(Updated with new information at the bottom... - promoted by David Dayen)
The FEC reports are starting to come in for our candidates. I'll update them here, but the preliminary numbers are very strong.
• CA-50: Wow. Nick Leibham raised $413,000 in the third quarter, his best quarter of the cycle by a factor of four. With $334,000 cash on hand, he's going to be able to get his message out in the final weeks. As much as anything, this is why Leibham is Red To Blue. No word on Brian Bilbray's take yet. Leibham's latest ad uses a local war hero to hammer Bilbray for his vote against the new GI Bill, and it's very powerful, a great improvement over the attention-getting stunts from earlier in the year. I'm starting to feel good about this race.
• CA-45: Julie Bornstein raised around $102,000 in Q3, while Mary Bono Mack raised $245,000. The cash on hand situation shows Bono Mack with $462,548 in the bank compared to Bornstein's $179,308. That's not terrible, especially if the DCCC steps in with some outside help - they just added Bornstein to their emerging races list (along with Bill Durston in CA-03). Her latest ad, showing Bono Mack as a rubber-stamping bobblehead, is spot-on ("Do you think George Bush is right 92% of the time?")
• CA-52: In our toughest winnable race, Mike Lumpkin raised $107,000 and has $125,000 CoH, and Duncan D. Hunter raised $290,000 with $321,000 CoH. It'll take a monumental effort to win this one, but I don't consider it impossible. Lumpkin just got put on the D-Trip's Races To Watch page, along with Russ Warner (CA-26).
• CA-46: A nice writeup about canvassing for Debbie Cook from friend of the blog Andrew Davey (atdleft).
more money updates when they roll in...
UPDATE: Debbie Cook raised $114,000 and has $181,000 in the bank. Nothing yet from Dana Rohrabacher. Will she outraise him three quarters in a row?
UPDATE: More numbers:
CA-04: Charlie Brown: raised $539K, $456K cash on hand. GREAT numbers.
Tom McClintock: raised $978K, but spent a ton, and has only $94,000 left, with $110,000 in debts. He is BROKE. Brown has an infinite lead in CoH.
CA-03: Bill Durston: raised $149K, $145K CoH.
Dan Lungren: raised $173K (wow, Durston almost outraised him), $680K CoH. Dr. Bill is going to need some help.
CA-26: Russ Warner: raised $289K, which is great, but he's spent a lot early. He has $119K CoH.
David Dreier: raised $255K. Wow, Warner outraised Dreier. He still has $1.7 million in the bank, and he doesn't seem to be using the money. He only spent $345K in Q3. I don't know if it's for leadership purposes or what, but he has a hell of a war chest that he's not using.
CA-11: Jerry McNerney: raised $601K, $1.02 million CoH.
Dean Andal: raised $345K, with $850K CoH. Some prize recruit.
CA-50: Brian Bilbray: This was the number I was waiting for. He raised $262K and has $382K CoH. OK, Nick Leibham didn't just beat Bilbray in Q2, he destroyed him. And the cash on hand is virtually even. Wow.
CA-46: Dana Rohrabacher: Drum roll... raised $148K. OK, he beat Debbie Cook for once. The CoH is $497K, but much like Dreier, he's spent next to nothing. $35K in the quarter.
Overall, these are good numbers. Lots of our candidates have the resources they need. Keep up the pressure.
Republican campaigns all over are starting to tank as Election Day approaches. California, long considered the land of "safe seats" because of the 2000 redistricting plan that basically secured the status quo for both parties, is no exception. The news is not good for incumbent Republicans.
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):
(It's a bizarre story. Isn't it about time that the 46th is represented by a leader focused on what's important, like say Debbie Cook? - promoted by Brian Leubitz)
I'm... speechless. This latest piece from the OC Weekly reveals that Rohrabacher actually thinks the "Arabs" were responsible for assassinating Robert F. Kennedy, and decades later visited Sirhan Sirhan in prison... in drag???
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.
Why? Well, Rohrabacher--a rabid right-wing Republican who has bragged to me and other reporters about his, uh, longtime personal ties to the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA)--claims he was in the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles for a party at the same time Kennedy was murdered in the kitchen.
Ponder that admission for a moment and then consider the congressman's incredible tale.
• 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?
To give to Debbie's campaign, donate at the calitics ActBlue page and your donation will be matched (up to $500.)
Truth to Power is something many of us have been attempting to speak out about and those Democrats who are running this year are leading this charge. My favorite Democratic Candidate for Congress is Debbie Cook, the recipient of the "Truth To Power" award and well deserving of such an honor.
• General: Democratic challengers ought to take a close look at two bills passed through the House this week that make conservative priorities pretty clear. HR 6983, the Paul Wellstone and Pete Domenici Mental Health Parity Act, finally limits the ability of insurance companies to prohibit treatment of mental health in their policies. John Campbell, Darrell Issa, Ed Royce and Dana Rohrabacher were among the 47 Republicans to vote against it. HR 5244, the Credit Cardholders' Bill of Rights Act of 2008, would severely limit predatory lending from an industry that is at least a partial cause of the current crisis in credit. Brian Bilbray, David Dreier, Gary Miller, Jerry Lewis, Dan Lungren, Campbell, Issa, Royce and Rohrabacher were among the 111 Republicans who voted against that. These ads write themselves.
• CA-03: Bill Durston is up with two ads, as mentioned by akogun. It's unclear how big the buy is. One is a bio spot, and the other hits Dan Lungren for his, er, unique travel plans.
• CA-04: A lot to report here. While Tom McClintock is off putting together propaganda blogs attacking Charlie Brown, and of all things, this website, he ought to be paying attention to his campaign manager problem.
The camp of Democratic candidate Charlie Brown claims evidence shows state Sen. McClintock, a Republican, effectively is a substitute Doolittle, and in particular asserts that McClintock campaign manager John Feliz's connections to Doolittle are significant.
"John Feliz is the architect of Doolittle's first known political-practices transgression," said Todd Stenhouse, Brown spokesman. "The bottom line is McClintock claims not to be John Doolittle, yet he's using his former campaign manager, and he has the same treasurer (David Bauer)."
McClintock campaign spokesman Bill George said, "John Feliz hasn't worked for Doolittle in 18 to 20 years."
Note that he doesn't respond to Bauer, who is still the treasurer for an active Doolittle campaign committee.
Meanwhile, Charlie Brown has endorsed the Pickens Pledge. I am in complete agreement that the Pickens Plan for energy independence is just a scheme for a rich guy to get richer, but the pledge merely calls for an energy plan to be enacted in the first 100 days of the next Administration. There is a difference.
• CA-50: Al Gore was in the district to raise money for Nick Leibham. The Leibham campaign hopes this will kick-start their efforts, but the Cook Political Report recently downgraded the race to "Solid Republican." Their belief is that these Republican districts have been injected with momentum with Sarah Palin energizing conservatives to vote. We'll see.
• CA-46: One thing is clear: Dana Rohrabacher may allow insurance companies deny treatment to the mentally ill, and he may let the credit card companies fleece his constituents, but he draws the line at the Wall Street bailout. That's nothing new - lots of lawmakers are opposed to the bailout - but of course, the fact that Debbie Cook was first out of the gate with her opposition forced his hand, to be sure. Meanwhile, Cook was feted with a "Truth To Power" at the Association for the Study of Peak Oil conference this week. On Sunday, there's a small dollar fundraiser for Cook in Palos Verdes. Details and tickets at the ActBlue page here. I will be in attendance Sunday, so please come out if you're in the area.
• SD-19: Hannah-Beth Jackson has a new ad out with some personal testimonials about her leadership on a chemical spill in her district when she was in the Assembly, and I have to say I like it.
On Tuesday, Villaraigosa was forced into the fray - reluctantly, his aides said - after Parks had the city send a 60-day eviction notice to Strategic Concepts of Organizing and Policy Education, a nonprofit focused on community organizing and job training.
Parks said SCOPE was using the old fire station at 1715 Florence Ave. in South Los Angeles to help the Ridley-Thomas campaign, which the group denies.
Hate to be the bearer of bad news, but Swing State Project doesn't think some of our races are going anywhere. And it's with two candidates that are beloved by the netroots.
CA-26 (Dreier): Likely Republican to Safe Republican
It's time to separate the wheat from the chaff, so to speak. We held out hope for quite a while that Democrat Russ Warner would be able to make a race in this R+4 district -- one of the very few plausible targets for Democrats in California -- but this contest has never really climbed that far up the heat index. Despite running his campaign for over a year and a half, Warner has only been able to cobble together $651K and ended the second quarter with just $150K in the bank.
Incumbent GOP Rep. David Dreier bucked the nationwide trend in 2006 by spending some serious cash ($2.5 million) and scoring a 57-38 win over his unknown opponent -- a significant improvement over his 53-43 margin in 2004. Dreier had $1.9 million on hand at the end of July -- well more than he'll need in order to swamp out Warner's message this fall. Based on the nationwide dynamics, it's not hard to imagine Warner climbing to as high as the mid-40s on election day, but it's pretty tough to imagine him hitting 50% on his budget, barring some fabulous divine intervention.
CA-46 (Rohrabacher): Likely Republican to Safe Republican
I'm sorry to say it, but here's the Swing State Project's new Mendoza Line of the Swing: If you aren't even listed on the DCCC's Races to Watch list alongside the likes of Rob Hubler (IA-05) and Steve O'Donnell (PA-18), what chance do you really have? Many Dems started the cycle with high hopes for Huntington Beach Mayor Debbie Cook. Like they used to say in Brooklyn, wait 'till next year!
Sigh. :-( As Rachel Maddow says, someone needs to talk me down on this.
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....
• CA-04: I love this video from the Charlie Brown campaign. They traveled 412 miles down to Thousand Oaks to talk to constituents of California's Alan Keyes, State Senator and professional office-chaser Tom McClintock. It's really funny and drives the point home that McClintock is a do-nothing at best and a dangerous radical at worst:
And get this, McClintock is now running on the state budget, the Republican version of which has a 19% approval rating. That's like putting Nixon, Bush and Cheney in your campaign ad.
• CA-26, CA-45: Not one but two! Both Russ Warner AND Julie Bornstein have been added to the DCCC "Races To Watch" list. This is a prelude to being listed as Red To Blue candidates. If the D-Trip comes through with some money, maybe threatened incumbents like Dreier will have to stop mouthing off about other GOP races and start paying attention to their own. UPDATE: Mike Lumpkin (CA-52) is on that list now too, which is a pleasant surprise.
• CA-46: When John Fund tries to target a Dem challenger, you know something's going wrong. Fund is sounding the alarm on Debbie Cook, as Dana Rohrabacher tries to greenwash himself with a scheme to build solar-power plants on federal land without environmental impact studies. Fund says that Cook called this "an extreme position," but he chopped the quote:
Democratic challenger and Mayor of Huntington Beach Debbie Cook agrees that the process of approving solar power plants is sluggish and needs to be sped up, but not at the expense of the environment.
"This is just another extreme position by Dana Rohrabacher. What we need to do is come up with a balanced approach that streamlines these projects, because they're critically important to our energy future, but at the same time recognizes the impacts to the environment," Cook said.
Rohrabacher's doing the equivalent of saying he'll grow jobs by hiring 10,000 federally funded serial killers, and then wondering why everyone's worried about the mass death ("You wanted jobs, didn't you?"). There's a sensible way to free up the bottlenecks and a rash one. Rohrabacher chose door #2.
• CA-42: The internal poll results released by Ed Chau are intriguing (showing him up 44-38 after a mix of positive and negative information released on the candidates), but I don't think candidates who have minimal bank accounts should do polls stating the numbers after a mix of information if they don't have the money to get that information out. But if Gary Miller truly has a 28% re-elect number as the poll states, he could be in trouble.
I simply have not had the time to do a full update of all the Congressional and legislative campaigns. And sadly, it doesn't look like that time will be forthcoming soon. So I think I'll do mini-updates where possible.
• CA-46: Debbie Cook has been endorsed by DFA (Democracy for America). Jim Dean, the Chair of DFA, said in a statement, "Debbie Cook has been a grassroots champion for over 20 years and has a proven record of success in the private sector and as a public servant ... Debbie Cook is running because she's a committed advocate and activist who fights for her constituents and delivers results."
In the past, DFA has been able to move some resources into districts, so we'll see if they're going that route in this race. DFA has also recently endorsed Bill Hedrick (CA-44).
• CA-26: Russ Warner's campaign is announcing via email that the DCCC named his race as "one to watch." That doesn't mean they'll get any money, but it puts them in the queue if the race tightens. Unfortunately, the DCCC has kind of a deliberate style, where they hoard their money for the races they know are toss-ups, and then wait until the very last minute for these emerging races, sometimes beyond the point at which that money can be effective. I understand the strategy but it wouldn't be smart from Warner's perspective to bank on any help from Washington in his race against David Dreier. He needs his own resources as well as money from California lawmaker's PACs.
Which reminds me, California Democrats, it's time to use it or lose it. We have a number of races where the challenger can win if they have enough resources, and in the seats where an incumbent has token or no opposition and a huge war chest, that money should not be sitting in an account somewhere. Help our own candidates! Expect more pressure on this very soon.
• CA-03: It's kind of fun watching Dan Lungren try to humina-humina his way out of supporting Prop. 8. He really has no idea what he's talking about. It would be bad enough if a citizen of the state had this atrocious an understanding of basic civics, but this guy is not only a US Representative but a former state Attorney General!
• AD-80: The GOP tried to get Manuel Perez' occupational status as an "educator" thrown off the ballot, but they failed. Now he has received the endorsement of the highest-ranking law enforcement official in Imperial County, D.A. Gilbert Otero. Considering that his opponent, Gary Jeandron, is the former police chief of Palm Springs, I'd consider this endorsement to be significant... UPDATE re: CMR, seems that Gary Jeandron supports "traditional marriage." In Palm Springs. Now, so did Bonnie Garcia, but she was able to win enough in Imperial County to offset it. Jeandron needs the Palm Springs vote to be huge to win.
Today about 20 volunteers congregated at the White Point Nature Preserve in San Pedro to give back to the community as part of Democrats Work and their national day of service. I know community organizing and community service is teh suck, but that didn't stop us, for some reason. Democrats Work is a really great organization that brands service and volunteerism as a Democratic value, part of protecting the commons and creating a more livable world.
We arrived around 9am and immediately set to work clearing tumbleweed from a large area of the preserve, which formerly housed a naval missile silo. For 2 1/2 hours we picked, pulled and chopped away at the weeds. And joining us was Congressional candidate in CA-46 Debbie Cook (San Pedro is in her district). Now, most candidates would spend about 10 minutes there, get their photo-op, shake a few hands and go home. Cook drove up in her car and spent the entire volunteer session with us. Pretty interesting.
I talked to Cook a bit about her race against Crazy Dana Rohrabacher. Obviously, the big hurdle right now is financial. While Cook has outraised Dana Rohrabacher since she entered the race, she still is at a disadvantage of 3:1 in cash on hand, and until she shows more fundraising strength, outside groups like the DCCC won't jump in. It's kind of a vicious cycle - you can't get money until you raise money. Cook has released a TV ad that's running in the district on local cable, and she has an ActBlue site up for supporters to adopt an ad. She also raised close to $10,000 in Blue America's recent contest, and while she didn't win to receive the extra $10,000, it was still a success. Cook has challenged Rohrabacher to debates but he's been cool to the idea. Local PBS station KOCE has committed to running the debate with or without Crazy Dana, so she may be debating an empty chair. Cook discussed her plan for Iraq (if the oil companies require security to do their business in the country, they can pay for the private security contractors like Blackwater and let us leave), her energy ideas (the drillusion is backwards thinking that will never move us forward), and Sarah Palin (as the mayor of Huntington Beach, she said that she never received such federal largesse from earmarks that Palin did as mayor of Wasilla, despite having 20 times as many constituents), among other things, while helping clear the tumbleweed. Cook is an impressive and dedicated citizen legislator who would truly be a breath of fresh air in Washington.
You'd think this would be bigger news on the last night of the Republican Convention, that the guy that used to be their go-to lobbyist got sentenced today.
Disgraced former lobbyist Jack Abramoff, whose corruption scandal shook up Washington's power elite and contributed to the Republican loss of control in Congress, was sentenced on Thursday to four years in federal prison.
Abramoff is already serving a nearly six-year term on unrelated charges and the new sentence will be served at the same time, meaning he will not spend any extra time behind bars once his original sentence ends in 2012.
Judge Ellen Huvelle issued the sentence after federal prosecutors recommended leniency due to Abramoff's cooperation in pursuing corruption cases against lawmakers and former administration officials. He faced a maximum of 11 years under a plea deal reached in 2006.
Abramoff has major ties to John Doolittle, Ken Calvert and several other California Republicans, but the Debbie Cook campaign has been pressing the connections between this twice-convicted felon and Dana Rohrabacher. To wit:
Abramoff Funded Trips
Rohrabacher's ties to Jack Abramoff date from the 1980s. In 1999, Rohrabacher went on an Abramoff-funded trip to the Marshall Islands with John Doolittle (R-CA), Ken Calvert (R-CA) and eight staffers. (http://talkingpointsmemo.com/docs/RMItravel.html)
Rohrabacher Used As Reference By Abramoff
In 2000, Abramoff listed Rohrabacher as a reference on a loan application for the purchase of SunCruz Casinos. "I don't remember it, but I would have certainly have been happy to give him a good recommendation,' Rohrabacher said. "He's a very honest man." (LINK)
Another Overseas Trip Paid For By Abramoff
In 2002, Rohrabacher and his wife and campaign manager Rhonda, took a trip to Malaysia, accompanied by two Abramoff partners at the firm Greenberg Traurig. House records indicate the trip to Malaysia focused on terrorism and trade. Rohrabacher's spokeman called the trip "very positive." (LINK)
Rohrabacher Calls Abramoff "a fine man"
In April 2005, with Abramoff the target of a grand jury, Rohrabacher said "Jack has made some mistakes...but he is not the dishonest, malevolent, arrogant, wheeler-dealer that people are portraying. He is a fine man."
(LINK)
Rohrabacher: Abramoff's Crimes Are Business As Usual
Rohrabacher defended Abramoff to the Washington Post: "I think he's been dealt a bad hand and the worst, rawest deal I've ever seen in my life." Words like bribery are being used to describe things that happened every day in Washington and are not bribes."
Abramoff pleaded guilty in January 2006 to fraud, tax evasion and conspiracy to bribe public officials. (LINK)
Rohrabacher Alone in Praising Abramoff, Despite Guilty Plea
Following Abramoff's guilty plea for his role in the fraudulent purchase of a fleet of casino cruise boats in Florida, Rohrabacher was the ONLY member of Congress to request leniency from the federal judge sentencing Abramoff.
(LINK)
Today, Debbie Cook released this statement: "Rohrabacher's ongoing relationship with Jack Abramoff and his willingness to excuse his crimes, even now, as Abramoff is sentenced for bribery, speaks volumes about the Congressman's judgment and his Washington D.C. mindset." The words "culture of corruption," which Democrats successfully branded in 2006, can be thrown in there as well.
Good to see some aggressiveness out of Cook. They just released their first ad of the cycle, too, designed for local cable, which also displays some toughness against Rohrabacher. It's the first ad run against Crazy Dana in 20 years. What's more, they're asking supporters to buy an ad through Act Blue.
California Rep. David Dreier said Palin's daughter's pregnancy demonstrates her connection to other families who have similar issues.
Ah, empathy from an unmarried congressman who is trying to connect with voters instead of answer the questions about McCain's vetting process for who he thinks should have their finger on the trigger if his cancer catches up with him.
But it isn't about the daughter of Palin (who will probably join the Harriet Miers club faster than you can say "troopergate"). It is about McCain's reckless recklessness. Here he goes again, the polls showed that if he put Joementum on the ticket he'd be hated by everyone but Joe Klein so instead he over-reacted to his advisers and put on somebody with literally no qualifications and obviously zero vetting as troopergate is more than enough for her to look less mentally unbalanced than Eagleton.
But here in California, once again we have David Dreier working against the facts. Nobody thinks an abstinence-only/creationism debate is going to help the GOP, yet David Dreier sticks out his credibility once again to be a Rubber Stamp for the Bush Administration. This time, the Third Bush Administration.
Huntington Beach, CA - Debbie Cook has formally asked Congressman Dana Rohrabacher to join her in at least three town-hall style debates throughout the 46th distict.
"The voters in our district should have meaningful opportunities to hear our very different goals and visions for the 46th district," said Cook. "The Congressman has been willing to debate in previous elections, I hope he will agree to join me in a series of forums that will present our positions directly to the voters."
The Cook campaign has asked for three debates located across the district, two in Orange County and one in Los Angeles County.
"There are two very different media markets in this district, so along with Orange County, it's important to schedule at least one town hall debate in Los Angeles County, possibly in Long Beach or the Palos Verdes Peninsula." said Kevin Thurman, Cook's campaign manager.
Thurman said he is waiting for an official response from the Rohrabacher campaign. Thurman sent a certified letter to Rhonda Rohrabacher, the Congressman's wife and campaign manager, early this week.
Cook, the Democratic nominee and mayor of Huntington Beach, is challenging incumbent Dana Rohrabacher. She has devoted much of her adult life and her legal career to environmental protection and energy policy. She considers reducing America's dependence on fossil fuels an environmental and national security imperative.
The 46th Congressional District covers a two-county area bounded by Costa Mesa on the south and the Palos Verdes Peninsula on the north. For more information about the campaign, please visit www.debbiecookforcongress.com.
So today I drove back down to my old stomping grounds of Palos Verdes to see Debbie Cook's "ice cream social" at the lovely Hesse Park. Admittedly, the crowd was mostly older folks, and I felt a bit out of place. The head of the Palos Verdes Democratic Club opened with a joke about how Democrats do exist in Palos Verdes, which people chuckled at. I mean, surface appearances would make you think P.V. was 100% Republican.
Anyway, not only was Debbie Cook there, but the people running for the state assembly and senate were there also. (The Democratic incumbents in those seats are term-limited out.) Rod Wright, who worked for Maxine Waters, is running for the State Senate, and Beth Loewenthal, a member of the Long Beach City Council, is running for the State Assembly. Both should be elected when all is said and done; the districts seem to be more or less safe for Democrats.
Los Angeles, CA-The California League of Conservation Voters (CLCV) announced today their endorsement of Debbie Cook, the Democratic nominee for Congress in the 46th Congressional District.
"We're proud to support Debbie Cook because she has shown time and again her commitment to protecting our coastal resources," said CLCV's Southern California Director David Allgood. "Mayor Cook has a long record of achievement on environmental, public health and other issues important to the people of the 46th District."
In 1989, rather than see her city's parks and beaches destroyed by private development, Cook led a group that collected 18,000 signatures for a successful ballot measure to require voter approval in order to build in Huntington Beach public parks and beaches.
After attending law school, she joined the Bolsa Chica Land Trust legal team, winning a case that protects sensitive coastal habitat throughout California to this day. As Mayor of Huntington Beach, she led the fight to stop the Orange County Sanitation District from dumping partially-treated sewage into the ocean, resulting in cleaner water for our beach's recreational users.
Cook's opponent, longtime Congressman Dana Rohrabacher, ignores science to deny that climate change is man-made, favors drilling off the coast of California and has spoken against the landmark Clean Trucks Program at the Ports of Long Beach and Los Angeles - which will slash toxic truck emissions by 50%, significantly reducing the port-related diesel pollution that leads to 2,400 premature deaths per year, according to the California Air Resources Board. He currently has a low 10 percent rating on the League of Conservation Voters' congressional scorecard.
It's not surprising that Cook would get the endorsement; what's crucial here is whether or not she becomes a cause for the environmental movement the way that Jerry McNerney became a cause in 2006. Rohrabacher's rejection of port cleanup, which just passed the California State Senate, could be a really salient issue in this district, part of which covers Long Beach and most of which is situated on the coast. Some hard-hitting ads and mailers accusing Crazy Dana of allowing kids to suffer and die from pollution seem to be in order.
UPDATE: Cook is also pivoting off of the historic nominating speech by Barack Obama at the DNC, holding 200 "Making History" parties in the district and raising money for Cook's campaign. This is really a local effort. You can sign up at her website.
Last week, Vice President Al Gore presented the American people with a challenge: meet 100% of our electricity needs through renewable energy within 10 years. Al would be the first to acknowledge this is not a minor task. And yet it is an urgent one, a challenge that will require a transformation in how we invest our time and money, and how we view ourselves.
I wanted to respond to Al Gore's call by asking two things of each of you:
1. Include your voice with the millions of others expressing support for this mission
2. Be part of collective solutions to make it a reality
Greetings and welcome to the latest installment of the California House races roundup. We're just around 100 days to go until the election, and things are starting to take focus. There are about a half-dozen seats where Democratic challengers have an outside shot at dumping the incumbent, and another six on the watch list in case something spectacular occurs. One thing to note is that the Cook numbers are tied to the 2004 election, and given the demographic changes and cratering of the Republican brand I think they mean significantly less now - it'll be interesting to see how all these districts change in November.
We have plenty of new information to judge these races, including 2nd quarter fundraising reports, national ratings from Charlie Cook and Swing State Project, additional DCCC targets, and the appearance of many challengers at Netroots Nation. So this list is really about who I think has the best chance to retain or take over a seat, not necessarily who should (though that may come through in the writing). Here are some helpful bits of information that I used to help judge.
