to focus on organizing in their communities.
TELL YOUR STORY. It's no surprise that the best messages we have are your personal reasons for voting this fall. Tell voters you talk to why you care, why you're involved, and why you believe it is so important to vote this November. It's the personal connections to the issues that resonate. So if you have a health care story that casts light on the importance of historic health reform, share it. If student loan reform has made it easier for you or someone you know to pursue higher education, tell the people you talk to why we can't afford to go backward.
Ray Lutz for Congress 2010
www.VoteRayLutz.com
Media Contact: Brennan Purtzer, Media Director 619-447-3246 / brennan@VoteRayLutz.com
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Hunger Strike Day 5: Candidate Lutz's hunger strike joined by Libertarian candidate
Lutz campaign now accepting donations for San Diego Food Bank
San Diego County, Calif. (August 17, 2010) - At an El Cajon rally on Monday, Congressional Candidate Ray Lutz announced that he had been joined in his hunger strike by Libertarian Candidate Michael Benoit, both fasting until incumbent Rep. Duncan Duane Hunter agrees to debate them.
"I'm amazed at the overwhelming amount of support I'm getting from people across this country," Democratic Congressional Candidate Raymond Lutz said. "I'm not starving alone and that's nice."
Over the weekend, more than 28 people pledged to go at least a day without food in support of Lutz's cause, including Libertarian Candidate for California's 52nd Congressional seat, Michael Benoit, who joined Lutz's "Hunger strike for accountability."
"I welcome the solidarity offered by Mr. Benoit, who is a very nice person," Lutz said, before welcoming Benoit on stage to make a statement at the rally in El Cajon's Promenade Park.
In a speech before dozens of supporters, Lutz and Benoit vowed to continue their strikes until the Hunter campaign agrees to debate them.
"Until he agrees to come before the voters, he can expect that I will be holding press conferences every week to talk about each of the issues that aren't being debated," Lutz said. "Jobs, and energy policy, and of course, the issue that's been on my mind a lot lately - hunger. We've had 10.8 million meals served by the San Diego Food Bank in the last year - that's a lot of hungry people."
Lutz announced that from now through the end of the campaign, his office would be accepting and forwarding food donations to the San Diego Food Bank.
Lutz ended his press conference by publicly announcing a revised tentative schedule of five debates, planned during the congressional recess, throughout the massive 52nd congressional district.
"I could never imagine a candidate who has been in combat but is slow to engage in debate about the important issues affecting his constituents." He added, "These problems are effecting his constituents today, and what has he done to help them? He hasn't yet enacted any legislation at all, and his latest effort was a bill about getting cigarettes to soldiers." Lutz said, "We need to debate this now, while he is on his legislative break - not in October, after most of the mail-in ballots have already been sent in."
Lutz, 52, said he had already lost 14 pounds by his fifth day of fasting.
Revised Debate Schedule:
Raymond Lutz and Michael Benoit jointly invite Rep. Duncan Duane Hunter to participate in the following debates, tentatively scheduled for:
WED - AUG 25, 6:30pm Viejas tribal Facilities Viejas
MON - AUG 30, 6:30pm Grossmont College El Cajon (La Mesa Area)
THUR- SEPT 2, 6:30pm El Capitan High School Lakeside
MON - SEPT 6, 6:30pm Serra High School Tierrasanta
THUR- SEPT 9, 6:30pm Granite Hills High School El Cajon
For more information on Ray Lutz for Congress, visit:http://www.VoteRayLutz.com
For media inquiries, contact Brennan Purtzer, media coordinator, at 619.447.3246
Friends, I'm ending my campaign for Governor of California today.
In a spirit of service, I stepped into this race in response to a widespread call for a stronger, more issues-based campaign than Jerry Brown was running at the time. Since then, I've traveled up and down the state, talking with voters and making the case for strong leadership.
In that time, Jerry Brown has begun to do what it will take to win:
* He's been speaking up on important issues, especially clean energy and green jobs.
* He's reaching out more and more to regular voters, such as students at UCSB.
* He's begun confronting the Republicans on their ties to Wall Street.
At the same time, the Republicans in this race are tearing each other apart. They're falling all over each other to attack immigrants in ways that will alienate latino voters, and help Democrats keep winning the votes of this crucial constituency.
On the policy front, there's good news too, in the CA Senate's move toward raising new revenues, as I've called for, along with recent polling showing that the voters support this move.
In short, things are now moving in the right direction.
In this new context, the best way I can be of service is by ending my campaign and endorsing Jerry Brown. I'm doing that today.
It's time for all of California's Democrats to stand united behind our nominee. Jerry brown will be our nominee, with my full support. He's an experienced Governor, and he's been solidifying many of the key relationships that will help him win again in November. Most importantly, he's a Democrat, one who will work with, not against, our Democratic majorities in Sacramento and throughout the state. The best thing we can do for California today is to support Jerry Brown for Governor. Please join me in supporting him.
BAKERSFIELD -- With just a little over two weeks to go in the Democratic race to represent the Central Valley's 30th Assembly District, bell-weather financing reports indicate Fran Florez will widen her substantial fundraising lead over her primary opponent.
Florez led opponent Pete Parra in campaign cash on-hand by more than $200,000 at the last reporting deadline in March.
New reports posted on-line today show a growing and significant cash advantage on that is expected to double her opponent's cash position according to figured posted by the California Secretary of State's website.
Parra's on-line reports for this current filing period indicate contributions under $98,000, while Florez amassed over $130,000. This amount is the second consecutive on-line campaign report where Florez has topped Parra's fund-raising.
Florez is also expected to show a nearly 2 to 1 edge of "cash on hand" moving into the critical last weeks of the campaign. Florez has nearly a quarter of a million cash dollars moving into the last 12 days of the campaign.
More importantly, as a positive sign of grass roots support, Florez has out paced Parra 10 to 1 in terms of smaller on-line donations through ActBlue, an online Democratic fundraising mechanism that handles administrative and Internet security costs for candidates.
In 2010, the Inland Empire will finally go from being the bastard cousin of Democratic Party politics to a nascent power player in the setup to 2012. Why do I say this? First, many Congressional disticts and Assembly districts in the Inland Empire went for Barack Obama in 2008. The flurry of Progressive activism in this area was euphoric and in it lay the beginnings of a foundation. Secondly, we have recieved peripheral attention from major Democratic power players such as Barbara Boxer who announced her 2010 senatorial bid in Riverside County and Gavin Newsom who came to the Inland Empire during his exploratory bid for Governor. Finally, the Progressive faction in the Inland Empire is finally achieveing the organization structure to compete against the Blue Dog faction which has consistently won and whose performance has been circumspect in the California Legislature and Congress.
While much work remains. I remain optimistic about our prospects in 2010 and beyond. If we hit the Regressives hard and hit them early we can achieve our desired results in November.
Note from Robert Cruickshank - Calitics has a policy of promoting diaries from electeds and candidates to the front page when the diaries are topical, important, or provide valuable information to our readers, and this one certainly counts as all three. However, this should not be construed as an endorsement of Peter Schurman.
For nearly twenty years, I've been a bare-knuckled fighter for regular people and common-sense, progressive values. I was the Founding Executive Director at MoveOn.org, America's strongest progressive advocacy organization. Although I've never run for elected office, I am qualified to be Governor and here's why I'll do a better job for California than Jerry Brown.
California needs a fighter right now. Six-plus years of Republican rule have left our state in crisis. We need a leader committed to aggressively confronting and cleaning up the mess the Republicans have made, not someone who wants to split the difference.
Here are three of the biggest challenges facing California. As our party's front-runner, Jerry Brown should be facing these issues head-on. Instead, he's running away from them.
Friends, I have some big news today: I'm running for Governor of California, in the June 8th Democratic primary, challenging Jerry Brown as a progressive.
From my four years as MoveOn.org's founding Executive Director (2001-2005), and an organizing career almost two decades long, I know what it takes to win:
* Take bold, principled stands on the key issues
* Run a vigorous grass-roots campaign
* Make the best possible use of the Internet
This week we celebrate President Obama's signing of landmark health care reform legislation into law. Thanks to this historic bill, 32 million Americans will gain access to health insurance, health care will become more affordable, and no American will ever again be denied coverage when they get sick or because of pre-existing conditions.
But before the ink was even dry on President Obama's signature, the attorneys general of 13 states -- led by Florida Republican AG Bill McCollum, trying to score political points in his campaign for governor -- immediately filed a lawsuit to try to block the new law in the courts. One of my Republican opponents, Tom Harman, is even encouraging current California Attorney General Jerry Brown to join them.
Protecting kids from online predators has always been one of my highest priorities.
While serving as chief counsel for Facebook, I worked with Attorneys General across the nation to help build a safer internet -- and I've seen some of the ideas I've championed enacted into law.
One of those ideas I championed was requiring convicted sex offenders to provide their online identifiers as part of their registrations, and as a result, New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo was able to announce that more than 3,500 registered New York sex offenders were removed from MySpace and Facebook under the state's "e-STOP" law that we crafted together.
On Tuesday, San Francisco District Attorney Kamala Harris held a public media event to introduce a bill she is sponsoring in the legislature that purports to keep online predators off social networking sites, including Facebook and MySpace.
HIGHLIGHTS NEED FOR SENATOR DEAN FLOREZ BILL (AB1277) ESTABLISHING ANIMAL ABUSE REGISTRY IN CA
"He told us that he pinned the dog down by the neck and throat for 20 seconds while the puppy defecated and urinated on itself in panic or because it started to lose consciousness, we don't know," said Lt. Dan DeSousa with SD County Animal Service.
Coco died Friday, one week after CA Senator Dean Florez introduced AB 1277, which would establish an Animal Abuse Registry in California and "make those guilty of Animal Abuse famous for their crimes" and hopefully prevent horrors that Coco suffered.
Coco's owner and alleged puppy killer, David Hale Warner, 50, is currently in the San Diego Detention Center and has been booked on felony animal cruelty charges. The Department of Animal Services has 72 hours to prepare a case for the District Attorney. If convicted, Warner may be punished with up to three years in a state prison, one year in a county prison or fined $20,000.
At booking, it was discovered that Warner had an existing arrest warrant for spousal abuse.
Future animal cruelty cases (and other abuses) may well be prevented if California State Senator Dean Florez, also a candidate for California Lt. Governor, is successful in gaining passage of Senate Bill 1277.
According to documents filed with the Internal Revenue Service, in 2007 Meg Whitman’s charitable foundation invested $4 million offshore, in Hedge Funds based in Bermuda and the Cayman Islands.
Is Meg Whitman still shifting her millions into offshore tax havens to avoid having to pay her fair share?
And how can we know for sure that she’s put a stop to the practice – if, in fact, she HAS put a stop to the practice - without a look at her tax returns?
California’s voters expect and deserve to know if Whitman is continuing to engage in tax avoidance schemes.
This first draft of Meg's new ad (which ran just a bit after the Super Bowl last night, it hurts my brain to think about how much that costs) was slipped under my office door in a plain brown paper envelope over the weekend. Looks like they made a few changes to the tone but they had the core message already stapled down in this draft...
"I'm Meg Whitman, and even though I've lived in this state since 1789, I've only voted twice, because voting is for little people. I want to be Governor and I have more money than God, so out of my way. I want to bring a business perspective to government, because those pooh widdow buhsinessey intwests, nowuhn evur wisstens to twhem. And that whole business perspective thing sure has worked out great for George Bush, Arnold and Goldman Sachs.
My plan for California couldn't be more simpleminded. I will:
1) Create jobs, mainly by giving myself and Larry Ellison ginormous tax cuts, so I can afford to buy this seat and he can afford another formerly-august sporting event ruining $40M yacht or three.
2) Cuts, cuts, cuts. Greedy community college students, working people and the elderly have had it too good for too long in this state.
3) Fix education. By "fix," I mean as in "...a horserace," not as in "...by dealing with the fact that our schools are more segregated than Alabama's in 1958."
I'm Meg Whitman and I approved this message. [cut to Larry Ellison here] Avast, California, and prepare to be boarded!"
