What a night! As you may have seen, last night I was the highest vote-getter in the 10th Congressional District special primary election and will now face Republican David Harmer in the November 3rd general election.
I want to thank our incredible team of hard working volunteers. They spent countless hours knocking on doors, making phone calls, and making their presence known at community events throughout the district. Our success would not have been possible without them, and they have my deepest gratitude. Because of their efforts, we won all four counties in the district.
I also want to take a moment to acknowledge my competitors in this election:
To David Harmer: Congratulations on your victory among Republicans. I look forward to two months of dialogue focused on the issues and solutions that matter to the people of the 10th Congressional District. I intend to make it clear that a radical right wing agenda that seeks to stop health care reform, starve the education of our children, fails to finance the transportation and infrastructure systems we need, and advocates more tax breaks for the most wealthy is not in the interests of the people of the 10th Congressional District, California, or America.
To Senator Mark DeSaulnier: Your health care town halls helped establish an important dialogue in the campaign about the need for comprehensive health care reform. You are an institution in Contra Costa County, and you have many admirers. You deserve special acknowledgement for your work seeking a constitutional convention. The two-thirds majority requirement has worsened California's problems and I look forward to working with you to bring a working democracy and majority rule back to California.
• Survey USA has been maligned by some for its robo-polling techniques, but they consistently overperformed other pollsters throughout the 2008 primaries, and they basically nailed the polling in CA-10. The final numbers track almost precisely with the final vote tally. Well done.
• These special elections largely come down to name ID, and there's not a whole lot you can do about that. The challengers certainly tried - Joan Buchanan spent $850,000 of her own money and got a whopping 12% of the vote. But Garamendi really cruised to victory in this one.
• Katie Merrill, last seen yelling at the netroots for daring to consider a primary of Ellen Tauscher, became Mark DeSaulnier's campaign manager, where she devised the craptacular strategy of focusing on Garamendi's residency requirement, which approximately nobody cares about, instead of building a campaign infrastructure outside of Contra Costa County. Despite having a minority of residents, in Solano, Alameda and Sacramento counties, Garamendi picked up over 6,000 votes on DeSaulnier, who finished well back in all those regions. There was no way he could have ever won that back in CoCo, where he lost as well by 2,300 votes. Maybe introducing yourself to people outside your base would have worked better than the "neener-neener, here's this technical non-violation" nonsense that is a proven loser.
6. I thought Anthony Woods might break into double-digits. Instead, he ended up with 8.5 percent of the vote. He is a strong candidate who was probably too liberal for the moderate 10th District but he kept the elected officials on their toes. I suspect we will see Woods on a ballot again one of these days.
This "moderate district" thing really has to get flushed down a toilet somewhere. John Garamendi was endorsed by the California Nurses Association, the most progressive organization maybe in America. He's a single-payer advocate. He's strongly liberal and far to the left of Ellen Tauscher. And he won. Woods' difficulty was simply a product of name ID and a quick-strike primary. He didn't have labor ground troops and that was that.
• Just to reiterate, there will now be a general election between Garamendi and David Harmer on November 3. Garamendi will be strongly favored.
As John Garamendi touts in a diary here, the most recent SurveyUSA poll shows the Lt. Governor with a comfortable lead in the CA-10 primary set for Tuesday. I am surprised that another candidate hasn't talked it up as well, however, because the only candidate showing movement from the previous SurveyUSA poll is Anthony Woods.
In fact, this new poll, from 8/26-8/27, has Garamendi at 25%, Sen. Mark DeSaulnier at 16%, Asm. Joan Buchanan at 12% and Anthony Woods at 9%, with 5% undecided. The last poll, from 8/10-8/11 was Garamendi 26%, DeSaulnier 15%, Buchanan 12% and Woods 5%. I don't think there are enough undecided voters to push Woods much further, but he's running the only race drawing undecided voters, if the polls can be believed.
Among those who have already voted, the numbers are similar: Garamendi 27%, DeSaulnier 18%, Buchanan 13% and Woods 10%.
Certainly, Garamendi looks very strong for victory, and there aren't likely to be enough voters Tuesday to favor a late riser, but Anthony Woods is running the only race moving from no built-in support to a credible challenge. As for the relative flatness of the two state legislators, I'd say the choice by Sen. DeSaulnier to decide on a monomaniac focus on Garamendi's residency issue, which simply has not moved voters in numerous other instances, instead of giving voters a reason to support him, would offer some answer. Buchanan has run a self-funded campaign focused mainly on finding female support, but not necessarily a larger message. In an environment with three safe or fairly lackluster campaigns, the expected form is holding. Only Woods appears to be taking in new support, but his uphill battle was perhaps too high to climb.
Just a rundown of events in the CA-10 race with a week until primary day:
• Late last week, fundraising reports were due, showing that over $2 million dollars has been raised by the various candidates seeking Ellen Tauscher's old seat in Congress. By any metric - total cash raised, cash raised in the last cycle, cash raised since June 30, cash on hand, and cash on hand less debts - John Garamendi has the lead, though much of his money comes from big donors. Anthony Woods, and to a lesser extent Mark DeSaulnier, have found a smaller-donor base, though Woods' is mostly out of district. Joan Buchanan has basically not raised money at all; she has given herself as much as $750,000 in loans and is generally self-funded (and what donations she has not given herself have come from such health industry interests as Wellpoint, one of the largest insurers in America). I would say the top four candidates probably have enough money to get out the message within their budgets, however.
• The Contra Costa Times, the main newspaper in the main population center of the district, endorsed John Garamendi for the position. However, their criticism of Mark DeSaulnier, that he "acced(es) to the wishes of organized labor, particularly public employee unions," gives you an indication of their orientation and whether or not you find them a trusted source.
• DeSaulnier continues to hammer on the largely irrelevant point that Garamendi doesn't live inside the district. Here's a mailer to that effect. And practically every missive from campaign staff re-emphasizes this point. I would like their research department to find one instance of when a residency issue like this had any impact on a Congressional race. I just really think DeSaulnier has missed his target here. He's better off showing his progressive bona fides on issues like health care, transportation and the environment, IMO. This is such a critical time, and residency issues do not appear to be at the top of the minds of people who want to see this country make good on the change agenda from 2008, particularly Democratic partisans who would vote in a special election primary.
• Anthony Woods held another live chat at AmericaBlog this week. His position in local endorsements always comes at the end and reads something like "we were very impressed with him and think he has a bright future."
The San Francisco Chronicle, which is not completely the local paper in CA-10 (I would imagine the Contra Costa Times has more readers) but which is a large regional paper with reach into the suburbs, endorsed John Garamendi for Congress today.
Lt. Gov. John Garamendi stands out in this crowd because his vast portfolio of experience is so well aligned with the issues of the times and the big concerns of the district.
Garamendi said he withdrew from the governor's race when this seat became open because "these are the issues I've spent my life on." Others might suggest his decision was conveniently pragmatic - his bid for the Democratic nomination was going nowhere - but there is no doubt about his qualifications for Congress, especially in this district. He was an aggressive and effective insurance commissioner (think health care, consumer issues such as foreclosure), deputy secretary of the U.S. Department of Interior (delta, climate change) and a state legislator from 1974 to 1991.
The 64-year-old Garamendi has the confidence and depth of knowledge that would allow him to hit the ground running in Congress - and his history suggests he would be unabashed in doing so.
The op-ed had good words for practically everyone running, particularly Anthony Woods, but went with Garamendi. In a weird example of symmetry, Bruce Brugmann and the SF Bay Guardian wrote almost exactly the same editorial today.
Meanwhile, Joan Buchanan debuted a spot for the last two weeks of the campaign, which looks pretty much like a generic bio spot, although with her being the only prominent woman in the field, an ad just repeating "Joan Buchanan, Joan Buchanan" for 30 seconds would be somewhat effective (and basically that's what this spot does). The three electeds are all up on cable TV now. Will Anthony Woods use some of his money for TV?
Joan Buchanan is familiar to the voters of the San Ramon Valley School District, where she was elected 5 times to the School Board. But, she's now introducing herself to her second new set of voters in just 10 months. She was elected to the Assembly in November, winning a comfortable victory over Abram Wilson.
She's not what you would consider a progressive champion. She actually bears many similarities to the woman she is vying to replace, former Rep. Ellen Tauscher. Yet Asm. Buchanan is a rather humble, no-nonsense kind of politician. She may not have the oratory abilities to rally the crowds for miles around, but she does put her nose to the grindstone.
The voters of the tenth district are now going to have to decide exactly what kind of Congress member they want. Over the flip, you'll find a very roughly transcribed version of a pretty informative interview. It's definitely worth a read, especially if you are a voter in the district.
The special election to replace Ellen Tauscher in CA-10 is taking an ugly turn. The CDP has announced that its endorsement caucus will take place on August 1, and I'm already having flashbacks to Migden-Leno and the 2008 CDP convention.
You see, even though major flaws in the endorsement process were exposed over a year ago, nothing has changed; nor is there, at least to date, any apparent desire on the part of the CDP to address a situation where powerful outsiders are invited to skew the outcome of endorsements in local races.
The primary election in California's 10th Congressional District is set for September 1, with the general election on November 3. If nobody gets 50%+1 on September 1, the top vote-getters in each party advance to the general election, and given the orientation of the district, the top Democrat on September 1 will be the next Congressmember from CA-10.
The lieutenant governor, John Garamendi, is considered the early favorite to replace Ms. Tauscher. Mr. Garamendi, a Democrat who had considered running for governor next year, said he opted instead for Congress in large part because of the abbreviated campaign [...]
Mr. Garamendi's principal challengers among the Democrats, some polls show, are State Senator Mark James DeSaulnier and Assemblywoman Joan Buchanan. Both were elected to their current posts last fall [...]
The rest of the Democratic field is not as well known, though one candidate has attracted some national attention: Anthony Woods, a 28-year-old graduate of the United States Military Academy at West Point and a veteran of the Iraq war who was awarded the Bronze Star for two tours of duty. Shortly after his return from combat, while at Harvard working toward his master's degree, Captain Woods told military superiors that he is gay, resulting in an honorable discharge [...]
Others in the Democratic field include Tiffany Attwood, a local planning commissioner and self-described "mom who plays soccer" - do not call her a soccer mom - and Adriel Hampton, a former reporter for The San Francisco Examiner who said he was entering politics because of a "Howard Beale moment," referring to the fictional insane anchorman from the 1976 film "Network."
We're slowly starting to learn further details. While candidates don't need to announce fundraising totals until July 15, Anthony Woods got the jump by announcing that he raised over $100,000 from 800 donors, which his campaign reports as twice as many as the number of donors John Garamendi announced a week earlier. He's pushing his online efforts:
Woods' campaign is also leading his CD 10 competitors in online fundraising and online organizing. According to ActBlue.com, Woods is far outpacing the two other Sacramento politicians in the race-State Senator Mark Desaulnier and Assemblywoman Joan Buchanan-in internet fundraising, and Woods has organized more supporters on Facebook (more than 4,700) than every other CD 10 candidate combined.
Woods has captured some national attention, particularly in the blogosphere, and we'll see if that translates to a quick-sprint campaign. John Garamendi seems not to think so:
Garamendi said it's a three-way race, and he's not counting Woods as a top-tier candidate: "He's a serious young man that's capable, and he's got a national issue and a good story to go with it. And that's to his benefit."
But he said Woods is similar to the half-dozen or so other confirmed or prospective candidates who lack a natural base for their campaigns: "Everybody regards me as the front-runner."
To that end, Garamendi secured a local labor endorsement, from the Alameda County Central Labor Council. There's a small patch of Alameda County in the district, particularly around Livermore. But the dynamic in the race thus far has been that Mark DeSaulnier locked up all the early local support, including Contra Costa County's Labor Council, and Garamendi had roped in the national labor groups. The Lt. Governor getting local labor support helps him with manpower.
I hope to have much more on this race as it moves forward, including some discussions on the issues currently facing Congress.
...couple updates. I hadn't realized that Garamendi announced a $300,000 haul for the last quarter about a week ago. Also, per babaloo in comments, the Alameda County Central Labor Council made a dual endorsement of Garamendi and DeSaulnier.
Given the relative ambivalence in recent special elections in California, where members of Congress have been elected with 10,000 votes or less, I'd consider it an accomplishment that hundreds of people flocked to the Walnut Creek Jewish Community Center last night, on a Friday night, to hear from six of the Democratic candidates who will seek to replace Ellen Tauscher in CA-10, once she is confirmed to an appointment at the State Department and resigns her seat. Reader dslc has a short on-site commentary here, and Lisa Vorderbrueggen has provided lots of multimedia over at Political Blotter. The audio recording doesn't seem to be working right now, but she had videos of every candidate's closing statement. In case you're just tuning in, those candidates include:
(Bothwell is a San Francisco-area attorney who doesn't yet have a campaign website, but here's his law office site.)
Sadly, this is pretty much the extent of major media coverage that exists of yesterday's event, despite several hundred residents and a Congressional race that impacts hundreds of thousands. Our dwindling press corps is definitely a problem. But based on the closing statements, you can decide for yourself who performed well last night. I'll just throw around some other links as the race really kicks into gear. As a side note, apparently Garamendi brought out the giant golden bear clearly planned as his mascot for a gubernatorial race.
• Luke Thomas interviews Joan Buchanan for the Fog City Journal, and Buchanan comes of as pretty knowledgeable about the challenges we face. She foregrounded her support of mass transit and BART expansion, health care reform (she supports single payer but wouldn't commit to supporting HR 676, and thinks that a plan currently moving through the House with a robust public option could be a "stepping stone" to single payer) and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan (she generally supports Obama's position).
• Also in the Fog City Journal, Harold Brown has an op-ed about Adriel Hampton, claiming that "SF lefties are missing an opportunity" by not rallying to his campaign.
• Anthony Woods is getting a fair amount of attention on the blogs. AR Dem profiled him in this MyDD user diary, and today, Woods took questions at Firedoglake in a live chat session with Howie Klein. I thought he served himself well.
• Lisa V. fixed the audio feed, which you can find here. Her story on the forum is here.
In the first central Contra Costa County showdown of Democratic candidates vying for the chance to replace Rep. Ellen Tauscher, a packed room Friday night heard little in the way of substantive policy differences but saw vastly disparate approaches.
Relative youngsters Adriel Hampton and Anthony Woods, 30 and 28 respectively, emphasized their lack of ties to the establishment [...]
The high-profile candidates with decades of political experience - Lt. Governor John Garamendi; Assemblywoman Joan Buchanan, D-Alamo; and state Sen. Mark DeSaulnier, D-Concord - stressed their individual policy strengths.
Also, there's actually another forum this Tuesday, June 23, sponsored by the El Cerrito Democratic Club. It starts at 6:30 p.m. at Fellowship Hall, El Cerrito United Methodist Church, 6830 Stockton Avenue (at Richmond Avenue), El Cerrito.
First, kudos to Brian Leubitz, out tonight talking blogs to a more traditional crowd who hopefully will take opportunity to get more involved in self-publishing. It's so easy to preach to the choir when it comes to social media, and Brian is expanding the base for the progressive blogosphere. You can check out some of my live tweets from Brian's discussion with the Diablo Valley Democratic Club over at @adriel4congress.
A bit disappointing tonight in that we expected to have a brief candidates forum, but it was called off due to the apolitical library venue. Chris Buchanan was again subbing for his mother, Joan, Lt. Gov. John Garamendi was a no-show. I got some good advice on weaknesses in my first forum from a local delegate.
This looks to be a real fight, no quarter asked, none given.
Just wanted to drop a note about the great candidate's forum in Dublin tonight. It was my first time seeing Anthony Woods speak and I join in the assessment that he's got a great future in political leadership. Sean Mykael McMullen of Bear Flag Blue and the DeSaulnier campaign did some great live tweeting, and my friend Kaushal Khalla took a bunch of photos (OK, most of them are of me) and posted to Facebook.
As I mentioned a few days ago, I attended the East Bay DFA meeting last night. It was great to hang out with some folks who are regular contributors to Calitics.
The meeting began with a recap of the CDP convention, where a member of the group, Hilary Crosby, was elected to the position of CDP Controller. Several other members of East Bay DFA were elected to caucus positions, including Karen Weinstein to Women's Caucus Chair. This is really a remarkably successful club.
Once all the collective high-fives were issued and the pizza was devoured, the CA-10 candidates got up there and did their thing. You might want to check Matt Lockshin's twitter feed for the live tweeting action.
Joan Buchanan began, pointing out that No Child Left Behind is still vastly underfunded. But, once she finished up with her schpiel, the first question was from a supporter of Nancy Skinner. Skinner, the progressive Assembly Member from AD-14, sent her volunteers over the East Bay Hills to get Buchanan elected. It seems many of these progressive folks are a smidge bitter that she's ready to run for another office so soon after a bitter fight to get her elected in AD-15. She handled it fairly well, saying if she won, she would do everything to ensure that AD-15 stays in Democratic hands.
John Garamendi went next, and gave a patented John Garamendi speech. It was fiery and passionate. He addressed the issues of why he is running for the seat, why he would be the most effective candidate, and all the people he knows. He's been in this game for a while. Which is a contrast to...
Anthony Woods, who went next. You could tell Woods wasn't quite so seasoned. He spoke off of notes, which I think did him a bit of a disservice. He knew the issues, and in a small room like that, getting people to feel like you are really addressing them is more important than getting every word right. That being said, he did get pretty much every word right. The speech was great, people liked his story and his positions. Whether he wins this race or not, Woods is well positioned to be a leader in the area in the future.
Finally, Sen. Mark DeSaulnier mentioned how Reps. Tauscher and Miller both called him about running for the seat. How he had all the big name endorsements. He's really quite progressive, from the Constitutional Convention bill he's carrying in the Senate to his legislative scorecards.
In the questions, we got views on Afghanistan, the death penalty, and a range of issues. I'm sure the voters will hear quite a lot from these four going forward.
Finally, I had a little debate with Sen. DeSaulnier about the propositions. I will grant him that it was a friendly room to me; the people in DFA strongly oppose Prop 1A and the rest of the package. And DeSaulnier recognized that, and to his credit acknowledged that it was a result of extortion. He admitted it was not his idea of good policy, but said that it was the best deal they could get in the Legislature. I of course disagree, but props to him for being honest about. More props to him for pushing Prop 1C over the rest of the measures while still acknowledging that he didn't think that there was actually $5 billion to be had in lottery liquidity.
The more I find out about the CA-10 poll John Garamendi released on Monday, the worse it smells. The press release about this poll from the Garamendi campaign gave out limited information as to how the poll was conducted, which raised a number of questions. However, Peter Charles left a comment at Calitics where he shared more information about the details of the poll. Those details exposed three glaring errors that jumped out from the information that was provided to the poll's participants.
When the participants were given bios of the three Democratic candidates, here's what they heard about Mark DeSaulnier, Joan Buchanan, and John Garamendi:
3a. Democrat State Senator Mark Desaulnier has served in the state legislature since 2004. Before that he served on the Contra Costa Board of Supervisors from 1996 to 2004. His top priority issues will be rebuilding the country's economy, implementing clean energy programs, and regulating Wall Street banks. He is endorsed by Congress members Ellen Tauscher and George Miller, local firefighters, teachers, police and environmental groups.
3b. Democrat State Assemblywoman Joan Buchanan was elected to the State Assembly last November. Before that she served for 10 years on the San Ramon (ruh-MOAN) Valley school board. Her top priority issues will be more jobs and improving the economy, increasing renewable energy programs, and reforming public education. She will likely be endorsed by local elected leaders, school board members, teachers, and civil rights and womens groups.
3c. Democrat John Garamendi is California's Lieutenant Governor. He has lived in the Sacramento portion of Congressional District 10 for 30 years. He previously served as Deputy Secretary of the Interior for Bill Clinton. He is running for Congress to continue reforming health care, rebuild our economy around clean energy, and reform bank and credit card laws. He will be endorsed by local nurses, firefighters, teachers, police officers as well as former President Bill Clinton and Al Gore.
The problem here is that the pollster misrepresented all three candidates, and he did it in a way that predictably favored the candidate who hired him.
You have to ask yourself this question. If a pollster will lie about both his own candidate's and the opposing candidates' biographies, what else will he lie about?
And those aren't the only problems. To get into the really wonkerific world of why Garamendi's polling sample is all wrong, flip it...
That is the day that Ellen Tauscher announced that she would be accepting the job as Undersecretary of State for Arms Control and International Security. For all intents & purposes, that is also the day the campaign for California's 10th district got under way.
First there was Adriel Hampton, and then Mark DeSaulnier, soon after Joan Buchanan jumped into the fray, and then Anthony Woods, and most recently, after abandoning his flailing gubernatorial campaign, John Garmendi decided he would run in the 10th as well.
So how are their respective campaigns going so far?
That's the verdict according to a J. Moore Methods poll that dropped over the weekend and that found its way into my hands this afternoon. Remember that this is an open primary - if someone gets more than 50% they win; if not then the top candidates from each party go to a runoff. According to the poll, Lt. Gov. John Garamendi leads among likely voters (36% have no opinion):
Garamendi
Rupf
DeSaulnier
Buchanan
Support:
24
17
13
10
Known:
80
20
39
45
Favorable:
35
9
16
17
Unfavorable:
12
9
13
12
(Rupf is Republican Warren Rupf, Sheriff of CoCo County)
The personal ratings are included, which show that Garamendi also has a big name ID and favorability advantage over all his challengers. Voter turnout is projected to be 30%, with 55% Dem, 33% Rep, and 12% DTS.
Of course, Garamendi doesn't have a 50% lead here, and the election hasn't even been scheduled yet. There's time for either DeSaulnier or Buchanan to try and catch up, but it's going to be a difficult climb. Garamendi's high public profile and ability to raise money for this campaign will be significant advantages. DeSaulnier, a solid progressive who would also make an excellent member of Congress, can counter with strong on-the-ground support, but it's unclear if that can trump Garamendi's built-in advantages.
This leads me to wonder if Buchanan plans to stick around in the race - I can't see her getting very far against this kind of opposition. Or perhaps DeSaulnier might step back and let Garamendi take it. So far as I can tell, however, both fully intend to continue their run.
Neither Anthony Woods nor Adriel Hampton were included in this poll, but I can't imagine either one would meaningfully impact the outcome.
So as far as I can tell this is Garamendi's to lose. We'll see if this poll shifts the landscape at all.
There are a few weeks in each legislative session that I get simply barraged with press releases from legislative staff. And this week is one of them, as the deadline for bills to pass out of their respective policy committees is on Friday. But before I move on... here's a rant:
First, props for trying to reach out to bloggers, that's a point for you. But I would give one point of free advice to all you press flacks out there, please include the text of the press release in the email. I really don't want to open a PDF just so that I can get the privilege of having all of your pretty formatting work out every time. And by text, I mean text, not an image of text. Ok end rant.
Now, to some of the actual bills that have emerged from policy committees that are taking up space in my inbox. First, how about one from an environmental champion, Lois Wolk:
Wolk´s Senate Bill 679 prohibits the use of state park lands for non-park purposes without legislative approval. Even with legislative approval, the bill would not allow a project to move forward unless the use of the park land was compensated for with a parks´ designation for land with equal environmental and fair market value. (Press Release here)
And how about a couple from Sen. Leland Yee. SB 557 would allow law enforcement to sieze property from human traffickers. And in response to the SF Bay Oil Spill last year, he has gotten SB 1217 passed out of the policy committee. It would regulate bar pilots and provide more transparency in the process.
And how about one from freshman Assembly member Joan Buchanan? Her AB 1317 was passed out of the Assembly Committee on Health. The bill would provide access to parent of newborns for tests to screen for a wide range of disorders, such as sickle cell anemia.
I suppose I am encouraging more emails with this post, so I guess all you Assembly staff can feel free to shoot me more emails with tales of your boss's big breakthrough.
There have been a few voices suggesting California Lt. Governor John Garamendi abandon his bid to replace Liebermanesque Ellen Tauscher and instead run in California's third congressional district against Dan Lungren.
And if you are a Democrat - especially a Progressive Democrat - that is good news. Strategically, such a move would be counterproductive for Democrats.
It Makes No Sense for California Democrats
The biggest problem in California is the Republican Veto. This means that Democrats may have a majority in the legislature, but not a functioning majority. With the artificial budget control by Republicans, it actually hurts Democrats if a legislator ascends to congress in a Special Election. With state Senator Mark DeSaulnier and Assemblywoman Joan Buchanan both running for Tauscher's seat, in all likelihood a Democratic legislator will win unless Garamendi runs.
With John Garamendi's announcement yesterday, and the State Democratic Convention kicking off tomorrow, I had a feeling this announcement might be coming today.
She's has made it official...Joan Buchanan is entering the race for California's 10th Congressional District.
After consulting with hundreds of community leaders, voters, elected colleagues and activists across our region; after considering the extraordinary financial challenges facing the country; and after carefully evaluating where I can make the most significant contribution, I have decided that I will be a candidate for Congress in our district.
We now have 3 great Democratic candidates in the race for the 10th...not to mention the newcomers who have yet to had a chance to really prove themselves and tell their stories.
Last Wednesday, Senator Mark DeSaulnier, the only candidate for California's 10th to receive any public endorsements so far, wrapped up yet another important early one...that of the Contra Costa County Central Labor Council. Today the CCCCLC made it official.
This is in addition to endorsements by Congresswoman Ellen Tauscher, Congressman George Miller, California Senate President Pro Tempore Darrell Steinberg, and State Assemblymember Tom Torlakson, as well as the Contra Costa Building Trades Council. Quite the impressive list.
After joining Assemblymember Joan Buchanan & Lt Gov. John Garamendi at last Thursday's Contra Costa Central Committee meeting, Mark DeSaulnier took a few moments on Monday night to speak with the Tri-Valley Democratic Club.
Short diary, but I saw this story and wanted to pass it on. According to the story, Joan Buchanan and Mark DeSaulnier support all of them, while John Garamendi opposes all of them.
