Two of the eight "Obama Republicans," that is, members of the GOP delegation in the House whose districts went for Barack Obama in November, are in the news of late, and I think we can draw some conclusions about their behavior.
First of all, Dan Lungren held a "town hall meeting" in his district last week. I put "town hall meeting" in quotes because unlike actual town hall meetings, attendees weren't allowed to ask questions:
After a brief introduction by Elk Grove Mayor Patrick Hume, Lungren made it clear that the format of this 'townhall' meeting would not include direct questioning from the audience. Rather constituents were to fill out a questionnaire and submit for indirect questioning by Hume.
Lungren's reasoning was that he had received several constituent complaints that other district meetings were "so rambunctious" that they were afraid to come. To make the meeting open, Lungren said questions would be answered only by those filling out the questionnaires.
During the course of the meeting there were 15 questionnaires read covering a variety of topics, none of them pointed or very relative, in our opinion, to the staggering recession we find ourselves in. Lungren talked about his favorite topics of immigration, deficit spending and judiciary matters.
Hume, who had a table full of submitted questionnaires in front of him, never seemed to ask the questions as written. Hume was either being overly polite, or didn't want to incur the wrath of a congressman [...]
"If this is a townhall meeting, we should be allowed to be allowed to make comments," said Elk Grove resident Mike Monasky. Immediately Monasky was loudly told by city charter commission member Christopher Orrock to be quiet.
Now there's someone who doesn't want to be held accountable by his constituents. That makes the Bush "town hall meetings" look like free-for-alls.
Then there's Buck McKeon. His home in Santa Clarita was burglarized. We're sorry for him and his wife. But we did not expect McKeon to push a political angle.
A thief, who has since been arrested, broke into the McKeons' home on the morning of March 4 and stole jewelry from the master bedroom, said Bob Haueter, McKeon's 2010 campaign manager. The rest of the home was not disturbed, he said [...]
The burglary was mentioned in a McKeon fundraising letter, dated March 25, that discussed McKeon's opposition to the Employee Free-Choice Act - a bill that would make it easier for workers to unionize. The legislation is backed by President Barack Obama, whose political roots are in Chicago.
The letter says the labor legislation is "right out of Stalin's playbook" and part of the president's "socialist agenda." A note at the bottom of the letter, written by Patricia McKeon, read:
"As if things couldn't get any worse, our home was just broken into while we were in D.C. Some observant neighbors were able to identify the thieves and get the license plate number of the car they used.
"You won't believe this; the car is registered to a person in Chicago! Just know this, no matter what happens to us, Buck and I won't back down."
Are you kidding me? Apparently we're to believe that President Obama has a cadre of thieves he's dispatching across the country to Republican homes. While I admit that would be a simply ingenious strategy (note to Patricia McKeon: I'm joking), I simply don't think he's concerning himself with an underworld network.
Can we conclude that these two are maybe just a little bit scared, as they see their stranglehold on their districts slipping away?
The latest report of registration, current up to February 2010, shows that voters have continued to register Democratic in higher numbers even since the general election. There are now 17.3 million registered voters, 74.4% of all eligible adults, and Democrats have a 2.32 million vote advantage over Republicans. By the percentages, the state consists of 44.52% Democrats, 31.14% Republicans, and 19.99% decline to state, with smaller parties rounding out the rest of the voters.
2010 is the last year before a new census and new district lines, so the district-level numbers only apply for the next election cycle. Still, a close reading makes clear where Democrats should be focusing their registration efforts and resources for the next year.
In Congress, there are two Republican-held seats where Republicans hold less than 40% of the registration share, seen as a key dividing line. Those are Dan Lungren's CA-03 (39.7% Republican-37.7% Democratic) and, surprisingly, Buck McKeon's CA-25 (39.7% Republican-39.2% Democratic), which has changed dramatically over the past few years and could be ripe for a well-funded, legitimate challenger. Obama won that district 50-48 as well. With only 351,421 registered voters in CA-25, there are additional non-voters waiting to be registered there to tighten up those numbers even further. CA-19 also has a shortfall of voters which could lead to a tightening of the rolls.
In the State Senate, the only even-numbered seat (the ones up for election in 2010) that deserves a focus is SD-12, where Jeff Denham is termed out. There are 47.5% registered Democrats and 33.1% registered Republicans. Democrats in that region are fairly conservative, and so there may not be a progressive coming out of that district, but there's no reason on Earth why Democrats shouldn't own that seat. Especially since there may be 100,000 unregistered voters out there.
As for the Assembly, the numbers look good in AD-05, AD-26 (Dems have a 42-39 lead in registration), AD-30 and AD-36, with a few other marginal possibilities based solely on the voter reg. numbers (AD-38, AD-63, AD-64, and AD-65 come to mind). There is absolutely a path to pick up three seats and a 2/3 majority in the Assembly, if the net is cast wide enough.
Of course, oftentimes Democratic officials focus too much, in my view, on voter registration statistics, and shoudl recruit good candidates and give them the resources they need to compete instead. But in this off-year, registration stats offer an opportunity to determine where to target. You can dig through them yourself at the Secretary of State's page.
(bump cause I like congressional and numbers - promoted by Lucas O'Connor)
Turnout from Tuesday's primary by party. Every district with a Republican leaning PVI plus Barbara Lee just for fun and comparison's sake. Of the Republican leaning districts, Dem turnout was higher in 8 and close in several others. Might be an interesting November. Just sayin.
Numbers on the flip.
Update: I should have mentioned in the first place, there are still no Democratic candidates in CA-02, CA-19, CA-22, or CA-25. Turnout was dead even in the 19th and higher for Dems in the 25th, just for starters.
With 16 months to go before Election Day, some Democratic challengers are getting a little more visible in their efforts to unseat Republican incumbents. I see good news at the very top of the target list, and elsewhere we're still waiting to see who will run. Let's focus on the top 10 races where a Republican is currently serving, knowing that we are still going to have a fight in CA-11 to re-elect Jerry McNerney (although that probably won't be against Guy Houston, who may be on trial for fraud at the time).
So let's take a look at the top 10 challenges. I'm going to rank them in order of most possible pickup, including their number from the last roundup. I'm also adding the "Boxer number." Basically, seeing how Boxer fared in her 2004 re-election against Bill Jones in a particular district is a decent indicator of how partisan it is. If I put "57," that means Boxer received 57% of the vote. Anything over 50, obviously, is good. (over)
There are no Senate seats up in California in 2008, and no statewide offices up for election, so the biggest seats outside of the Presidency will be in the House of Representatives. While we're 18 months out, I thought I'd give a snapshot of what races are most inviting for a Democratic pickup.
I'm going to concern myself solely with pickup opportunities, because the only realistic possibility of a GOP pickup is in CA-11, and I'm confident that Jerry McNerney and his grassroots army can handle whatever's thrown at him, plus he'll have the power of incumbency and the focus of the CDP. There may be some retirements that would make things interesting (Lantos, Stark, Woolsey), but those are very blue areas. So let's look at the best opportunities to add to the Democratic majority:
Today's California Blog Roundup is on the flip. Teasers: Phil Angelides, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Richard Pombo, Buck McKeon, CA-50, voting, Republican corruption, Proposition 88, prisons, immigration, global warming.
(Buck never met an educational loan lobbyist he didn't love - promoted by SFBrianCL)
This week student loan interest rates increased from 5.3% to 6.8% for students and from 6.1% to up to 8.5% for parents borrowing for their children. This will put student loan rates far above prevailing market interest rates. The rate hike will mean a nearly $13,000 increase in the total cost of college for each student in the district. Buck voted for the interest rate hike, and helped pass it as chairman of the education committee. You would expect that Buck would find a $13,000 tax increase on the cost of a college education important enough to explain to his constituents. Right?
Today's California Blog Roundup is on the flip. Teasers: Phil Angelides, Arnold Schwarzenegger, CA-11, CA-50, Richard Pombo, Jerry McNerney, John Doolittle, Buck McKeown, corruption, health care, immigration, reform.
