Right now there's a competition at VoteVets.org to award $5,000 to a veteran running for congress.
Two of their endorsed candidates are Californians: Lt. Col. Charlie Brown (CA-04) and Navy SEAL Mike Lumpkin (CA-52). I'm biased*, but I think Charlie deserves this honor.
Not only is he a fantastic Democratic candidate who came within a hair of defeating John Doolittle in '06 - in a challenging district - but also because Charlie's campaign has been donating 5% of every campaign dollar he raises to veterans charities... and that's added up to a sizable sum that's going to three worthy groups very shortly. His devotion to veterans issues has been exemplary.
So if you have a spare moment to go over to VoteVets and cast a vote for Charlie, you'd be helping out a good man; Charlie Brown.
* Disclaimer: I do technical work on behalf of Charlie's campaign. I believe in the man.
I'd started this little project a little while back, wanting to learn more about the candidates for the CA-52 primary. So I sent each of the candidates 10 questions. Today it's Mike Lumpkin at bat! Mike has been kind enough to answer my questions, delayed through nobody's fault, but did involve a case of Pneumonia. (Hope you're feeling better, Chris!) So now, join me below the fold and learn a little more about Mike! And then visit his website to learn a little more, or if you want, his ActBlue page.
UPDATE: If you'd like to help Mike, go over to VoteVets, and vote for him. The winner of this online vote will receive $5000 from VoteVets PAC.
(The 52nd is a tough district, but you don't win without trying. Good luck Ms. Butcher. - promoted by Brian Leubitz)
According to a story today at the Progressive Democrats of America website, the Metro San Diego chapter of PDA has endorsed Vickie Butcher in the 52nd Congressional District. Excellent choice! Vickie is running for the seat that Duncan Hunter has held for forever and a day. His son, Duncan Jr., is running in his stead in the upcoming June primary. There are several Democratic candidates running in this race, but Butcher is the clear progressive choice, and I'm very happy to see an endorsement for Vickie Butcher from San Diego's Metro PDA Chapter.
Vickie generated much excitement among those present as she spoke against the war and for universal health care, election reform, and ending poverty. She plans to join the Congressional Progressive Caucus next January.
Vickie easily won the endorsement and is genuinely pleased to have the Metro chapter's support. A true progressive in every sense, she faces three candidates in the CA 52 Democratic primary on June 3, none of whom sought the endorsement.
Welcome back to the long-awaited California House races roundup! These things take up an inordinate amount of time, but I've finally found some, and I'm ready to go with this roundup. There's a lot of additional information, including Q4 2007 fundraising numbers, the turnout in the February primary offering a decent snapshot of Democratic chances in a particular district, and quite a few new candidates to speak about. I'm going to rank the top ten challenges to Republican-held seats across the state, as well as take a look at the two intriguing races held by Democrats. But first, it should be mentioned that the deadline for applying to run for a Congressional seat is fast approaching (March 7, I believe), and 4 of the 19 Republican-held seats in the state still have no challenger: CA-02 (Herger), CA-19 (Radanovich), CA-22 (McCarthy), and CA-25 (McKeon). This is especially distressing in CA-19 and CA-25, where turnout in the Feb. 5 primary was either even or favored Democrats. So anyone in these 4 districts: run for Congress! It's a résumé builder!
(By the way, you can follow all of the candidates in all these races at the 2008 Race Tracker.
(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.
I've been a really, really bad blogger and have stopped my Congressional House Roundup. So here's a mini-one. I've dug up the totals for 2007 fundraising in the top races in the state, and they're a little interesting. Here are the numbers from the key races.
CA-11:
Jerry McNerney raised $1.065 million in 2007, has $760,000 cash on hand
Dean Andal raised $535,000, has $471,000 CoH
CA-04:
Charlie Brown raised $506,000, has $383,000 CoH I was looking at Q3 numbers. Brown has raised $692,000, and has $483,000 CoH. Big numbers for a non-incumbent.
Eric Egland raised $141,000, has $79,000 CoH
There are no fundraising numbers yet for the new challengers who have entered the race on the Republican side, including former State Sen. Rico Oller and former US Rep. Doug Ose. By the way, Ose has donated to Doolittle's legal defense fund, along with Minority Leader John Boehner. Reformers, all of them!
CA-26:
David Dreier raised $599,000, has $1.96 million CoH
Russ Warner raised $380,000, has $240,000 CoH
Hoyt Hilsman raised $114,000, has $10,550 CoH
Obviously, Dreier is sitting on a goldmine.
CA-50:
Brian Bilbray raised $419,000, has $262,000 CoH
Nick Leibham raised $211,000, has $188,000 CoH
Very encouraging.
Others to note:
Mary Bono (CA-45) only has a paltry $219,000 CoH. Her potential opponents Julie Bornstein, David Hunsicker and Paul Clay got in too late to register any money in this quarter (sometimes the FEC shows residual candidates who have run in previous years, so I'm not certain they're running.)
Mike Lumpkin, the Democrat in CA-52 trying to take Duncan Hunter's open seat, raised $78,000 in 2007 and has $43,000 CoH.
There's some real data in the form of third-quarter fundraising numbers to pore over, and events in Washington and at home have served to focus on some of our Congressional candidates here in California. Plus, believe it or not, we're only about a year out from Election Day. Let's take a look at the top ten races.
As usual, I'm going to rank them in order of most possible pickup, including their number from the last roundup. I'm also, as usual, including 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)
As the smoke begins to clear in San Diego, the stories and reactions to the fire will start competing with the recovery effort atop the fold. First on the minds of many in government seems, not surprisingly, to be response time and firefighting capacity. Unforunately, Republicans are again demonstrating that they make up in bluster what they lack in remote semblance of coherence. Southern California Republican Congressmen such as Duncan Hunter, Brian Bilbray, Darrell Issa, Jerry Lewis, Elton Gallegly and Dana Rohrabacher have been lining up for every available reporter to knock Governor Schwarzenegger and the state's CalFire bureaucracy for supposedly impeding firefighting efforts throughout the region last week. They've flown so dramatically off the handle in fact that even Chris Reed has it right on their craziness- or at least part of it:
The congressmen who are doing such a good job exposing the state's bureaucratic tomfoolery in its wildfire response have some explaining to do themselves. Couldn't they have spared an earmark to cover the cost of outfitting the California Air National Guard's C-130 with a fire-retardant tank, something that was promised to happen after the 2003 wildfires but never did?
Instead, Duncan Hunter funneled $63 million into the DP-2 Vectored Thrust Aircraft boondoggle. And Dana Rohrabacher worried more about buying expensive planes the military didn't want than about helping California's wildfire-fighting capacity. This is from a May story in the Washington Post:
... Rohrabacher (R-Calif.) has made one of the biggest earmark requests in the new Congress, seeking $2.4 billion to build 10 more C-17 planes -- which the Pentagon has said it does not need.
These gentlemen have ended up discussing almost every issue in the country, all in the context of the fire. And they've managed to be completely wrong every time. So without further ado, an "oh the humanity" sampling from the past week.
OK, I'm getting this in just under the wire. Time for the House roundup for September. There are a little over 13 months until Election Day, and with the end of the 3rd quarter on Sunday (donate), this election is really not that far away. In fact, CQ Politics has put out their initial assessment of the House landscape. It's favorable for Democrats, but predictably, there are only two California seats on that radar: CA-04 and CA-11. But there have been a lot of developments in the other races throughout the state as well.
I'm going to rank them in order of most possible pickup, including their number from the last roundup. I'm also, as usual, including 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)
With the San Francisco and Los Angeles Quarterlies ready to kick off tomorrow (watch out LA, I'm coming), let's take a pictoral tour through last week's San Diego event. Consider this an open thread, but focus on how great Calitics is :).
Some of the last revelers of the night (L to R: cmanaster, Ron Shepston, orangeclouds115, Major Danby, a very demonic looking Lucas O'Connor)
We have 15 months to go before Election Day, and it's time for another roundup of Congressional races. I am going to continue to focus on the top 10 challenges to Republican incumbents. There is certainly a concern in CA-11 with the Jerry McNerney/Dean Andal race, particularly after McNerney's "I'm a moderate" comment seemed to depress supporters. On the bright side, he did vote against the ridiculous FISA bill. And as we go into September, I would hope he would continue his efforts to end the occupation of Iraq. I will certainly cover the McNerney race in future roundups.
But for now, 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)
BENAWU posted another of his great Congressional race tracker updates yesterday, announcing that 317 out of 435 House races have confirmed candidates (or presumed returning incumbents). But despite this early success, in California there are only confirmed challengers for 10 out of 19 sitting Republicans. Only Texas has more unfilled races right now, and it's friggin Texas. As BENAWU notes, all of these districts had challengers in 2006, so some level of infrastructure exists for a challenge. Now many of these districts are going to be tough sledding for any Democrat thanks to redistricting in 2002, but anyone who's been paying attention the last few years knows that the Republican party is potentially vulnerable almost anywhere. The goal of filling every race proved its worth last year with surprising success in supposedly safe districts across the country. Just ask Jerry McNerney or Nancy Boyda or Jim Webb 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)
Last week I ran down the unused money from last year's unopposed and underopposed California members of Congress. It was a long list. 22 districts held by Democrats fielded no Republican challenger who met a very low bar of fundraising legitimacy. Really not impressive, but really not surprising either. So what about the flipside? How did Democrats do in going after Republicans?
Democrats left only one California seat unopposed, and failed to raise money in one other. Of the 21 Republican-held seats, only 4 qualified as as unopposed or underopposed (challenger raising less than $25,000). It suggests two things to me. One, Democrats are already doing a pretty good job of funding candidates in red districts (although there's still room to improve of course), and two, that strong funding only goes so far given the way these districts are drawn. So as I would be cautioning anyways, fundraising is only one piece of the puzzle. It still takes the right candidate in the right context.
Surprisingly enough, considering it's 17 months out, there's actually been some measure of news in the California delegation, most of it pretty good for Democrats. Let's take a look at the top pickup opportunities for Democrats, as well as the top hold races. We'll start with the seats that may be contested (there are only two):
1) CA-37: Not technically a contested seat, but this is the open seat vacated by the late Juanita Millender-McDonald, which will have an open primary on June 26 and a general election (if nobody gets 50%) a couple months thereafter. There are debates this week (Friday) and next (June 14), but so far this has been a battle of endorsements. The CA Democratic Party and the League of Conservation Voters have backed State Senator Jenny Oropeza; the Legislative Black Caucus and the CA Federation of Labor of LA County have backed Assemblywoman Laura Richardson. I do believe that Richardson's endorsements probably mean more on the ground; of course, there's also Millender-McDonald's daughter, Valerie McDonald, who some believe will "split the black vote" and hand the primary to Oropeza. This is a very safe Democratic seat, so the winner of the primary on the Democratic side is all but assured to be the next Congressman.
2) CA-11 (McNerney): Antiwar advocates were pleased with Rep. McNerney's vote on the Iraq funding bill. Former Assemblyman Dean Andal has announced that he'll run for the seat. Obviously, the first re-elect is the toughest, so McNerney will have a fight on his hands here, whether against Andal or somebody else. However, I don't think that attacking McNerney by attacking Nancy Pelosi, which the NRCC has done in recent radio ads, is going to work, considering the Speaker is more popular than Bush as well as previous House Speakers like Newt Gingrich.
(And you thought Dana was just crazy... - promoted by atdleft)
Thanks to a tip from an OC friend, I started to look at the connection between Dana Rohrabacher and Blackwater, the mercenary soldier of fortune organization that was founded by Erik Prince, himself once a Navy Seal. I did not have to look very long.
I have not thought very much about civilian armies. I know that the militia stories that circulated all over after Oklahoma City bombing were scary. Maybe we have all been anesthetized by the military entertainment complex churning out Rambos or Delta Force or television's 24 Hours or The Unit. But I grew up on a higher class of movie. More like The Manchurian Candidate or Dr. Srangelove.
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:
From the not-so-sad files: Duncan Hunter will no longer represent the great state of California come 2009. Of course...maybe he'll be president. Haha!
White House hopeful Rep. Duncan Hunter (R-Calif.) will not seek reelection next year as his 30-year-old son prepares to mount a race for his father's seat.
Duncan D. Hunter, the lawmaker's son, confirmed late Tuesday that the 110th Congress will be his father's last. (The Hill 3/20/07)
Apparently this Duncan D. thinks that we still have this inheritance thing and that he should get that seat. In case you were wondering, the district is R+10 (yikes!). But, I don't think that's actually Hunter+10, so Duncan D's election isn't yet certified.
So, this seems to becoming a regular habit for me. I hope it's useful. So teasers from today's scouring of the Internets: LAT: Pombo must go, Schwarzenegger undermining AB32 already, Workers' Comp, the ACLU
