David Harmer has run for Congress three times. Twice here in California, and a third time over a decade ago in Utah. He comes from a political heritage, as his father was appointed by Reagan to serve out a year as Lt. Governor. But, despite the fact that he lost by 2,658 votes, that doesn't mean that he's going to give in quite yet. No sir-ree!
As we told you the other day, with all the votes counted -- but not Secretary of State certified -- Republican David Harmer is down 2,658 votes in his East Bay congressional race against incumbent Dem Jerry McNerney. But Dave told me Thurdsay he ain't quitting...just yet.
When you lose a race by a 1 percent sliver, he said, you want to make sure you exhaust all your possibilities.
His race was so close, he was asked to participate in freshman orientation for new House members. He went. "I consider a lot of them (other freshman) friends now."
Now, he needs a miracle to be sworn in with them.
"It just seems prudent to review the precinct-level data to make sure there are no anomalies there," Harmer told me. He doesn't expect the anomaly-hunting to last more than a couple of days. His staff is sifting through the data, which it couldn't obtain until the vote count was certified by counties until earlier this week.(SF Gate)
You can certainly understand his reluctance, but coming from a political background, this is less than classy. The nearly 2700 votes are not going to fall from the sky for Harmer. After all, Steve Cooley conceded with a lower (percentage wise) margin. It is hard to imagine Harmer getting another crack at this apple, after losing three times. However, he certainly is persistent, and he might want another shot come the new districts in 2012. Just don't expect his track record to change.
(Good post on Harmer's BS claims - he's trying to suppress the vote to steal an election he lost. - promoted by Robert Cruickshank)
In what I believe is the closest Congressional race in the country, Jerry McNerney held a 121 vote lead as of Wednesday morning. Absentees counted in Alameda and Santa Clara counties have increased his margin to 568 as of this morning, but those counties were his strongest ones. Now Harmer wants to challenge the signatures (and stop the counting of) of mail in ballots when the voter is not there to respond.
With the California primaries only days away, I decided to make a list of races worth watching this coming Super Tuesday. Cross-posted at Swing State Project and Democracy for California.
U.S. Senate (R) - Fiorina seems to have consolidated the "outsider" vote, seeing as she is the only one of the three that has not held elected office and it seems that being an outsider will get one far in the Republican primary (though not so much in a California general election).
Governor (R) - Exactly as I predicted, this race has unfolded to be 2006 in reverse. Whoever wins the GOP primary here will be so radioactive that many Republican voters likely will cross over to vote for Jerry Brown, like many Democratic voters did for Arnold last time. If Jerry Brown pulls similar numbers among Republicans that Arnold did among Democrats, then Brown is likely gonna win big. And I'm unsure about how indies will go, so I just went with an estimate similar to the 2006 numbers.
Lt. Governor (D) - This race will be very interesting: a classic NorCal/SoCal matchup, between Gavin Newsom and Janice Hahn.
Lt. Governor (R) - Newly-appointed incumbent Abel Maldonado will face a tough primary with more conservative State Senator Sam Aanestad. Given that moderates have fared pretty poorly in California elections of late, I give Aanestad the edge.
Sec. of State (R) - Any race with the Birther Queen just has to be a race to watch, more so for the comedy value, though I think most Republicans don't buy her BS, so I see Dunn getting the nomination. No matter who wins, Debra Bowen is likely a cinch for a second term.
Attorney General (D) - Very crowded primary here, with 3 term-limited Assemblymen, Torrico, Nava, and Lieu; S.F. District Attorney Kamala Harris; Facebook attorney Chris Kelly; and disgraced ex-L.A. city attorney Delgadillo, though the race seems to have narrowed to just Harris and Kelly. From what I have heard of Kelly, I am rooting for Harris.
Controller (R) - Not much drama here, but I am hoping for Tony Strickland to win so he can lose to John Chiang even worse than in 2006. Unfortunately, he is not up for reelection to the State Senate until 2012, so if he wins the nomination but loses the general, he will still be in the senate (hopefully until 2012).
Insurance Commissioner (D) - Here we have two strong candidates in term-limited assemblymen Hector De La Torre and Dave Jones. I have no preference in this race, but since Jones has more money and establishment backing, I think he'll win the nod.
CA-11 (R) - Will David Harmer, who lost by only 10% in the more Democratic CA-10 in the special election (albeit with lower turnout) be able to make it past the primary against Tony Amador and be more competitive in the general?
CA-19 (D) - I am pulling for Loraine Goodwin here. Any campaign based on health care reform is a big winner in Democratic primaries and in general elections in most parts of the state. Not sure what the HCR numbers are in this neck of the woods.
CA-19 (R) - I think I will root for Denham here, as he has won in more Democratic turf, so he is relatively saner. (And Denham is term-limited, so CA-19 run or no CA-19 run, we have a great shot at winning SD-12.) Pombo shouldn't really be of much concern, as he has placed a distant third in the recent primary poll.
CA-26 (R) - My hometown district, where Dreier faces a primary challenge from businessman Mark Butler. While I consider Dreier to be the heavy favorite, this primary challenge could further drain his campaign coffers. If he wins the primary, Dreier has the advantage of incumbency and a year more favorable to his party (though anti-Obama sentiment is much weaker in California than elsewhere). A disadvantage Dreier has is depleted campaign coffers, from spending like crazy to win only 52% against Warner in 2008 and possibly from this primary challenge.
CA-33 (D) - Former Assembly speaker Karen Bass is likely the heavy favorite, and I hope she wins.
CA-36 (D) - Harman/Winograd redux, only with more fireworks this time around.
CA-42 (R) - Even though Gary Miller's voting record is unabashedly conservative, he is still getting teabagged by three other Republicans. Count on yet another incumbent scoring a subpar primary performance.
CA-45 (R) - Mary Bono Mack has drawn teabag primary opposition from Clayton Thibodeau for her vote for cap-and-trade. She also voted against repealing DADT in spite of her district having the highest concentration of gays of any Republican-held district, possibly out of fear of getting teabagged. If Thibodeau upsets Bono Mack, this Obama-voting R+3 district could be put into play.
CA-47 (R) - Will Tan and Van split the Vietnamese vote, allowing Kathy Smith to sneak through?
CA-50 (D) - I like Busby, but I think her time has passed, if she couldn't beat Bilbray in the far more Democratic-favored 2006. Attorney Tracy Emblem seems to have most of the grassroots support.
AD-05 (R) - In this open, evenly-divided suburban Sacramento seat, the Tea Party has gotten into another Republican primary, backing Craig DeLuz against party-backed Prop 8 backer Andy Pugno. I am rooting for DeLuz to win the primary so in one election we defeat a Prop H8er and increase our chances of winning this district too.
AD-30 (D) - The Parra/Florez feud continues, with Nicole's dad Pete Parra facing off against Dean's mom Fran Florez, who lost to Danny Gilmore, who didn't like being an Assemblyman and that's why he's not running, which I at first found surprising.
AD-36 (D) - Linda Jones, who ran here in 2008, faces primary opposition from real estate broker Maggie Campbell and police officer Shawntrice Watkins. This time I am rooting for Watkins, because this Antelope Valley-centric district is very law-and-order, being the home of the Runners (Sharon and George, of "Jessica's Law" fame), and incumbent Steve Knight also having been a police officer before being elected to the Assembly. Watkins could cut into Knight's law-and-order advantage. Plus Watkins' endorsement from Equality California can't hurt either.
AD-68 (D) and (R) - I am really looking forward to an all-Vietnamese matchup here. Will be interesting to gauge the Vietnamese vote if it's Phu Nguyen (D) vs. Long Pham (R).
And what is a California election without some ballot measures? Five are on the ballot this time.
Prop 13: Tax break to property owners for making seismic retrofits. I like seeing tax breaks used as incentives for good causes. Vote YES!
Prop 14: Top two votegetters in the primary would go on to the general election, limiting voter choices. Vote NO!
Prop 15: Repeals ban on public financing and raises fees on lobbyists to fund a public financing system for SecState election beginning in 2014. Vote YES!
Prop 16: PG&E power grab that requires a 2/3 vote to create public power districts or allow local governments to purchase their own renewable power. Vote NO!
Prop 17: Weakens consumer protections and allow car insurance companies to charge much more for late payments. Vote NO!
Taking into account some suggestions and comments, I made some changes to my previous attempt at redistricting California. I conceded an additional 2 seats to the GOP, which concomitantly makes a number of other seats more strongly Democratic. The additional 2 safe GOP seats are CA-4 and CA-48. Here's what version 2 looks like, overall:
I decided to try my hand at redistricting California's Congressional districts for 2010-2012, using Dave's Redistricting App. After playing around with it a bit, here's what the map I came up with looks like overall:
Here's the 2008 Obama/McCain vote in California, on the precinct level:
I wonder what is going on in CA-11 (my own district). After surprising the world and beating Richard Pombo in 2006, and then consolidating his position in the district in 2008, Jerry McNerney now finds himself with no less than 7 opponents (according to Vorderbrueggen) for the 2010 election.
Does a declining party really think that they can win this one back, or is it just the fact that they are still in shock over Pombo's loss… and our gain?
I would guess that McNerney would love to see a Republican cat fight chewing up contributions while he meets quarterly fund-raising goals with regularity.
Jerry,
I have supported you for a long time, writing newspaper columns calling for voting Pombo out and you in both in 2004 and 2006. Now, I need to tell you what has to happen for you to continue getting my support.
To begin with, you know and I know that climate change changes everything. There is nothing more important than dealing with this.
If you want to cut health care costs, you must deal with climate change before tropical diseases like malaria invade the US and valley fever become even more wide spread. The latter only killed 200 last year.
If you want to fix the economy, you must deal with climate change as the costs of trying to mitigate its effects later will devastate our country's economy. The entire Obama economic plan depends on returning to an era of growth the help pay off the debts that we are incurring now. The effects of climate change may be that such growth never occurs just at the time that we need to be building Netherlands style dikes to protect half of your district from flooding.
Neither Waxman - Markey nor Kerry - Boxer will really achieve their alleged goals. Those who cheated on mortgage back equities will cheat on trading pollution credits. Neither bill really takes on coal. They still talk of the mythological clean coal. Duke Energy has pulled out of the Clean Coal Coalition and Jim Rogers, it's CEO, says this about carbon capture and sequestration:
> He argued that it's unlikely that the United States will be able to develop and bring to scale carbon-capture-and-storage - often called "clean coal" technology. "I think there's no way we can scale in this country," he said. "It's more likely that China will develop and bring CCS to scale. I'd like to be China for a day so we can get CCS done. They're more likely to get it scaled and deployed than we are. We're going to be buying their technology." (Source: Washington Independent)
I expect to hear you telling the truth about where we are headed and to see you working for much stronger legislation than we currently see. The alternative is to work for someone else who will promise to get this job done, no matter what party they are from.
We're setting a course for the center of the sun in the state budget process right now, but today is also the last day of the second quarter, an important day for Congressional candidates, who must file fundraising reports based on close of business today. So this is as good a time as any to take a look at the Congressional races and where we stand at this point. I have not yet done similar roundups for 2010 statewide offices or legislative races, but plan to do so in the near future. If you find any of these challenges attractive, I urge you to pass a few bucks along to the candidate of your choice. This quarter will help or hurt the candidacies in terms of their perception of viability.
A word on the notations. PVI refers to the Cook Political Report's Partisan Voting Index. I've also included the Presidential performance from last year and the particular Congressional performance, where applicable. That information is available for the whole nation at this link. Open Congress also has a good Wiki on all the seats involved.
In 2007-08, I wrote a monthly series of House race roundups here in California, taking a look at the races with the highest potential to change members of Congress. This cycle, there are promises from the national Democrats that they will pay attention to a number of seats in California held by Republicans, and with the statewide races at the top of the ticket looking favorable for Democrats, and Republican registration collapsing throughout the state, in theory we should see some more movement. But many of these elements were true the past two cycles, amounting to little. Because it's a statewide officer election year, I will also do a statewide races roundup at a later time. But for now, let's take a look at the seats most likely to flip in 2010, starting with seats currently held by Democrats, few of which are in play. In addition to those "threatened" by Republicans, I'm including two seats where I've heard rumblings about primary challenges to incumbents.
A word on the notations. PVI refers to the Cook Political Report's Partisan Voting Index. I've also included the Presidential performance from last year and the particular Congressional performance, where applicable. That information is available for the whole nation at this link.
There's so much going on in this bounty of close races, it's hard to follow it all as just lil' ol' me and without a full-time staff. But clearly, California is terribly broken because there are no competitive seats and so we must change the redistricting process and re-gerrymander competitiveness into them. Right? On the flip, I offer an update on every seat that's even reasonably close. I'll get to the Assembly and Senate races later today or tomorrow.
CA-11, CA-04, CA-03, CA-46, CA-50 and much more on the flip! Including the infamous "phone sex robocall"... no, I'm not kidding.
Sunday's edition of the Stockton Record ran a story about the Jerry McNerney campaign's "tracker" of his opponent, Dean Andal. Now, as most of us know, "tracking" is the practice of bringing a videocamera to all of your opponent's public events in the hopes of getting ammunition--either in terms of a "macaca moment" or something as simple as contradictions in the message of a campaign.
Well, as the article points out, tracking is an inevitable and uncontroversial aspect of political campaigning:
I don't see the need for secrecy. But I did not observe any foul play, either. Neither did Brian Klunk, a political science professor at University of the Pacific.
"Campaigns have done 'oppositional research' just about forever," Klunk said. "There's a long lore of this."
Not a lot of controversy here...but Dean Andal doesn't see it that way. Maybe that's because Dean Andal is afraid of accountability and exposure. Regardless, here's what he had to say about tracking--from the very same article in the Stockton Record:
McNerney was tracked in 2007 as he campaigned, presumably by minions of his rival, Rep. Richard Pombo, possibly by other Republicans.
"I've actually told the few people we've hired, anybody who does that would be immediately terminated," Andal said. "Because I don't believe in it."
Now it's time to find out just how much Dean Andal means it.
Here's a video of Congressman McNerney entering the debate in Tracy on Oct. 11th for the CA-11 Congressional Debate.
At about 10 seconds in, you'll notice someone standing on the raised planter area with a videocamera. Seems innocuous enough. But who is that guy?
General: I suspended the monthly ratings because it was ridiculously time-consuming and better to get the information out more timely, but in case you're wondering, here is my impression of the top targets in California for the Congressional races as we stand with 22 days out. My considered opinion is that no incumbent Democrat is in trouble, including Jerry McNerney. As for the Republican-held seats:
1) CA-04: Lean Dem. Charlie Brown has been ahead in multiple polls and actually has a ground game, unlike Tom McClintock.
2) CA-03: Tilt Repub. Bill Durston's poll showing the race as a dead heat raised a lot of eyebrows. Unfortunately people discovered this race too late, but by Election Day I'll bet that the registration numbers are virtually tied and there will not be an immediate call. The smart money for progressives wanting to impact a race should go to Dr. Durston against Dan Lungren.
3) CA-46: Tilt Repub. Debbie Cook is replicating the Loretta Sanchez strategy of ground mobilization that she used to defeat B-1 Bob Dornan. We'll see if she can pull it off against Crazy Dana Rohrabacher.
4) CA-26: Tilt Repub. Russ Warner has been doing a decent enough job and there's a bit of outside support, but David Dreier has a wall of money.
5) CA-45: Lean Repub. This race has also been under the radar, but the district is either #1 or #2 in the COUNTRY for foreclosures, and affordable housing expert Julie Bornstein can stand to benefit from movement toward Democratic solutions on the economy in her race against Mary Bono Mack.
6) CA-50: Lean Repub. This is the permanent tease district in California, and despite Nick Leibham's efforts to shake up the race, I'm not seeing Brian Bilbray taken down right now, especially because he's likely to whip up populist support in his base with his vote against the bailout.
7) CA-52: Likely Repub. It was always going to be an uphill battle for Mike Lumpkin in his race against Duncan Hunter's son running for Duncan Hunter's old seat. I'd like to see better signs here, but I'm coming up empty.
I rate everything else as Safe Republican at the moment. I'll do a legislative targeting in the next campaign update. Now, to the news (on the flip):
• CA-03: Bill Durston, who is showing lots of strength in his race against Dan Lungren, has earned the support of the Alliance of Retired Americans, a 3.5 million-member group of retirees. Clearly this came on the heels of Durston's strong support for a not-for-profit health care system:
Dr. Durston has also been a strong proponent of universal health care. "It's always been my philosophy that access to necessary medical care is a basic human right, not a privilege based on one's ability to pay. We're the only western industrialized country in the world that doesn't have some form of universal health care, yet we pay twice as much per capita as the other countries for medical care."
Durston is starting to get some major attention after that last poll. Expect him to attack Lungren on his vote for the bailout over the next 27 days.
• CA-04: Lots going on here. After vowing to shut down his account for 2010 statewide races, professional politician Tom McClintock just couldn't close the door.
But four weeks before the Nov. 4 election, McClintock's account remains open and active, as the Thousand Oaks lawmaker has doled out thousands of dollars to fellow Republicans in the last week.
McClintock made $3,600 donations, the maximum allowed under state law, to a trio of Republican candidates for the Legislature: Senate candidates Tony Strickland and Greg Aghazarian and Assembly hopeful Jack Sieglock.
His Democratic opponent, retired Air Force Lt. Col. Charlie Brown, made hay of McClintock's multiple accounts over the summer, calling him a career politician in search of a job.
"What office are you running for?" Brown said in a July statement.
I just find it interesting that Republicans are that worried about Jack Sieglock. Go Alyson Huber! Of course, the other half of this is that McClintock is a huge hypocrite, but you knew that.
In other news, Charlie Brown has a new ad out comparing professional politician McClintock to his record of service. Truth Fights Back, John Kerry's group, is getting Charlie's back over that ridiculous anti-military smear of McClintock's. Brown also signed the Children's Defense Council's Pledge to ensure affordable health care for every child and every pregnant woman. I very much liked this strong take in the press release:
"Tom McClintock gets free healthcare, a free car, free gas, and tax free per diems he's not entitled to, yet has voted to restrict the ability of Californians to see a doctor of their choice and fought against helping our most vulnerable citizens access meaningful healthcare coverage," said Retired USAF Lt. Col. Charlie Brown "His record of inaction has not only helped drive up the cost of healthcare for every Californian, it's illustrative of a career politician hypocrite who would rather serve himself, than solve problems."
Earlier this year, McClintock authored SB 1669, which would have made it easier for health insurance companies to deny the health claims of Californians on the basis of pre-existing condition. In fact, SB 1669 would have extended the period that insurers could look back in your medical history from 12 months to 10 years.
"Tom McClintock's idea of healthcare reform is writing a law that says if you have a medical problem, you can't get healthcare coverage," Brown said. "This misguided bill could have literally cost millions of Californians who have battled and overcome ailments ranging from diabetes, to mild cardiac conditions or cancer their lives. It was so misguided, it never came up for a floor vote and not a single healthcare organization or institution signed on to support it.
Also, Mcjoan at the Great Orange Satan had a good piece based on some of her time in the district recently. This is big:
The campaign has seven offices across the nine counties in the huge district, one of the most beautiful in the country, spanning the Sierras. With four regional field directors, seven organizers and 25 paid canvassers, the campaign has knocked on more than 120,000 doors and made over 300,000 phone calls. Hundreds of new Democrats have been registered. This is the kind of retail politics that allows Democrats to win in Republican districts, in fact it's about the only way to run successfully in a tough district. McClintock, by contrast, has basically no field operation.
That ground game is going to win it for Charlie.
• CA-11: Continuing his quest to be the most overhyped Republican challenger this cycle, Dean Andal continues to dodge the question of whether or not he supported the Paulson bailout plan. He literally has no idea how to handle it, preferring to hide behind the idea that it would be inappropriate to comment because he's not in office. Yeah, uh, that's kind of the point. You say how you would be different from the current office-holder as a means to get the job. What a loser.
Prince criticized Lewis' use of earmarks, the pet projects that lawmakers attach to spending bills, in some cases without a vote.
"Jerry Lewis is totally void of morality when it comes to earmarks," he said, pointing to Lewis' ties to Bill Lowery, a longtime friend and lobbyist. "When I'm congressman, the mayor of Beaumont and the mayor of Apple Valley can pick up the phone and call me for help. They don't have to call a lobbyist who happens to be my best friend."
One thing that Prince would be better advised to focus on is that his district has one of the highest rates of foreclosures in the entire country. The highest? CA-45, where Mary Bono-Mack is facing affordable housing expert Julie Bornstein. If there was ever a reason to create a single-issue candidacy, this is it, and for Bornstein, who has an easier time of it with a less partisan electorate, that could be a real opening in the final month.
• SD-19: Calitics Match candidate Hannah-Beth Jackson is attacking Tony Strickland for greenwashing his environmental credentials in a very, shall we say, familiar way:
Of course, I'm happy to have provided the template for calling out Strickland on this nonsense. There are in addition lots of IE attacks in this race as it nears the home stretch.
• CA-04: The most important debate evah is tonight! No, not that Biden-Palin thing, it's Calitics Match candidate Charlie Brown and Tom McClintock in Oroville. Meanwhile, the air war has begun in earnest. Brown is up with a 60-second ad featuring a local family as a third-party endorser, explaining their struggles to stay ahead in this economy and how Brown is the right choice. I think it'll play well (Brown has an American Jobs Plan which includes investments in infrastructure and green jobs, which is key to the needed reindustrialization of society). On the other hand, Tom McClintock has decided to use Grandpa Fred.
"The financial crisis our nation faces is complicated, and I don't think anybody's got all the answers," Thompson, a well-known actor and former U.S. senator from Tennessee, says in the commercial. "But I'll tell you one thing. I'll feel a lot more confident with Tom McClintock working on it, rather than some amateur."
Shorter Grandpa Fred: "All this book-learnin' and financializin' is hard to figger. Pick the guy who's never voted Yes on a budget in his entire career."
• CA-11: If you want to know why Dean Andal isn't getting any traction in his race against Rep. Jerry McNerney, this quote says it all:
Elected in 2006, McNerney is in a better position for reelection than many expected. But he sits in a district that gave President Bush 54 percent of the vote in 2004, a sure sign that the freshman Democrat ought to be looking over his shoulder.
His Republican opponent, former state Assemblyman Dean Andal, may not be in a position to capitalize, though. The Lodi News-Sentinel reported that an Andal spokesman took the curious position that "it would be inappropriate of Andal to comment on the bailout bill, because he is not in office."
Yes, it would be terrible to actually give your viewpoints on national issues during a political campaign.
• CA-46: You know that Calitics Match candidate Debbie Cook is gaining traction in her race against nutjob Dana Rohrabacher by this - Rohrabacher has gone negative. He's sent an attack mailer that takes a Cook comment about gas prices out of context and really goes to great lengths to greenwash himself. He mentions his sponsorship of a bill to completely eliminate environmental review for solar projects, which is irresponsible but which he is trying to cynically use as proof of his green energy bona fides. It also calls Cook an extremist liberal who opposes drilling.
What's hysterical is that Rohrabacher sent the mailer to everyone in the district but Democrats, meaning that Greens got it. And I'm told by the Cook campaign that they received numerous calls from Green Party members saying that they were voting for Debbie BECAUSE of the mailer!
According to a September 25, 2008, Pasadena Weekly article by Carl Kozlowski, Rohrabacher believes that the Los Angeles Police Department has for 40 years hidden the fact that Sirhan Sirhan, the lone man convicted of shooting Kennedy, worked as part of a "real conspiracy" of Arabs [...]
In early 2007--39 years after the killing and right around the time that he blamed global warming on dinosaur flatulence, Rohrabacher decided to solve his murder mystery for "the Kennedy family."
Anyone familiar with Rohrabacher knows this story is now headed for unadulterated, wacky bliss.
At some point, Sirhan sent Summer Reese, one of his lawyers, a letter telling her that "a Diana was coming to see him."
Reese told Kozlowski, "Sirhan didn't know it was the congressman because his visitor was presented as a woman."
Rohrabacher. Undercover. In drag. Using the name Diana?
Perhaps this sheds light on why ex-Congressman Bob Dornan (R-Garden Grove) liked to call Rohrabacher "a fruitcake."
I actually know Carl, maybe I'll track him down and interview him about this.
• AD-26: I've noticed a lot of Republicans afraid to debate this year. Here's another example.
Stretching from Turlock to Stocton, the 26th Assembly District is fairly even in voter registration and is a target on both party's lists. So why would one candidate take a pass on a critical opportunity to face his opponent and make his case to voters? That is the question being asked by Democratic candidate John Eisenhut who was at a League of Women Voters debate in Modesto Friday night. His Republican opponent, Bill Berryhill, had a "scheduling conflict."
In a conversation with Eisenhut the night after the debate he said that Berryhill didn't want to debate him. This in spite of Berryhill being quoted by the Modesto Bee saying,
"People deserve some dialogue and to know where we both stand."
• AD-30: Fran Florez runs against Sacramento in this solid new ad. Is she also running against her own son, State Sen. Dean Florez?
• CA-11: Apparently trying to win some kind of award for the worst attack website in history, Jon Fleischman of the Flash Report (a terribly designed website in its own right) has put together One Term Is Enough, in all of its way-too-large masthead, ridiculously-spare with no action items or columns, design out of Quark X-Press glory. Man, that's ugly. And I think the focus on Jerry McNerney's earmarks, given the summer of scandal that Dean Andal has lived through which is entirely about a construction contract with a community college (if he was in Congress, that would be, basically, an earmark), is kind of silly. Meanwhile, McNerney is up with his first ad of the cycle, focusing on his work on behalf of troops and veterans.
• AD-80: As soyinkafan noted, Manuel Perez and Gary Jeandron had a debate where Jeandron stated his support for a tax increase in Imperial County. That's not likely to help him with the conservative base, but clearly Jeandron understands that he has to move to left if he has any chance to win this seat. The Palm Springs Desert Sun has a debate report here.
• SD-19: Tony Strickland's latest endorsement is Erin Brockovich, of all people. However, this could be less of a reach across the aisle as it appears.
Ventura County Star columnist Timm Herdt got Strickland's Democratic opponent Hannah-Beth Jackson on the phone, who said she was "a little surprised" by Brockovich backing her opponent.
While Brockovich says she is a Democrat in the ad, she writes on her blog that she's ready to leave the party and become an independent.
"I am ready to turn because both parties are acting foolish and judgmental and attacking," she writes.
She also has kind words for GOP vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin.
"I am proud to be a member of the same Strong Woman's Club that Sarah Palin is in." Brockovich writes.
• AD-15: As has been noted, Joan Buchanan released her first campaign ad of the cycle. Her opponent Abram Wilson responded with his own ad, also biographical in nature, and his campaign has questioned the Buchanan spot and her commitment to fiscal responsibility. I suppose signing a "no-tax" pledge is the height of responsibility, then.
• AD-30: We were all expecting it, and now Nicole Parra has officially endorsed Republican Danny Gilmore in the election to replace her. This is a family fight moved into the political sphere - the Parra-Florez feud is well-known.
Parra's support of Danny Gilmore angered Democratic Party leaders, but comes as no surprise because she has been praising Gilmore for months.
"I will endorse Danny Gilmore in the near future and I will campaign for him and do commercials," Parra said in an interview. Gilmore, a retired California Highway Patrol officer from Hanford, is running against Democrat Fran Florez, mother of state Sen. Dean Florez, D-Shafter, a longtime Parra rival.
• LA Board of Supes: Turns out that not only is Bernard Parks turning to Republicans to help him get elected over progressive State Sen. Mark Ridley-Thomas, but for ten years he was a member of the American Independent Party (!).
According to voter registration forms certified by the Los Angeles County Registrar-Recorder:
Bernard Parks left the Democratic Party and registered as an American Independent on February 12, 1992 - just in time to miss the opportunity to vote for President Bill Clinton.
He registered again as an American Independent on August 9, 1996.
President George Bush was elected in November 2000 - but Parks still wouldn't become a Democrat for nearly a year and a half.
Parks was fired as Chief of the Los Angeles Police Department on April 9, 2002. Shortly thereafter, he began to prepare to run for Los Angeles City Council, and re-registered as a Democrat on May 30, 2002. Less than a year later, he was elected to the City Council.
That is very strange, especially for an African-American to sign up with a party which is the legacy of George Wallace.
Here is Part 3, the last part of my analysis of this fall's elections in California, which will cover the races for the U.S. House, State Senate, and State Assembly seats in Southern California, and summarize which races we need to win.
Here is Part 2, which covered the U.S. House, State Senate, and State Assembly races in Northern and Central California: http://calitics.com/showDiary....
Here is Part 2 of my analysis of this fall's elections in California, which will cover the races for the U.S. House, State Senate, and State Assembly seats in Northern and Central California. Part 3 tomorrow will cover the races in Southern California.
I'm going to try and do these once a day. No promises!
• CA-04: In partial response to the kerfuffle from yesterday's deceitful attack ad, Charlie Brown released two radio spots and a TV ad today. His wife Jan Brown narrates the TV spot, which foregrounds Charlie and his son's military service. (Sorry, not embeddable)
The radio spots are both solid attacks on Venturian Candidate Tom McClintock. Two men, two paths contrasts Brown's service and leadership with McClintock's life in politics, and his record on veterans (including donating 5% of his campaign funds) with McClintock's (voting against veteran's funding). Vote is a humorous spot discussing how McClintock can't vote for himself because he won't move into the district. There's also a lot on McClintock's per diem expenses from the State Senate. "L.A. Tom" is the frame they're going with, and they ask, "if he won't vote for himself, why should we?"
• CA-11: State Senator Ellen Corbett and Assemblywoman Mary Hayashi sent a letter to women in Jerry McNerney's district urging them to reject right-wing extremist Dean Andal. His record on women's issues is really retrograde.
To the Women of Congressional District 11:
If you are anything like us, you want a representative in Washington that not only reflects your values, but who also respects you.
Dean Andal just doesn't qualify. In fact, Dean Andal's record on women's issues shows just how out of touch and extreme his views are.
In 1994, as a member of the State Assembly, Dean Andal opposed a common sense law that would have allowed women to wear pants in the workplace instead of being forced to wear skirts and dresses.
Andal also voted against requiring health insurance plans to cover cervical cancer screenings. He even voted against making sure that information about sexual harassment be included in mandatory workplace anti-discrimination posters.
Yet the most egregious affront to women he offered in his short term in the Assembly was his vote to restrict the definition of rape to exclude attacks where an incapacitated woman cannot resist.
And what's worse, Andal's was the only vote in the Assembly against expanding the definition. The only one.
Whether you're a Democrat or a Republican, all women should be proud of the progress we have made. That's why it's so important that we don't send someone like Dean Andal to Congress. Someone with a record like Andal's can be counted on to turn back the clock on all we have achieved.
• LA Board of Supes: There's a runoff in this seat between Councilman Bernard Parks and State Senator Mark Ridley-Thomas. While Ridley-Thomas is a solid progressive who understands the fundamental dysfunction of state government and will fight for progressive values on the powerful Board of Supes, Bernard Parks has hired Republican fixer Steve Kinney to help him win the race. Parks, who has a business-friendly record on the City Council, is receiving help from BizFed, a PAC notorious for pushing the same agenda. The wingnuts at the Lincoln Club have reportedly offered him support as well. At least the choice is now clear to voters - one candidate on the side of the corporate vultures, the other on the side of the people.
• Misc. I should note that Chris Bowers' House race forecast is up, and among California races, he lists CA-04 as a tossup, CA-11 as Lean D, and CA-26 & CA-50 as Likely R. I think he's selling a couple races short, but that's a pretty good conservative estimate.
Things are happening very quickly in the most hotly contested campaigns in California. Here's an update:
• CA-04: Watching himself falling behind in the race to replace John Doolittle, perennial candidate Tom McClintock decided to borrow one of his predeccesor's smear campaigns and release an ad claiming that Charlie Brown dishonored servicemen by appearing at an anti-war rally.
The idea that wearing a camouflage jacket constitutes being "in uniform" is ridiculous, and so is the idea that a retired military officer has no free speech rights. But the idea is to smear Charlie as some kind of radical leftist and anti-military, despite Brown's long record of supporting veterans and McClintock's longer record voting against them.
The ensuing press conference put on by the McClintock campaign was a wild affair.
SACRAMENTO - A press conference on congressional candidate Charlie Brown's actions in 2005 at the home of an anti-war display nearly descended into conflict itself, with disruptions before, during and after the event and a near-appearance by police officers [...]
But before the event even began, a handful of Brown supporters - accompanied by Brown's campaign manager, Todd Stenhouse - were asked to leave so that they wouldn't cause a disruption.
One man loudly protested that as a military veteran and the father of an active-duty U.S. soldier, he felt he could stay. "This is not Russia," he said.
McClintock campaign consultant John Feliz and Stenhouse eventually got the man to agree to leave, but not before security at the Hyatt hotel where the press conference took place made calls to Sacramento police to remove the man [...]
But a third man who was with the veterans pointed out that Brown was within his First Amendment right to do so, prompting Feliz to ask him to leave as well, while also saying Brown should re-enlist and face a court martial for his actions.
The man, who gave his name as Bret Sherlock, said afterward that he attended because he was tired of non-veterans like McClintock smearing veterans like Brown.
"Did he do anything illegal?" Sherlock said of Brown, adding that if anyone should be able to protest the war, it should be Brown, as both a veteran and a father of a soldier who has served four tours of duty in Iraq.
McClintock campaign spokesman Bill George said the video came from a "concerned citizen." Neither McClintock nor Brown appeared at the press conference.
After the press conference concluded, Stenhouse tried to give McClintock's campaign a pledge to join a Brown program that donates 5 percent of Brown's campaign contributions to nonprofit community groups that work with charities.
Feliz angrily took it and threw it down without looking at it.
They don't want to talk about issues. So McClintock tries to smear a decorated veteran to win an election. Typical.
Before I get into this truth stretching, I've put 2 pictures here. Can you tell who is who? Because I'm pretty sure Dean Andal (right) and John Doolittle(left) are the same person. Seriously, it's quite possible that these two were separated at birth or something.
Andal's constultant, Ray McNally, then goes on to say what he meant to say was that he had better cash on hand. Richman then goes back to the Politicker reporter, who basically says, um, no, Andal said fundraising. Phew!
Anyway, Andal has raised about a million dollars, or so he claims, but CA-11 spans two media markets. And the Bay Area media market is pretty expensive, so Andal will need to do better than that if he hopes to take down an incumbent, even if that incumbent is freshman Jerry McNerney.
