"The right to vote is fully protected under the XV Amendment of the US constitution. Anybody that uses any intimidation tactics should be prosecuted with the full power of the law. When Mr. Nguyen or anybody else uses the printing materials such as letterhead of an anti-immigrant organization it shows intent to intimidate. How more clear can it be? I feel disappointed that it was LULAC that had to call the State Attorney General's office to find out the results of the investigations rather than the AG call us. When I spoke with Mr. Schons he said that the case was closed back in February, they really dropped the ball. We are going to ask the US Attorney General to fully investigate this issue."
Remember Tan Nguyen? Yes, that Tan Nguyen! Well, he's now legally free and clear... Or at least, he is on the state end. Here's what the AP has just learned (via OC Register):
The state Attorney General's Office said today that it will not file criminal charges against a former congressional candidate whose campaign mailed letters warning immigrants against voting.
Tan Nguyen, a Vietnamese immigrant, was trying to unseat Democratic Rep. Loretta Sanchez last year when his campaign sent out 14,000 letters to Hispanic immigrants claiming they could be deported or jailed for voting. The controversy erupted just three weeks before the Nov. 2 election. [...]
But they could find no criminal intent, Senior Assistant Attorney General Gary Schons told The Associated Press in a telephone interview.
"We had to prove that they intended to intimidate lawfully registered voters. We found no evidence that they intended to intimidate lawfully registered voters. In fact, the first line of the letter said, 'If you're a lawfully registered voter, we encourage you to vote.' A lot of people missed that," Schons said.
Here are some wild and wonderful stories from behind the Orange Curtain, and direct from our friends at the Orange County GOP, that will make you laugh, cry, and scratch your head in total disbelief:
- Meet the Godfather. Who ever knew that "Godfather" Mike Schroeder would allow Don Daucher, husband of former (moderate GOPer) Assemblymember Lynn Daucher, to make nice with him. I guess Trung Nguyen really is bringing everyone together...
- And speaking of Mr. Photoshop... The California Republican Lawyers' Association has agreed to help Trung Nguyen in the recount. And why? Because "Ms. [Janet] Nguyen claims to be a Republican, and we found it puzzling she has involved so many Democrat Attorneys." 'Cuz ya know, them Democrat Attorneys like to make sure that elections ain't stolen, and they care about the law...
And it ain't that much fun to win an election legally... hehe ; )
- DeVore's Smokin'!! OK, maybe not... But our favorite Irvine Assemblymember is teaming up with Mark Leno (??!!) to reintroduce legislation that would legalize industrial hemp. As DeVore says in a recent interview with the ABC affiliate in SF, "It's absolutely criminal that American farmers, the most productive and efficient farmers on the planet, cannot be allowed to grow a naturally occurring plant, that grows wild in America." Wow, I actually agree with DeVore on something...
Reps. John Doolittle, Jerry Lewis and Gary Miller, all are under some sort of federal investigation, yet the dirty three are still planning on running for re-election in '08 (as long as they don't get indicted by then). Each one has taken their turn under the corruption spotlight. Right now it is Miller time, as the investigation into his tax evasion heats up.
Roll Call, the insider rag in DC says today (sub req):
The Pew Internet & American Life Project, a leading research authority, reports that when compared with the 2002 Midterm Election, the number of Americans who relied on the internet for most of their campaign news in 2006 doubled.
"Some 15% of all American adults say the internet was the place where they got most of their campaign news during the election, up from 7% in the mid-term election of 2002."
It is a busy political week, with the State of the State, the first 100 Hours, Arnold's health care proposal and this post may be a bit retro in comparison, but I figured you guys would be interested in a behind the scenes strategic look at how an IE came together. This is cross-posted from the WC Blog.
The campaign that Working Californians was most heavily involved in during 2006 was the Controller race between right-wing Tony Strickland and John Chiang, who was sworn in yesterday. Our independent expenditure campaign, thanks to the support of a diverse list of sponsoring organizations, used a variety of methods including radio ads and direct mail helped carry Chiang to victory. But how effective were we?
Emboldened by their role in the Dem sweep, liberal bloggers are now targeting Rep. Ellen Tauscher (D-CA 10), a Bay Area centrist, pro-business Dem in the mold of Joe Lieberman.
But defenders of Tauscher note that Kos and some others in the blogosphere sharply targeted the moderate Lieberman -- and got credit for getting him defeated in the Democratic primary -- only to find their influence was viewed as profoundly weakened when he was handily re-elected as an independent in the mid-term elections.
Tauscher can't run as an independent once she loses and it was the same blogs that BEAT LIEBERMAN that also put Tester and Webb over the top. I don't know who views flipping the senate as "profoundly weakened" influence, but Marinucci should stop listening to them.
The Senate race in District 34 was by far the most carefully-watched legislative race in the state. It was the only high-profile race, one agreed to be competitive by all analysts.
This district is situated in Central Orange County, in the Santa Ana/Anaheim/Garden Grove area. It is the only district in Orange County that can ever elect Democrats, since the county is so overwhelmingly Republican. The district is 58% Hispanic, but because of low Hispanic participation is competitive between the parties.
Sorry, it looks like there won't be an Odds and Ends today. But, how sad is this:
Annette Pombo wants her husband home. Because of last week's election, that's right where he's going.
"She's got a list, a long list, of stuff that needs to be done," Richard Pombo said with a laugh Wednesday afternoon.(SacBee 11/16/06)
Awww...that's so sad. And oh, it turns out that Pombo didn't really like that job after all. So, ha, Jerry, you did Pombo a favor. Richard gets the last laugh after all!
"I always felt that what I did was very important," Pombo said, but "I was never crazy about the job."
And I was never crazy about the way you did your job.
In the first couple centuries of European warfare following the introduction of gunpowder, giant medieval walls met cannons and explosives. Eventually, the cannons and sappers would blow a gap in the wall. Then a group of volunteers, called in the British Army "The Forlorn Hope", would charge the gap. Those men almost always died, but their sacrifice was necessary to draw the fire of the defenders and force them to expend their ammunition, so the second wave of attackers could get through the breach. Survivors, if any, were promoted to officer.
The 50-state, 435-district strategy requires that many Democratic candidates serve as a forlorn hope. These Democratic candidates ran in heavily Republican districts where they had little to no chance to win. But they forced the Republicans to spend money and resources simply to retain their seats, were there to take advantage of mistakes or scandal, and helped to build and energize infrastructure in those districts.
While we're all celebrating the victory of last Tuesday, let us thank the Democrats' forlorn hope -- they probably won this for us. In California, at least in the races I've been following, that means that I want to thank these candidates and all of their campaign staff and volunteers:
Charlie Brown, running against John 15% Doolittle in CA-04.
David Roth, running against Mary Bono in CA-45
Francine Busby, running again in CA-50 against Brian Bilbray
Bill Durston, running against Dan Lungren in CA-03
Jill Martinez, running against Elton Gallegly in CA-24
Roberto Rodriguez, running against Buck McKeon in CA-25
Thanks to all of you. You made this victory possible.
A few articles came out yesterday describing some of the demographics of the election last Tuesday. Both are positive in terms of the Democratic coalition, regionally, statewide, and nationally, going forward.
First, unsurprisingly, Latino voters shifted towards Democrats this year. Nationally, this is likely due to the James Sensenbrenners and Duncan Hunters of the world attacking immigrants. (Oh, yeah, I'm going to love seeing Duncan Hunter in the presidential debates).
Anger over anti-immigrant rhetoric helped fuel a shift in the Latino vote to Democrats, damaging Republican hopes of luring this fast-growing population into its fold, Latino activists and political analysts said Thursday.
{snip}
Analysts said that Republican attempts to use immigration as a wedge issue to galvanize conservative voters backfired by instead rousing more Latinos to vote. Those results were particularly apparent in Arizona, "ground zero" of the immigration debate, where several Republican immigration hawks were defeated, analysts said.
"[Republicans] have done long-term permanent damage to their brand with this community," said Simon Rosenberg, president of the Washington, D.C.-based New Democrat Network. (LAT 11/10/06)
And who else would the immigration message of the Republicans ("GO HOME!") offend? Well there's a wide range of groups, especially here in the cultural mish-mash of California. One group is California's Asian-Americans. In the SF Bay area, they voted strongly in favor of Phil and the Dem ticket.
[As for the] governor's race, the Bay Area's Asian-American voters favored Democratic Party candidate Phil Angelides ? about 67 percent ? while Los Angeles County voters were again nearly evenly split between Angelides and Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, according to the poll.(Oak Trib 11/10/06)
It's also important to note the role of Asian-Americans in John Chiang's victory over Tony Strickland in the controller's race. Given the vast IE resources supporting Strickland, grassroots and identity politics played a big role in our victory in that race. The state party needs to encourage outreach in the Asian-American community. We need to cultivate a diverse range of leaders, and encourage further involvement in state and local politics.
(A great story, including Sequoia machine problems. - promoted by SFBrianCL)
Crossposted from my livejournal.
I spent the day working the polls in Santa Clara County (where the voting method is Sequoia touch-screen machines with VeriVote printers) with auros. This is the third election we've worked together (the first being the stupid special election last fall) and the second in the same precinct but so far it was definitely the most exciting, the busiest and the most fraught with problems! Below is a synopsys of how the day went, just to give one snapshot of the sorts of glitches we dealt with, similar to problems I'm sure happened all over the state and the country. I'm sure my timeline isn't perfect - the times things happened at are estimates from memory since I don't have a copy of the procedural or technical exception logs from the precinct (we had to turn them in of course).
(Finally, some pushback from the MSM. - promoted by SFBrianCL)
In a rare election day editorial, the Sacramento Bee blasted the voter suppression efforts that Washington, DC Republicans are using in an attempt to lower voter turnout against embattled GOP Secretary John Doolittle.
Today's Sacramento Bee has a recap of yesterday's campaigning in the fourth district where Brown's major event had four times as many people as Doolittle's:
"We've got to knock on every single door," screamed former Democratic Senate candidate Paul Hackett, out from Ohio to boost the Brown troops, at a spirited rally Saturday afternoon at the Roseville Opera House.
"You can rest on Wednesday," Hackett told the 200 or so flag-waving Brown loyalists chanting "Char-lee, Char-lee, Char-lee."
At the Doolittle campaign, it was the same message.
"How this election turns out may determine who controls the House of Representatives next year," Doolittle told a group of 50 or so supporters at his Roseville campaign headquarters before they headed out with him to canvass neighborhoods.
A few weeks ago I wrote about a poll that showed that Oregonians would really like to be rid of their Prop 90-type measure, Measure 37. Last week, the No on 90 folks released a series of videos of people in Oregon who are now dealing with the ramifications. These videos detail stories of people who are trying to fight developers, and losing due to the effects of Measure 37.
Calitics readers have long been supporting Charlie Brown, so it is refreshing to see more and more of the inside-the-beltway types finally realize that the fourth district is in play. Congressional Quarterly gets on board:
Calif. Roundup: Brown Works His Way Into Contention in 4th District
California’s 4th District: Retired Air Force Lt. Col. Charlie Brown has faced obstacles in shedding his underdog image as he bids to unseat eight-term Republican Rep. John T. Doolittle in northeastern California’s 4th District — one of the state’s most conservative-leaning and traditionally Republican constituencies.
But Brown’s dogged effort has combined with the cloud of ethics controversy hanging over Doolittle to turn this into one of the year’s surprise hotly contested races.
This is the second time this month that CQ has updated the race. Your fifty state strategy at work.
(Maybe the truth will set Bruce McPherson free... to spend more time with his family. Debra Bowen is a star -- she's already got my vote, and she should have everyone's. - promoted by jsw)
Sen. Debra Bowen is starting to get some attention on her excellent web ad, which demonstrates just how easy it is to break into Diebold voting machines. The fact of the matter is that even though that particular model is not being used in California the ones that are have their own problems.
