As reported by Randy Bayne, Steve Filson is dropping out of the race for the Democratic nomination in AD-15. From Filson's website:
Dear Friends and Supporters:
It is with great regret, that we are suspending our campaign for the California State Assembly. There are a constellation of reasons both personal and political that I have reached a point to make a tough choice.
I want to thank everyone who has been with us. You understood the importance of winning this seat and converting it to a Democratic one. I still think that is possible and very important but having two strong opponents in a Primary brings more harm than good. Therefore it is best if we help clear the field so that our Democratic contender is ready for the general election which will be very tough.
For those many folks who donated their time, I can't thank you enough.
For the time being I will be analyzing my next steps. For the many great new friends I have met during this campaign, I'm sure we will cross paths again. Again, I thank everyone for their support.
(I've changed the title, but all else is straight from the candidate's fingers. - promoted by Brian Leubitz)
We have a real chance to do something good for California and I think for the country since this State leads the nation in many ways. California governance is currently hamstrung by a fraction. That fraction is two thirds. We are embarrassingly only one of just three States in the Union that requires a two thirds majority to pass a budget or manage tax revenues. This is in a State, a nation state really, that is the 6th largest economy in the world-equal to France.
That is why, along with eventually achieving universal, single payer healthcare, I am running as a Democrat for the 15th Assembly seat for the California State Legislature.
It's a long time held Republican seat right on the doorstep of the Bay area. Jerry McNerney won his race, Tauscher gets re-elected, State Senator Torlakson too and yet with these same voters the Assembly seat has stubbornly remained in red hands. ....more on the flip.
We had a great time at the Q3 Quarterly, up in SF. Mark Leno stuck around for quite awhile, as did AD-15 candidate Steve Filson. We sort of took over much of the bar for the evening, but Nickie's was a pretty rockin' place for such an event. It's no Zeitgeist, but, well, it's no Zeitgeist. On a warm evening like yesterday, I'm sure it would have been crrrraaazy.
Seems like it's about time for Ellen Tauscher to check herself into Interfering Politician Rehab. You might have thought that after last year's Steve Filson debacle in the CA-11 primary, she'd have gotten the message that Democratic voters are perfectly capable of choosing their own candidates. But nooooo, the woman is out of control.
With Guy Houston being termed out of his AD-15 seat, there are presently five Democrats vying to replace him:
retired airline pilot Steve Filson
electrician Steve Thomas
retired entrepreneur Fred Klaske
small businessman Davies Ononiwu and
high school principal Chris Van Schaack
So you might look at this group and ask yourself, "Exactly what's missing from the mix; what more do we need?" And the answer would be — why, it's the Ellen Tauscher Seal of Approval™. Apparently, Filson has fallen out of favor; I'm guessing that Tauscher feels like he let her down in CA-11, rather than the more obvious alternative: that, just maybe, Democratic voters resent Tauscher's interference in their elections.
So meet the new, sixth candidate in AD-15, Joan Buchanan. A 17-year member of the school board in San Ramon and generous contributor to Tauscher's past campaigns, Buchanan appears poised to catapult to front-runner status based on her powerful political connections to Friends of Ellen and her prodigious fundraising potential. Sound eerily familiar?
What is Tauscher thinking? Isn't there anybody who can stop her before she hurts someone? K-Fed? Anyone?
There has already been a great diary on the East Bay Express recycling stale insider dogma by calling Ellen Tauscher "moderate" instead of using the label "big business" which is far more accurate.
But that wasn't the only major blunder by New Times Media reporter Chris Thompson. The more glaring example of his failure to understand the dynamics was his dismissing of the viability of the primary challenge to Tauscher. Thompson said that this was a "pipe dream" and declared that Democratic Party activists "won't win" despite all of the evidence to the contrary.
That is what "they" said about Tauscher bagman Steve Filson in CA-11 who was stomped by 24 pts in last year's primary in a more conservative district right next door. It was a landslide, he was beaten like a drum. Filson is a punchline in East Bay politics.
That is what "they" said about the primary campaign against then-Congressman Jeffery Cohelan who was again in a neighboring district to Tauscher but lost his re-nomination even with the union support Tauscher won't enjoy.
That is what "they" said about Joe Lieberman, who had been the Democratic Party VP nominee yet also lost his primary in no small part to the netroots.
If you want to know what bands are playing, check out the East Bay Express. But don't expect them to help you understand political dynamics they don't get.
If you thought it was hard for Jerry McNerney to unseat Pombo in 2006, just wait until 2008...
Or not, especially since the Republicans are already laying the groundwork to retake the 11th District.
In CA-11, Jerry McNerney took the Democratic nomination. He will face “Paid-for” Pombo in the general election. We’ve been following the CA-11 race here at Calitics for a long time, more so recently due to the recent comments of Filson. I posted a diary both at Calitics and at dKos about the bullshit surrounding the triangulation theories playing out in this race. I’d like to go through this a little and make the proposition that Jerry McNerney is our Tester, a progressive leader that is simultaneously electable and responsive to his Democratic base. For more on Tester, check out dKos.
So, a brief background on the race would probably be helpful here. Jerry McNerney ran a campaign that got a late start in 2004. He struggled to build a campaign structure for that race, going so far as to mortgage his house in order to run a decent campaign. In the end, he garnered about 39% of the vote, a respectable figure against a well-funded incumbent. Of course, at that point Richard Pombo was merely an unremarkable Congressman with a penchant for hyperbole, or outright lying, depending on how you see fit to describe it. The 11th district isn’t your typical Bay Area district, it has its soul in San Joaquin county. It previously had more Democrats, but the Democratic heart of Stockton was shifted from what is now the 11th to what is now the 18th. This was due to the Gary Condit scandal. Legislative Democrats wanted Condit to retire so that the Democrats could retain his seat in the 18th District, now held by Blue Dog Valleycrat Dennis Cardoza. Thus, the 11th now has a substantial Republican registration advantage.
They are now on the radio in the Bay Area on KQED 88.5. Both Pete McCloskey and Tom Benigno are challenging Paid-for Pombo. If you aren't in the Bay Area or if you can't listen, they run a podcast at the website. The Dem candidates, McNerney and Filson are not scheduled to appear. However, I'm sure we can bug them to get the Dem nominee on after the primary.
Also notable is that Pete McCloskey has said that he would support the Dem nominee over Pombo. I'm not sure if he's said that before, but I thought it was interesting.
Capitol Weekly published an article on June 1 about the race:
"Mr. Pombo stands for everything that's evil, in my mind," McCloskey told Capitol Weekly.
Much of the media coverage of McCloskey's run has centered on Pombo's efforts to revise the Endangered Species Act (ESA), which McCloskey helped write while serving in Congress from 1967 to 1983. While Pombo has claimed he act doesn't work, environmental groups and McCloskey have both claimed he is trying to destroy the ESA. One draft of Pombo's ESA overhaul built in a 2015 sunset clause for the act. Debating Pombo in a high-school auditorium in Tracy last month, McCloskey launched right in on this charge.
"His purpose, and he said so in a book 10 years ago, is to destroy the Endangered Species Act," McCloskey said, referring to Pombo's 1996 book This Land Is Our Land: How to End the War on Private Property.
However, McCloskey said Pombo's ESA efforts constitute "10 percent" of the reason for his run. In Tracy, he spent far more time hammering away at Pombo's vote against prosthetic research for Iraqi War veterans. While Pombo has defended this vote, saying it was about base-closing legislation he opposed, McCloskey supporters like to point out Pombo's zero rating from the group Disabled American Veterans.
In recent years, the Democrats increasingly have opened their doors to pro-business and even more socially conservative candidates. Meanwhile, some in the GOP have tried to expel secular, pro-choice "Republicans in Name Only." "I've been a Republican since 1948, before Pombo was born," McCloskey said. Later, he added, "They would call Barry Goldwater a RINO today."(Capitol Weekly 6/1/06)
I'm not sure how McCloskey will fare, but as he has said, I would support anybody over Pombo. If it's another Republican, but this time an honest, respectable Republican, I would support him.
A new poll paid for by the Defenders of Wildlife (and performed by Greenberg Quinlan Rosner) has Pombo trailing to both Filson and McNerney. (Kinda blows that electability claim out of the water, doesn't it). (Hat-tip to McNerney Blog)
Candidate
Percent
McNerney v Pombo
McNerney
46%
Pombo
42%
Undecided
12%
Filson v Pombo
Filson
49%
Pombo
41%
Undecided
10%
And generally, people prefer ANYBODY else over Pombo 52-35-18. That's down from (37-46-18). That anybody else character is a great candidate, eh Rich?
At this point the people of CA-11 want to get rid of Pombo, no matter who the candidate was. Jerry McNerney took a stand 2 years ago to run against Pombo when nobody else wanted to. Jerry is the true progressive in this race. If we are going to win anyway, let's look to the guy who has supported the grassroots of the party.
Now, I'm not saying that this seat is in the bag, I know Pombo is going to come out swinging with all of the cash that he has accumulated while in Congress. But Jerry will have the support of the people of CA-11. Who do you beleive in?
Jerry McNerney picked up the San Jose Mercury News endorsement (Hat tip to Jerry's Blog). The Mercury News also endorsed Pete McCloskey over Pombo in the Republican Primary. It's not particularly hard to see how the editorial board feels about Pombo: Any of the candidates, even Republican McCloskey is better than Pombo.
Even before he became associated with the sleaze surrounding disgraced lobbyist Jack Abramoff, even before he was accused of taking a family vacation on the government's dime and even before a watchdog group called him one of the 13 most corrupt members of Congress, it was clear that Richard Pombo had to go.
The conservative seven-term Republican congressman from Tracy has a record of radical anti-environmentalism that has imperiled the nation's natural resources, is wrong for the country and is out of step with a state that's known for its environmental leadership.
***
On the Democratic side, two good candidates have emerged as leading contenders. Neither Jerry McNerney, 54, an engineer and wind-energy consultant from Pleasanton, nor Steve Filson, 59, a United Airlines pilot and retired U.S. Navy commander from Danville, has held elected office. But both bring good ideas and have energized various Democratic Party constituencies. Of the two, we find McNerney's message more compelling.(SJ Mercury News 5/8/06)
The editorial gives good reviews and descriptions of all three competitors to Pombo. The choice is a bit muddled now, but we know what needs to happen. Richard Pombo must go.
As, I've written here, I think McNerney will be a better candidate because of his connections to the grassroots. The national party will support him this time if he wins the primary. They have to, they smell blood in the water all around Pombo. McNerney will bring the assets of the grassroots to bear against Pombo. This year it will be enough to take that seat back from the radical anti-environmentalist Richard Pombo.
And in a complete rejection to the "You've had your chance" line of "thinking", the Mercury News touts the fact that McNerney has run against Pombo before:
McNerney ran against Pombo in 2004 and got 39 percent of the vote, despite receiving no support from the state or national Democratic Party and being massively outspent by Pombo. That experience should come in handy in November.
It wasn't only Angelides that walked out of the convention with a coveted endorsement.
So did Jerry McNerney, one of three Democrats running for the nomination in the high-profile Congressional District 11 race against incumbent Richard Pombo, R-Tracy.
McNerney scored 21 of the 28 votes cast by party delegates, an indisputable victory that produced a wide smile on the face of this serious Ph.D. engineer from Pleasanton.
It was a minor step for the Democratic Party but a giant leap for McNerney, a candidate whom national party leaders have spurned as unlikely to triumph over Pombo. McNerney, a wind energy consultant, is too liberal to win critical votes in the conservative San Joaquin County, they say, and besides, he already lost to Pombo in 2004. (CC Times 5/1/06)
I've written some about this, as have many others. But, as you may know, Filson has the support of many, many Congressmen, especially Tauscher. McNerney does not. In fact the most recognizable names on McNerney's endoresment list is Liz Figueroa, who is running her own quixotic campaign for Lt. Governor, and Johan Klehs, who is in a dogfight of a race for SD-10. McNerney has become, almost out of necessity, a man of the grassroots. Whether this is right or wrong is an entirely different question. Over at Down with Tyranny, Howie has a particularly scathing (and mighty insightful) post about this particular subject:
You see, Emanuel's DCCC has taken the extraordinary step of anointing a weak, former Republican, Steve Filson, who has nothing much to say beyond "Pombo is bad," in the midst of a spirited Democratic primary that features an exemplary grassroots, progressive candidate, massively favored by Democrats throughout the San Joaquin Valley (CA-11), Jerry McNerney.
Emanuel and his henchmen-- like Steny Hoyer and the agendaless, desperate-to-be-the-first-woman-Speaker-please-let-me-Rahm-I'll-do-anything Nancy Pelosi-- have been trying to make Filson's candidacy seem inevitable. But, unlike in many districts where their tactics have worked, Democrats in the 11th CD are too independent and feisty for them and have only pushed back harder against the anti-grassroots, anti-progressive, Inside-the-Beltway Democratic power elite. Filson's pathetic candidacy, despite all the big name Beltway-ites behind him, just has not taken off. McNerney just keeps getting stronger and stronger. (DownWithTyranny! 4/30/2006)
Ultimately the relevant question is when should the national party intervene in local Congressional races?
The battle is getting hot and heavy in the quest to take Pombo out of office in CA-11. Jerry McNerney, who lost to Pombo in 2004, has been getting most of the "grassroots" endorsements, such as DFA, East Bay Young Democrats, and also recently picked up the SEIU's endorsement.
Steve Filson, on the other hand, is a political novice, but brings to bear a lot of Democratic heavy hitters (remind you of any other race...see below). He's supported by a bevy of Congressman, most notably Congresswoman Ellen Tauscher, state officials, including Don Perata, and many of the Democratic politicos around the district (including the longtime State Senator from Stockton, Patrick Johnston). This has lead to a substantial money advantage, as Filson has been able to tap traditional Washington funding sources.
There are better people to tell you about Pombo, such as Say No to Pombo, where Matt is doing an excellent job, but you'll find that almost universally that they will work for either candidate if it means a Pombo defeat. But a victory in this race is going to require a lot of manpower. Pombo will have a huge financial advantage against either candidate, and having people at the grassroots will help. But, for some reason, Filson, after losing these endorsements, he has been on something of a tear against the grassroots. From Progressive 11 Blog:
Steve Filson criticized the grassroots group's that have endorsed Jerry McNerney for Congress as being "extreme." He in particular focused his attack on Bay Area progressive's at the forum in Richard Pombo's home town of Tracy, Ca. (Prog-11) 4/25/06
I'm not sure what Filson was thinking, but this can in no way be a helpful tactic to him. He angers the left, who increase turnout in the primary to defeat him, or if he wins, he loses the foot soldiers. I'm not sure what he's trying to pull here, but it's completely unproductive.
California News Roundup is on the flip. It's brief -- quarter-end is a drag. Teasers: Shwarzenegger team campaign finance violations, blogs in CA-50, solar power, salmon, Filson interviewed, Pombo too extreme for other Republicans, anti-government group loses in court, research to be done on CA schools. There's immigration news, but nothing all that new, so not in the roundup today.
A quick note: Jerry McNerney picked up the endorsement of the California Labor Federation. Both he and Steve Filson would be HUGE improvements over Pombo. For more info check out Pombo Watch and Say No to Pombo, both featured in The Big BlogRoll.
Seems like it's about time for Ellen Tauscher to check herself into Interfering Politician Rehab. You might have thought that after last year's Steve Filson debacle in the CA-11 primary, she'd have gotten the message that Democratic voters are perfectly capable of choosing their own candidates. But nooooo, the woman is out of control. 
