The Stockton Record took a very unscientific poll during the week. While the information should be taken with a grain of salt the size of Nebraska, the results were great for us:
Rep. Richard Pombo's political life rests on the number of Republican voters who cast ballots for him Tuesday.
Democrats are not likely to vote for the seven-term incumbent - and voters who decline to state a political preference are supporting Democrat Jerry McNerney by a margin of more than 2-to-1, according to a Record survey of such voters taken last week. (Stockton Record 11.05.06)
So, let's make the calls and walk the precincts to seal the deal.
The McNerney campaign has patched together a video with footage from Bill Clinton's visit here. I am really quite impressed that over a thousand people stayed to wait until 10:30 at night. They are trying to raise some last minute funds so consider that as well. Go Jerry!
(He's one scary SOB. Rec the diary at dKos. - promoted by SFBrianCL)
What, you might ask, does arch-conservative Tom McClintock have to do with the diabetes epidemic that is about to overwhelm every other pressing need on the long list of pressing needs in front of our lawmakers today?
At Monday’s stem cell research press conference in San Francisco, I got myself a quick education in the broad implications of epidemic diabetes, stem cell research and the office of Lt. Governor. (Thank you to the folks at the Garamendi campaign for linking to video from their release.
All public health experts agree that a diabetes epidemic is overwhelming our already fractured health care delivery system. What is not well known is that we haven’t seen anything yet. We need money for national defense? Schools? Roads? Fuggedaboutit!
In a welcome element of serendipity and Democratic teamwork, Jerry McNerney and his smashing grassroots campaign to boot R. Pombo out of Congress, are also speaking out in support of stem cell research and taking issue with Mr. McClintock.
So, Halloween in the Castro was pretty crazy, huh? I went home around 9 after eating at a local establishment. Aparently, 10 people were shot shortly thereafter. That puts a damper on your party.
Teasers: Arnold Schwarzenegger, polls, sexual harassment, Prop 90, a power struggle in the Assembly Minority, Richard Pombo attacks small businesses, Pg&e in Davis, and more!
Constituent Dynamics has released their latest batch of "Majority Watch" polls, which include CA-04 and CA-11. Some great news here, Jerry McNernery is leading Richard Pombo 48-46. Of course, this is within the margin of error, but it once again shows how endgangered Pombo really is. As far as I know, this is the only independent poll of the district, and it is doubtful that any more will come out.
As for CA-04, John Doolittle is leading Charlie Brown very slightly, 49-46. Again, this is within the margin of error. This is a tough district for Dems, as Bush garnered 61% of the vote in 2004. However, Brown has managed to make it a very tight battle. Additionally, I have been told that Brown has a great level of volunteer support. However, I'm sure that additional volunteers are always needed.
I haven't done any Weekend Odds and Ends. I tend to get a bit lazy, but they are just as important around these days. So, here we go. Teasers: Pray for Mountjoy, Schwarzenegger and his hypocrisy on crime, Pombo's ghost, Prop 89 and more.
Just in case you didn't think Pombo was desperate, they are sinking to push-polling. Not that it's really that much of a stretch for Dirty Dick Pombo/ It's just sad that instead of trying to present a positive vision, Pombo thinks that he has to use dirty tactics.
A rough outline of the script:
Support Pombo? Y or N
If No:
Is McNerney toooo (emphasis theirs) liberal?
If No:
Call Terminates.
The Stockton Record editorial board apparently has their head buried so far in the sand that they, like the Lodi newspaper, think that somehow Richard Pombo is going to stop being Richard Pombo. Like a victim of domestic abuse, they just, tragically, keep coming back for more.
What follows (on the flip) could be the most bizarre endorsement that I have ever read since well, the Lodi endorsement of Pombo. They want Pombo to be elected, but they want the guy who talked tough before he was first elected. They want him to change his corrupt ways, they want him to be a model citizen, they want him to be, well, not Richard Pombo.
And their reason for not supporting McNerney? Well, apparently they believe he doesn't have enough experience. Well, they didn't mind so much when Richard Pombo, a brash 32 year old rancher of privilige strolled onto the scene. McNerney has real business experience and a great technical familiarity with the challenges we will face as we attempt to free ourselves of our oil addiction.
But the Record would rather have a man who tried to sell of the National Parks, gut the Endangered Species Act and play with corrupt lobbyists. Oh, I'm sorry, they endorsed the non-corrupt Richard Pombo. Problem is, that man is long gone. We are stuck with the corrupt one, and no amount of wishing or Pombo apologies will change that.
And here's how I imagine that editorial board interview went: "I'll never do it again baby-district. I'm only corrupt because I love you so much. You can cover up those oil derricks off the coast with a big sweatshirt and some foundation."
Check over the flip for snippets of the "endorsement"
Well, it's about damn time! The DCCC has finally entered the CA-11 race. They've releasd a new ad which should hit the air today. I'm not sure how big the ad buy is right now, but I'll be sure to update the diary if I hear anything.
CA-11 has increasingly become a viable race. The district is trending away from Pombo. And while the newcomers aren't necessarily San Francisco liberals, they are people that care about the enviironment. And they are generally well-informed about what Pombo is doing to the nation.
Follow me over the flip.The DCCC has FINALLY entered the CA-11 race for Jerry McNerney. This ad, which is actually really good, will go out today. I don't know how big the buy is, but I'll try to get some information.
(He takes it seriously when it smacks him in the face. Just like everything else, Pombo fails to see the ramifications of globalization. - promoted by SFBrianCL)
So Pombo went on the air this week with a new ad hitting McNerney on the war on terror, claiming that McNerney wants to stop law enforcement from monitoring terrorist phone calls and also is against the death penalty for terrorists, based on McNerney's responses to the Project Vote Smart Issues Survey (NPAT). Aside from the fact that this latest Pombo ad is extremely deceptive and stretches the truth, Pombo's ad is also totally hypocritical.
Because when you take a look at the same site, Project Vote Smart, one can look up Pombo's own voting record on legislation dealing with national security and terrorism. (Pombo REFUSED to take the same Issues Survey that McNerney did, despite being urged to do so by John McCain and others). And wouldn't you know it, prior to 9/11, in 1996, Richard Pombo voted against anti-terrorism legislation on TWO occasions--legislation that would have helped law enforcement crack down on terrorists, and thwart and prevent terrorist attacks.
I've been putting all the Odds, and all the Ends, in the extended. But this one, this one, gets front page treatment: The Sacramento Bee has endorsed Jerry McNerney:
If you prefer the politics of extremes; if you're OK with selling off national parks; if backroom deal-making and tainted money suit you; if you embrace out-of-balance budgets and the concentration of wealth -- Pombo's your man. But he is no longer representing the true interests of his district, state or nation. That's ample reason for voters to send Jerry McNerney to Congress.
The Bee becomes just the latest in a string of endorsements of McNerney and fellow Dem Charlie Brown. Now, let'st get to the teasers of the stuff over the flip: Schwarzenegger drops another $3.5 mil, Garamendi cleared, Pooch's frivilous lawsuit, Dick Mountjoy being...Dick Mountjoy, and more...
This diary is really two short diaries combined into one. First, Pombo is a sore loser. Below the fold, why would DHS renew the contract with the limo company implicated in the Duke Cunningham scandal?
I did not expect to receive the San Francisco Chronicle's endorsement, but when you gave your blessing to my opponent I certainly did not expect it to be based on factual inaccuracies or laden with political innuendo and heresy.
I love that opening, "I didn't want your stupid endorsement anyway!" And "heresy"? Although I know the GOP likes to think of itself as God's Own Party, I'm assuming he meant "hearsay." (that vocab mixup is only the first piece of evidence that he didn't send this one through the campaign staff filter before sending it)
When you move away from the coast, and reach into the Republican areas of the state, you'll find political machines to rival any of those found in the big coastal cities. Big City machines have to deal with powerful mayors (i.e. Newsom and Villaraigosa) and have a large number of Congressmen. Resentment of the mayors typically limits the actual amount of power that the mayors will have, and so you have kind of a crazy push and pull between different power sources.
But while less urban machines may not have as great of number of positions, they make up for it in authoritorianism. John Doolittle personally chooses who will run for each position, who gets what money, etc. There is nobody to compete with Doolittle. There are no mayors that have where near the authority to challenge him. See Auburn mayor John Michael Holmes about that one.
Pombo is no different, his shady dealings were detailed in the Tracy Press (I'm quite surprised too). He has vested interests in the district. Especially in Tracy. Especially in real estate. He was, shall we say, less than pleased in 2001 when Tracy passed a ballot initiative that limited the number of homes built per year. The current city council has already made deals with developers, including the family of big Phil Angelides supporter Angelo Tsakapalous. Long story short, the city council has accepted two deals. One would build $20 mil worth of sports parks, and the other would build a simiarly priced waterpark. The developers would then get the right to build a ton of homes once the slow growth initiative expired.
Sounds dirty, but where does Pombo come in you ask? Oh well, you see the land that the developers want to build on, yeah, it belongs to the Pombo family. So, Celeste Garamendi, who is running for mayor, wants to continue slow growth and plans on fighting those plans. So, what does Pombo do? He dumps $25,000 into her opponent's campaign. That's a lot of money for a position like mayor of Tracy.
Garamendi sees in the Pombo donation an effort by a corporate cabal to maintain power in Tracy.
“The money is being directed 100 percent at maintaining the special-interest control of the council,” said Garamendi, who is running on a slate with council candidates Carole Dominguez and Roger Adhikari. “Pombo has historically supported unrestrained development.
Yup, that sounds just like the Pombo we know and the Pombo we (don't) love.
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
A few things from CA-11. First, Jerry picked up another endorsement, this time from the San Jose Mercury-News. (dKos link for the McNerney folks' diary here, please recommend.) While Jerry doesn't seem to have made a huge impression on the Merc, but Pombo has just become too noxious to most interested voters who look beyond party labels:
There are times when voters realize the best thing they can do in a race is to hold their noses and vote for their party's candidate.
In the 11th Congressional District race involving Richard Pombo, Republican voters must avoid that temptation. Instead, they should cast their ballots for Democrat Jerry McNerney.
{snip}
Pombo is a national disgrace to the Republican Party. His unseemly connections to scandal-ridden lobbyist Jack Abramoff should be an embarrassment to all Republicans. ... And his questionable connections to oil companies, gambling interests and mining companies have been well documented. ... It's past time that mainstream Republicans let Pombo know there isn't a place for his kind of politics in their Big Tent.(SJ Merc 10/16/06)
And onto Pombo's website. It seems that you would be the only person on it. While he hasn't released his traffic data, but there are whispers around the district that he redesigned the site because he was getting less traffic than the blogs in the district that were built to oppose him, specifically SayNoToPombo. They've done a lot on that new site to attract traffic. Even a new blog! Oh, but wait, you can't read the blog without approval. I'm really not sure what the goal of that is. You can't really engage your constituents, typically the point of a candidate blog, if you don't let them read it. Very strange.
And someone pointed out to me the House Resources Committee website, the committee that he chairs. First of all, the majority of the site is shameless self-promotion of Pombo and his anti-environmentalist agenda. The website also seems to be designed by the same designer as Pombo's campaign site as well. But my favorite part is over the flip.
Two more upgrades for Jerry McNerney. First, the National Journal's Chuck Todd, who has a ranking of the top 65 races moved CA-11 up to #37 from #45, a move of eight slots. I would also like to point out that all of the top 30 races are Republican-held.
Also, Chris Bowers of MyDD has raised his ranking of the race from Leans Rep to Toss-up/Leans Rep in his latest House Forecast, citing he apparent worry of the NRCC.
Oooh, we have a doozy of a question for Richard Pombo. And we can call his home phone and ask him. Yay!! Over at FDL, Matt O. notes that the AP has Pombo in a lie. You see in last week's "candidate forum" Pombo said that he had never spoken, seen, heard, fondled (oops, sorry, I've been reading too much on Mark Foley) Jack Abramoff. Never. Ever. Swear, cross my heart, and hope to die. Or something like that. Well, the exact quote is:
“I’ve seen myself described as one of (Jack Abramoff’s) closest allies in Congress. I met the guy two or three times in my whole life — he never once lobbied me on anything, never asked me to sign a letter, to vote for or against a bill, to introduce a bill; he never once stepped foot in my office. …” (Tracy Press 10/5/06)
Maybe he never mentioned anything about fondling Jack Abramoff or hoping to die, but you know the story. Pombo wants nothing to do with Abramoff. At least not now. It was a different story a few years ago. Well, Pombo's nose must have grown after that doozy:
California Rep. Richard Pombo has insisted he was never lobbied by Jack Abramoff. Records show the disgraced lobbyist billed a client for at least two contacts with Pombo a decade ago. The lobbying records released by the Northern Mariana Islands show that Abramoff billed once for calls to Pombo, chairman of the House Resources Committee, and a second time for a discussion with him, while lobbying in 1996.
On more than two dozen other occasions from 1996 through 2001, Abramoff associates called or met with members of Pombo's staff, including his chief of staff, the records indicate. As the contacts picked up, Pombo voted Abramoff's way on a bill important to Abramoff's clients. (SF Chronicle (AP) 10/10/06)
Of course, Pombo is saying this is all bullshit, you know just a felon trying to make a few more bucks from the Islanders. Well, unfortunately, there's a nice little money trail. Follow the money, young Jedi:
On Sept. 10, 1996, Abramoff billed for a discussion with Pombo. Two days later he gave Pombo a $500 donation, the first of what would become $7,500 in campaign contributions. Pombo has since donated the money to charity. On Nov. 21, 1996, Abramoff reported putting in calls to Pombo and other lawmakers.
That's what we call quid pro quo. Donating $7500 to charity resolves nothing, it is just a cover for corruption. And a relatively cheap cover too. Pombo is bought and paid for by Big Oil and DC Lobbyists.
A better choice: Jerry McNerney. Contribute at our ActBlue page. Or volunteer at JerryMcNerney.org or at Pombo In Their Pocket.
(Also cross-posted at dKos and MyDD. Recs appreciated. - promoted by SFBrianCL)
I need to admit something: I love the horse race. I try in so many ways to resist. I try to resist the media's love of incumbency and jockeying for position. I love to see people talking issues, I mean really talking issues. It's one of the reasons that I love Debra Bowen. She knows the issues, and isn't afraid to talk about some of the very real problems in election reform. But try as I may, I still love me a good horse-race story.
I track House Forecasts and the polls relentlessly. How much do I love Chris Bowers' House Forecast? Well, let's just say...too much. So, I was very intrigued when I saw On Oct. 6 that the Cook Political Report changed the CA-11 race from likely Republican to lean Republican. That's a real indicator of the nervousness by those within the beltway. The NRCC has dumped about half a million bucks into the race, and almost $300K in a 6-week period...for a very strong fundraiser. Heck, Pombo had to bring W to town to get some more cash.
There have been no truly independent polls in this race. I would really love to see one, but they just don't exist. However, we do have two polls an internal McNerney poll by Lake Partners, that puts him within the margin (Pombo 41-McNerney 40), and a Defenders of Wildlife poll by Greenberg Quinlan Rosner that showed McNerney actually leading by 48 percent to 46 percent. There are at least two other polls out there, but the problem is that they are internal Pombo/NRCC polls that they won't release. Why? Well, can you think of any other good reason than the fact that they just aren't that good of numbers?
Now, this race is still a very challenging race, but the possibility of a Dem landslide could be bad news for Richard Pombo. But don't ask Lisa Vorderbrueggen, the political editor of the CoCo Times. You see, she thinks this race as something of a joke:
So far, the polls haven't prompted Rothenberg and other top analysts to increase their rankings of this race, which sits a "likely Republican," one step more competitive than outright safe.
Congressional Quarterly is the exception, which moved the race last week up one additional competitive level to "leans Republican."
But instead of polls, its writer cited the nearly $500,000 the National Republican Congressional Committee has spent in recent weeks on anti-McNerney advertisements.
Does the cash dump mean the polls are true?Maybe. On the other hand, it could be a GOP message to the Democratic Party, which hasn't spent a dime on McNerney, that it won't roll over in this district.
Strategy translation: Get out your checkbook, Democrats, because this ain't gonna be cheap. (CoCoTimes 10/08/06)
Well, I do agree with the "this ain't going to be cheap part." It's why jsw ran his matching contribution campaign. California politics is never cheap (A reason to support Prop 89 for state politics??). But did you see something here...hmmm...oh yeah, her whole premise: "the polls haven't prompted Rothenberg and other top analysts to increase their rankings of this race".
Hmm, well, she does throw the recent CQ Upgrade, but she missed something didn't she? Oh yeah, Charlie Cook, one of, if not the most, widely read forecasts upgraded CA-11 from a Likely Republican to a Leans Republican.
Now, I don't know if Ms. Vorderbrueggen just missed the Cook upgrade. I mean it is very hard to find. You know, you had to type that long URL into your browser (cookpolitical.com) or you know, type Cook political into Google. All very challenging. It's unclear whether she is ill-informed, deliberately deceptive, or just lazy. I suppose it could be a combination of all of the above, but I'm just betting it's the lazy thing. Political editors are busy people and may not have time to actually double check their facts. It may be that simple, but it's rather unfortunate.
And I think it should also be pointed out that the NRCC cash dump is very related to polls. The NRCC is cash-strapped; they are fighting a battle on 50 fronts. They aren't going to be dumping half a million bucks into a non-race after $25K in polling data. No, they respond to polling data, just like everybody else. To suggest otherwise is just naive.
Finally, Ms. Vorderbrueggen cites Stuart Rothenberg as saying:
But as national political analyst Stuart Rothenberg points out in a recent blog post, Democratic pollsters are pushing a lot of polls that show second- and third-tier candidates performing surprisingly well.
"If most of these challengers win, the Democrats will gain 30 or 40 House seats," he wrote. "Obviously, that's unlikely. Extremely unlikely."
Oh really? I beg to differ Stewie. How about the Fox News Poll predicting a possible 50 seat pickup. Now, I think given gerrymandering (btw, an example of the Republicans changing the rules, rather than fighting by the ones we did in the past), it will be hard to gain as many as the Republican did in 1994 (54), but I think the Foley scandal goes to the heart of the new conservative movement. If they stay at home, is a 30 seat pickup is not "extremely unlikely."
