Back in August, Tom McClintock made some not too excited remarks about Meg Whitman. Seems the election approaching hasn't really changed his mind on that front: Meg Whitman is just not loyal enough to ummm...McClintockianism...
McClintock - a tea party favorite with a strong libertarian streak - had particularly hash words for his party's nominee for governor, former eBay CEO Meg Whitman. Asked about Whitman following his remarks, McClintock suggested she is not loyal to the "principles of the American Founders," and said he agrees with her Democratic opponent Jerry Brown as much as he agrees with Whitman:
My loyalty is to the principles of the American Founders. My loyalty to the Republican party and to its candidates extends only so far as they are loyal to those principles. And I don't see that in the current ticket. Two of the people on the Republican ticket were singularly responsible for biggest tax increase by any state in American history. These are Whitman's handpicked running mates. [...]
I look at all of these things and I realize I agree with her maybe 20 percent of the time. I agree with Jerry Brown about 20 percent of the time. I agree with the libertarians about 80 percent of the time. So I'm not making an endorsement, particularly for that!(Think Progress)
Must be hard to live up to the pure principles that exist only in the mind of Tom McClintock, but on the other hand, I'm sure it is an awesome place.
Tom McClintock is certainly not one known to hold his tongue for any reason, but he's let it all hang out with his feelings about the GOP nominee for Governor, Meg Whitman.
McClintock went on, "If it comes down to a choice between Arnold Schwarzenegger's third term with Meg Whitman, or Jerry Brown's third term with Jerry Brown, anyway you cut it, it's going to be a long four years." (SacBee)
I can't say I really blame him, but this is all rather public. And he doesn describe the situation rather fairly. The best the GOP, or the state really, can hope for from Meg Whitman is four more years of Arnold Schwarzenegger-style governance. And really, it's hard to think of any ways that Meg is either more capable or more knowledgeable about the problems than our current Governor.
On a side note, if somebody asked me ten years ago whether I thought I would ever write the sentence above (about a CEO of a major corporation not being more knowledgeable than a former action movie star), I would have laughed. But such is the situation that we find ourselves in.
As for the second clause of McClintock's analysis, well, Jerry Brown would be Jerry Brown part III. Now, while he had to spend much of his second term trying to patch together a system of governance that could last a few years in the wake of Prop 13, his record is really rather positive. Sure, that Prop 13 is a bit of a downer, but he managed to somehow build a system that lasted nearly 25 years before it really broke under the weight of the super majority requirements.
But, all in all, I'm with Tom. Why would California want another term of Arnold Schwarzenegger?
I was going through some old posts on CALITICS this morning, after reading up on the latest on the push by McClintock and Dan Logue to repeal AB32, and came across this gem from former Calitics contributor/writer David Dayen.
CA-04: Grand Dragons For McClintock
by: David Dayen
Fri Oct 10, 2008 at 13:00:00 PM PDT
Perennial candidate Tom McClintock is a beloved figure on the far right. We just didn't know how far.
It turns out that in 2003, when McClintock was running for his eleventy-teenth political office in the California governor recall election, he was endorsed by none other than the KKK.
Dateline: September 27, 2003
Ku Klux Klan Announces support for Tom McClintock
The Imperial Klans of America, Knights of the Ku Klux Klan (IKA) have announced their full support for Tom
McClintock's bid for the governorship of California. Their support is announced in what they term "the
lesser of all evil candidates."
When interviewed, Mr. Chris Johnson (Grand Dragon or State Director of the IKA's California chapter) had this to say regarding the announcement, "While Mr. McClintock is not the perfect candidate for California Governor, we have more in common with his ideology than any of the other candidates. We are in congruence with his stand on illegal aliens infecting our land and his courage in standing up to the invasion." Mr. Johnson went on to say that, "Mr. McClintock echoes our anti-abortion stand, and our opposition to oppressive taxation."
I guess the McClintock campaign can spin this by saying that at least the KKK called him evil, even if he was the lesser of all the rest?
Here's the thing: organizations can choose to endorse anybody they want, and the candidates have no control over that. But McClintock never said a peep five years ago when he got this endorsement. And there's a Chris Johnson on McClintock's donor list from that 2003 gubernatorial race. Chris Johnson is obviously a common name, and the donation is $100, so take it with a grain of salt. But certainly, McClintock needs to answer the question of why he never rejected the endorsement and why they never sought out and returned money that would even have the appearance of coming from the Klan.
The following was originally written and published for Nevada County residents but applies, in large part, to every county Logue and McClintock represent. Republished with the approval of the author.
Why are our elected representatives attacking our health in Nevada County? This is probably the first question you have to ask yourself to understand why our Assemblyman, Dan Logue, and our Congressman, Tom McClintock, are behind the fight against California's Assembly Bill 32 (passed in 2006). Assembly Bill 32, signed by Governor Schwarzenegger, is a major initiative by the Air Resources Board for reducing California's greenhouse gasses by 30% to 1990 levels by 2020 and 80% below that by 2050. Make no mistake about it; AB 32 is landmark clean air legislation that will soon make a big difference in the air we breathe in Nevada County.
To fight this good legislation, Logue and McClintock tried to launch an initiative against it by calling it a "jobs" bill but were stopped from this title by Attorney General Jerry Brown, who made it very clear that it was a "pollution bill." (Although there is no real proof that jobs will be lost under AB32, it is clearly understood that jobs will be created in the new "green" industries that will be generated by the new law.) Unfortunately, the initiative process supported by Logue and McClintock to kill or stymie the 2006 clean energy and air pollution law is continuing. Dan Logue claimed no knowledge of funding for the initiative but it is now known that the Valero Energy Corporation and the Tesoro Energy Corporation, both headquartered in Texas, are behind Logue and McClintock's attempt. Valero and Tesoro are the major contributors to the initiative and have donated large sums of money to their efforts. And, supposedly by trying to keep the donations secret, they may have violated state campaign laws.
As reported earlier here on Calitics and elsewhere, California Assemblyman Dan Logue, after his recent failed attempt to kill the major provisions of Assembly Bill 32, California Landmark Clean Air legislation by a vote in the legislature, has begun an attempt to go the initiative route to repeal most of AB32. Logue and California Congressman Tom McClintock have been identified as two of several conservative who came up with the idea to repeal AB 32. Right off the bat they wanted the initiative to be referred to as a jobs bill. That did not fly and I recall reading Logue and company were considering legal action against Jerry Brown, Attorney General, because the office made very clear it was a air pollution bill. Now it gets more interesting.
To recap, in part, when Logue was asked by the NEW YORK TIMES who was funding the initiative, Logue refused to identify where the funding for the initiative was coming from. Shortly after the report was published, records were discovered by the press that indicated the financial sponsors of Logue's initiative, all two of them, were Valero Energy Corp. and Tesoro Corp, neither of them headquartered in California.
There is nothing worst than watching your child suffer due to the "crud in the air," regardless of how the air became so filthy. Inhalers and trips to the emergency room are routine for "breathing treatments." Watching your child gasp for breath is a horrible, and to a great deal, a preventable experience. No, there is nothing quite like it. There is also nothing quite like legislators attempting to roll back clean air laws with disputed facts.
For the past few weeks I have read various articles on the attempts by Assembly Person Dan Logue and Congress Person Tom McClintock, and their attempts to repeal CALIFORNIA ASSEMBLY BILL 32, which was signed into law by our current Governor. They have attacked the law, which is not even close to being implemented yet, as a "job killer." The bill, and now law, is NOT and never was a "Jobs" bill, as they attempt to make the case for (including their rejected attempts to have it described so on official documents to gather signatures to put on the ballot by the State of California). It is a CLEAN AIR LAW and certainly, when you look at the facts, NOT A JOB KILLER now or later, when fully implemented.
Last night I read an article regarding the Logue/McClintock attempts to undo AB 32 and just how wrong headed the attempts to roll back the "air quality" bill are. The author, THOMAS D. ELIAS, also addresses how even an untruth can (and is) used to make the case for a problem and a credible solution to an existing law that simply does not exist. In my opinion, the following article pretty much destroys the argument put forth for repeal of current law. As far as I am concerned it should be published in the voter guide and sent to every voter in California. The artice is presented below with permission of the author.
"THE MISGUIDED OPPOSITION TO AB 32 AND CAP AND TRADE"
BY THOMAS D. ELIAS
Whether or not Congress eventually approves the greenhouse-gas reduction agreements reached late last year in Copenhagen, California will soon have a cap-and-trade system in place.
Unless voters here put a ballot initiative to the contrary on the November ballot and then pass it. Sponsors of this putative proposition call it the "California Jobs Initiative," contending jobs will be lost in efforts to fight global warming by demanding lower industrial emissions of greenhouse gases like carbon dioxide and methane.
"With unemployment at 12.5 percent and another looming budget deficit, this is not the time for California to attempt an overhaul of the entire economy at a cost of tens of billions of dollars," writes Republican Assemblyman Dan Logue of Linda, in Yuba County, one of the initiative's backers.
The presumption here and among many other opponents of doing much about climate change is simple: Fixing the environment will cost business billions of dollars and eliminate many thousands of jobs.
But they never back that bromide with facts. That's because it is based on little more than reflexive, knee-jerk guesswork. Still, their campaign is effective. It even has led major polling organizations like Gallup and Harris to run surveys where a slight majority of respondents now favors economic growth over fixing the environment.
It turns out that's a false choice. For doing something about greenhouse gas emissions doesn't necessarily mean business will be hurt or jobs lost.
The banksters still have a powerful sway over members of Congress. Yesterday, they stopped cramdown in the Senate, which would have allowed bankruptcy judges to treat primary residences the same way as yachts and vacation homes in a bankruptcy. And there was much rejoicing.
On the same day, the House bucked the trend, passing the Credit Cardholder's Bill of Rights by a wide, bipartisan margin.
In 2008, credit card issuers imposed $19 billion in penalty fees on families with credit cards and this year, card companies will break all records for late fees, over-limit charges, and other penalties, pulling in more than $20.5 billion. Credit-card debt in the U.S. has reached a record high of nearly $1 trillion - and almost half of American families currently carry a balance, and for those families the average balance was $7,300. One-fifth of those carrying credit-card debt pay an interest rate above 20 percent [...]
The Credit Cardholders' Bill of Rights Act passed today levels the playing field between card issuers and cardholders by applying common-sense regulations that would ban retroactive interest rate hikes on existing balances, double-cycle billing, and due-date gimmicks. It would also increase the advance notice of impending rate hikes, giving cardholders the information they need and rights to make decisions about their financial lives. Our economic recovery depends on a shared prosperity - and we must put an end to these abusive practices that continue to drive so many Americans deeper and deeper into debt.
I'm glad this ends double-cycle billing, where cardholders pay interest on debt that they've already paid off, and forces credit card companies to allocate payment to the debt with the highest interest rate. But overall, these are very modest protections that simply prohibit the credit card companies from ripping off the American people. And 105 Republicans agreed yesterday. But among those who didn't we're the usual suspects of arch-conservative Yacht Party wingers like Tom McClintock, joined by supposed "moderate" David Dreier.
Of course, as Dick Durbin noted yesterday, the bankers who own the Senate will return to try and ditch this bill. They've killed the same legislation before, and Harry Reid didn't exactly sound confident this time around. But I want to focus on Dreier and McClintock, both of whom and their pals in the GOP caucus have been well and truly bought by banking interests in exchange for votes like this.
Ed Royce (CA-40- $2,506,414)
David Dreier (CA-26- $2,118,538)
Gary Miller (CA-42- $765,988)
Devin Nunes (CA-21- $499,235)
Kevin McCarthy (CA-22- $461,138)
Tom McClintock (CA-04- $353,294)
Here's what newly-announced candidate Russ Warner had to say about this yesterday:
Dreier will once again be forced to face a top rate challenge in 2010, Russ Warner, who has every intention of making sure voters from Rancho Cucamonga, Upland, and Claremont to San Dimas, Monrovia, Sierra Madre, San Marino and La Crescenta know that Dreier is strictly a representative of the special interests that have done such grievous damage to the state's economy and to the financial well-being to his own constituents. "Time and time again," Russ told us this morning after going over the vote yesterday, "David Dreier proves the interests of his corporate donors take precedent over the people he was elected to serve. Dreier's never felt the pressure of supporting a family and has lived off the taxpayer dime for nearly three decades, so its not surprising he has no idea how harmful these predatory credit card companies are."
We're going to have to fight in the Senate to make sure this passes. But this vote should not be forgotten next year. Everyone has felt the pinch from credit card usurers, and so votes like this are signatures, marks of where you stand. Hopefully Warner and whoever challenges these other Republicans will use it.
In a recent op-ed, Congressman Tom McClintock (R- Roseville) made the claim that Obama's stimulus bill would cost over $200,000 per job, and that conservative free-market policies would ultimately prevail in the end over the "tax-borrow-and-spend policies" of the Democratic Administration.
And who did he blame for those policies???
The guy he just barely beat in the race for Congress, Charlie Brown.
After a long fight to count every vote, Charlie Brown has acknowledged that Tom McClintock will be the next Congressman representing CA-04. Here's part of his email to supporters:
Thanks to the extraordinary work of our local elections officials, I am pleased to report that the high standards of fairness, accuracy, and transparency have been met. And with the counts and recounts across district four complete, and more than 370,000 votes tallied, the outcome of this election is no longer in question. Unfortunately, we've come up less than one half of one percent---just under 1,800 votes---short of victory.
So a short time ago, I called Senator Tom McClintock to congratulate him on a hard fought victory, and to wish him well in Congress.
To you, I can only offer my deepest gratitude-for your generosity of time and resources, and your unwavering energy and encouragement. Together, we have transformed the 4 th District, and lifted this campaign higher and farther than anyone thought possible.
I am proud of the campaign we ran.
Charlie fought a very good fight, actually becoming a point person for veteran's issues around the country and leading by example with his Promises Kept Challenge, donating 5% of his campaign contributions to organizations serving veterans and their families. And he showed through two cycles that the supposedly hopeless 4th District is more than winnable to the right candidate.
Still, he came up just short. But I don't think he has anything to be ashamed of.
This closes the book on elections in California. While the final numbers and vote totals will be released Dec. 13, we know that Democrats picked up a net 3 seats in the Assembly, no seats in the Senate, and no seats in the Congress. That's the performance despite a 24-point victory at the top of the ticket, the biggest in California since 1936.
We'll have much to discuss about this in the weeks to come, looking back to what happened and looking forward to prospects in the years ahead. For now, a sincere thanks to Charlie Brown, who made us proud.
...as a sort of postscript, the Auburn Dam project, which was the source of tremendous debate in the campaign, officially died today, as the state water board revoked the 40 year-old water rights. It was BROWN'S position, that the cost of the porposal outweighed the benefits, that won out.
Huge news in the continued counting of Charlie Brown's race against Tom McClintock. The latest round of counting has Brown within 329 votes as the provisionals, which tend to favor Democrats, get counted in the larger counties in the district.
Charlie Brown (Dem) 170,168 49.9%
Tom McClintock (Rep) 170,497 50.1%
There are still tens of thousands of votes left to count, and there's a virtual assurance of at least a partial recount. Tom McClintock has been sending his list these smug reports of the day's counting, telling them how everything's looking great. I haven't seen an update from him in a couple days. Probably because this is shaping up as a replay of the 2002 State Controller race, when the late provisionals put Steve Westly over the top in his race against... Tom McClintock.
Extended races like this cost money to maintain staff and pay lawyers. You can help Charlie out at the Calitics ActBlue page.
...meanwhile, Hannah-Beth Jackson is moving closer in SD-19. That race is down to 1,283 votes.
"We're not claiming victory, but we just think it's mathematically impossible for (Brown) to win," said Bill George, spokesman for McClintock.
George said the thousands of Placer County votes tallied Friday stretched McClintock's lead from barely 300 votes to 1,793, with only about 4,500 more votes to count in the nine-county district.
Brown spokesman Todd Stenhouse said Brown would not concede, noting that thousands more votes remain to be counted, most of which are provisional ballots that "have been breaking very, very strongly for Charlie."
"We remain committed to the same goals that we've been committed to all along and that is that every vote is counted in this historic election," Stenhouse said.
Earlier, I mentioned that the CA-04 race is not over. This bit of news reinforces that fact:
Truckee Town Council is one race that hangs in the balance.
"Four years ago I got 3,700 votes, and Josh [Susman] got 3,300, and this year so far we both have about 2,200," said current Mayor and candidate Barbara Green.
"Something is not quite right."
She said she figures about 1,000 to 2,000 votes are still unaccounted for in Truckee.
The missing votes could have repercussions as far reaching as the tightly-contested 4th Congressional District race between Republican Tom McClintock and Democrat Charlie Brown, Green said.
The spokeswoman for a local ballot measure makes this sound more like a mystery of missing ballots rather than votes that are simply uncounted:
Proponents of the Tahoe Truckee Unified School District Measure U hoped the outstanding ballots may make the difference.
"Clearly there's been a major administrative error. We are hopefully those
outstanding ballots will push Measure U over the top," said Alison Elder, Measure U chair.
Administrative error? What does that mean, exactly.
This could be especially important because Brown won Nevada County, the county in question, by a substantial margin (57-43). If there are potentially 2,000 votes there, that would make up a lot of that difference if the margin holds.
...by the way, Bill Hedrick in CA-44 might be getting into recount territory, incredibly. It's down to a spread of just 2.8% between Hedrick and Rep. Ken Calvert, a difference of only 4,600 votes. It's the closest Congressional race outside of CA-04. I am sorry I didn't pay enough attention to it. Go Bill!
(here's a less gory Charlie Brown story. GOTV - promoted by shayera)
As many of you know, Charlie Brown is running a different kind of campaign. He is not running for fame or for power or to derail the ambitions of an opponent. Instead, Charlie is running a campaign focused on taking action, solving problems and producing results.
• CA-04: Tom McClintock is bringing out the big guns to help his cash-strapped campaign - Ron Paul is all in!
Paul, the libertarian-Republican congressman from Texas who raised more than $34 million for his presidential race, sent out an e-mail last week urging his massive donor base to contribute to McClintock.
"Tom McClintock is one of the most promising warriors in the fight against big government we have seen in a long time, and the special interests and big bankers know it. ... You have stood with me as....
...I campaigned for the Presidency to return our federal government to its proper role. Will you help me bring a reliable ally to Congress?"
This brings up some interesting questions. Does Tom McClintock think we should withdraw from Iraq and dozens of other military bases around the world? Does he believe in abolishing the Federal Reserve? The coinage of free silver?
• CA-45: New voter registration statistics have not been released by the Secretary of State's office, but I think they will show good news for Democrats across the state. One statistic that is measurable is the early voting number, and in CA-45, it's good news for Julie Bornstein.
Democrats have significantly narrowed the early voting gap in the 45th Congressional District, an encouraging sign for challenger Julie Bornstein in her battle to unseat Congresswoman Mary Bono Mack (R-Palm Springs), according to Bornstein campaign manager Walter Ludwig.
In both 2004 and 2006, registered Republicans accounted for about 54 percent of early voters, compared with just 34 percent for Democrats. Mack, now a four-term incumbent, cruised to re-election both years by more than 20 points.
This year, early voting is much more evenly split. The latest numbers from the Riverside County Registrar of Voters show that registered Republicans outnumber Democrats by just five percent among early voters.
It's like the entire Republican machine all collapsed at once. They used to be MASTERS at getting absentee votes out. This year, there's either no such effort, or it's being matched by Democrats. CA-45 is under the radar, but these numbers suggest that it shouldn't be.
• CA-46: At the Great Orange Satan, Devilstower has a great piece that could start a new meme about Debbie Cook - the anti-Palin.
Suppose there was a candidate who was as bright and as capable as Sarah Palin is confused and incompetent.
Someone who had a record of working with environmental groups, and who had a real understanding of the threat posed by our dependence on fossil fuels. Someone with a degree in earth science and the long experience to make the claim of being a genuine energy expert.
Someone who not only knew science, but also had a law degree, and was a graduate of the leadership program at the Kennedy School of Government. Someone who has held positions of honor in state and national commissions. Someone who was well respected for both her intellect and her passion.
Suppose there was a candidate who had been mayor of, not a tiny town, but a medium-sized city. And suppose she took that position as a Democrat in the midst of a heavily Republican district.
Suppose there was someone who was everything that Sarah Palin is not.
• AD-78: Bill Cavala, who worked the last close race in this district, took a peek at some new registration numbers which show a real advantage for Marty Block:
This year the new registration 'close' figures show the Democrats with 101, 131 registrants, an increase of about 4100 from the last Presidential year. DTS registrations are 49,855, an increase of about 5800 from 2004. Most remarkably, however, Republican registration has fallen by almost 8000 - from 82,615 four years ago to 74,700 today.
This means the net change is Dems up 4100 and Reps down 8000 or 12,100 in favor of the Democrat over 2004.
Forget the increase in DTS registrations - which vote more Democratic than Republican in San Diego. Starting out down 12,000 in a seat where they won by 2000 with an incumbent - it's open this year - puts the Republican candidate squarely behind the 8 ball.
Just one of the many Assembly races where this is so.
Charlie Cook, the favored Congressional tipster for insiders, is notoriously conservative in his selections. And as such, he's slow to recognize races that, based on outdated fundamentals, simply "can't" be competitive. It's embarrassing that it's taken him this long to move CA-04 to a toss-up. Here's his precis:
CA-04 OPEN (Doolittle) Lean Republican to Toss Up
All GOP state Sen. Tom McClintock needed to do to put this district away was to run ads noting Democratic nominee Charlie Brown's attendance at anti-war rallies. The only problem? McClintock ran out of money too soon and has been inexplicably "dark" on broadcast television in the final phase of the campaign, allowing Brown and the DCCC to remain in strong contention by portraying McClintock as a carpetbagger and self-serving career politician.
Republicans in Washington fret that McClintock has run a second rate campaign and that even with an extensive statewide fundraising network, he has failed to put together a competent media strategy. The NRCC, too broke to come to McClintock's rescue, is also off the air in the expensive Sacramento market. Some Republicans suggest that in the end, their biggest advantage in this district may be the presence of Proposition 8, a measure to eliminate same-sex marriage, on the California ballot. This race should be a slam dunk for the GOP, but right now it is a toss up.
First of all, there's no way that misleading anti-war rally attack would have derailed the Brown campaign. Most of the country is against the war. But putting that aside, Cook shares my astonishment that Mr. Fiscal Conservative McClintock managed to run out of money weeks before the race was over. That is some epic mismanagement.
Cook is wrong about another thing, the NRCC is trying to ride to the rescue, up with a new ad trying to paint Brown as a "liberal yes man." I just don't think this is the year to throw around the "L" word like it's some kind of boogeyman. Anyway, don't they know that these days, you're supposed to call the Democrat a socialist or a Marxist? Looking at the ad, it looks like the NRCC and McClintock went Dutch on it.
The point is that the GOP hasn't totally given up on this race, and while I'm confident in Brown's abilities he could definitely use some reinforcements in the final week. You can give at the Calitics ActBlue page.
The biggest newspaper in the region, the Sacramento Bee, makes the case for Charlie Brown and a new direction in the district, particularly on the area of putting pragmatism above ideology. Now, I don't totally agree with all the conclusions of the editorial, but the last bit is unquestionably true:
Brown understands that the that the mortgage crisis, the collapse of the financial system, the credit crunch and the recession are real. He would have supported the rescue plan because doing nothing was worse than doing something, though he believes Congress has done a poor job of selling the package. And the final package assured taxpayers get any profits, required congressional oversight, banned golden parachutes.
This is telling. McClintock sticks to ideology; Brown pragmatically puts the nation first.
The nation and the 4th District need to find ways out of partisan and ideological gridlock. Elect Charlie Brown to Congress.
Now, if the final package wasn't such a dog with fleas that the feds have basically scrapped it, and if the banks weren't using it to collect free money instead of facilitating lending, this would be a stronger argument. Whatever; the Bee's endorsements have been profoundly odd, and have seemed to value bipartisan seriousness over everything. But I think there's a difference between rejecting partisanship and abandoning core principles. I think that Charlie Brown will govern the way he has campaigned, by working through problems and using his best judgment based on his values and principles. Tom McClintock is incapable of adapting to changing information whatsoever.
What he will do is try to play dirty to win the election, including sending nasty robocalls throughout the district because they're cheap for his cash-strapped campaign. The problem is that they haven't done a good job of checking their call lists. The Brown campaign, for example, got robocalled.
UPDATE: The latest poll shows Brown expanding his slim but measurable lead.
Research 2000 for Daily Kos. 10/20-22. Likely voters. MoE 5% (9/23-25 results)
McClintock (R) 42 (41)
Brown (D) 48 (46)
Among early voters (13 percent of respondents)
McClintock (R) 38
Brown (D) 56
Brown takes independents 51-34. McClintock's fav/unfav is at 44/42. Brown is at 49/29. And McClintock is out of the cash he'd need to push up Brown's unfavorables.
This is very good news. Let's get this seat. Stay for Change.
The air was chilly in Quincy on Saturday as the Charlie Brown for Congress team held its 2nd to the last BBQ Town Hall meeting at Pioneer Park. People from around the greater Plumas County area; from Quincy to Greenville, Portola, Graeagle and all the way out from Chico came to hear Charlie speak and ask him the questions at the forefront of the 4th District's minds.
Here's some tidbits from the campaign trail with 12 days out:
• CA-03: Bill Durston and Dan Lungren debated last night, and it was a predictable affair, says Randy Bayne:
Nothing new, no fireworks, no knockout punch, no excitement of any kind was reported by either MyMotherLode.com or the Stockton Record. Just what we already know - Durston wants us out of Iraq, doesn't like No Child Left Behind, and thinks the bailout is the wrong solution. Lungren supports the occupation, favors No Child Left Behind, and voted for the bailout.
If you're looking for change from eight years of down the toilet policy, and you don't want to continue flushing our future down the crapper - vote for Bill Durston.
If the registration stats cited by anecdotal reports are at all accurate, we're going to be very close to registration parity in this seat by Election Day. Lungren may be acting positive in public, but inside the campaign they must be terrified. They probably didn't expect Durston to run a credible campaign.
"Lincoln asked, 'If you call a tail a leg, how many legs has a dog? The answer is four. Calling a tail a leg doesn't make it one,'" McClintock said in a statement. "And calling a homosexual partnership a marriage doesn't make it one."
I'm pretty sure that means nothing at all, but California's Alan Keyes has had to distance himself from the comment. Meanwhile his much bigger problem is lacking the funds to run a proper campaign. He's now taken to relying on cheap robocalls, and Charlie Brown has immediately called on him to stop. Dirty trick robocalls that appeared to be coming from the Brown campaign were a major factor in John Doolittle's narrow re-election in 2006.
• CA-46: I didn't get a chance to post Debbie Cook's amazing closing statement at Tuesday's debate. Here it is.
The OC Register has a story on this race today. These "Challenger hopes to upset incumbent" stories have a familiar feel to them - the pose of surprise that the race is competitive, the quote from the shallow CW fountain like Allen Hoffenblum explaining why the incumbent is probably still safe, and the overall sense of shock, which would be natural if you weren't paying attention for the last 18 months, like, um, us.
• Assembly & Senate: Art Torres and Ron Nehring had a debate yesterday, and I think Torres needed to be prepped a little better. He claimed that Democrats could grab a 2/3 majority in the legislature but then couldn't come up with a simple list of what seats are in play. He should be reading more Calitics. Nehring replied with a lot of bunk and a little truth.
None of that adds up to 54 and 27, of course, and Nehring said Torres' boast "just doesn't pencil out."
He noted that Democratic efforts to oust Sen. Jeff Denham via recall failed miserably this year and the party ended up with no opponent to challenge Sen. Abel Maldonado in Santa Maria, a district believed to be winnable by a Democrat.
On the Assembly side, Nehring said, Republicans "have a great shot at holding on to" the 15th and "have a number of strategic advantages in the 78th (because) the Democrats have nominated the most liberal candidate (Marty Block) they possibly could."
In the 80th, the Democratic candidate (Manuel Perez) "is getting hammered on ... social issues which are important to many people in the Latino community," Nehring said.
"I don't know how can you be serious about trying to have a two-thirds vote in the Legislature," Nehring told Torres, "when you blow so many of these opportunities."
I'll go bottom to top on this. Manuel Perez is going to CRUSH Gary Jeandron, and if anyone's being hammered, it's the Republicans. The IE money is pretty one-sided in the state. Between that and the registration gains, it'll take more than just spin to dig your party out of its self-created hole, Mr. Nehring.
However, on one point I will agree with you. The Denham recall and Maldonado disaster have indeed stopped the potential forward momentum in the Senate. Of course, Torres couldn't say the plain truth - that Don Perata is among the worst leaders in recent Democratic Party history, and has completely set back the state in major ways by his blunders. He is an embarrassment.
The 4th District had a debate as well last night, the fifth and final of the campaign, and it was spirited.
Every scathing remark and harsh charge that's gone back and forth in the congressional race between Republican Tom McClintock and Democrat Charlie Brown got one more airing Tuesday night.
Speaking at a forum sponsored by the South Nevada County Chamber of Commerce south of Grass Valley, McClintock was painted as a do-nothing career politician and Brown as a tax-loving big-government advocate.
And there was also some talk about issues, mixed in with the shots, though sometimes each answer was equal parts both.
It was the usual nonsense: McClintock wants to drill here and drill now. McClintock wants no taxes and no government. McClintock wants to privatize Social Security (yes, even now). McClintock thinks Keebler elves can build the roads and bridges and a thimble-full of oil can power a Lexus. He's a magical thinker. But I have to say that this was my favorite part, and not just because McClintock doesn't know the meaning of the word "liquidity."
McClintock also roundly criticized the recently passed Wall Street bailout package, saying the better route was to put liquidity into the market.
Brown countered that he supported the plan because something needed to be done, then made reference to recent Federal Election Commission reports that showed McClintock's campaign in debt.
"You can't even run your own campaign on a balanced budget, so I don't trust you to run our nation's budget," Brown said.
Brown also hit McClintock over spending the past two years in Sacramento without getting one piece of legislation passed.
Brown took aim at McClintock's record as a state legislator, making reference to a recent Sacramento Bee story that reported McClintock had a perfect record of getting no legislation passed in the last two years.
"This is about actual results, and not talking about what you want to do unless you propose something else you can get passed," Brown said.
The debate is not going to have a major viewing audience. But the airwaves will, and the DCCC has just dropped a long-awaited ad in the district. It's good.
That's quite a lot for 30 seconds, but they pretty much cover California's Alan Keyes and make him out to be the punchline that he is.
The question is whether or not McClintock has 10 cents to respond to this.
Politico picks up the story of Tom McClintock's fundraising woes, and the fact that he was in the red as of October 1. I didn't know this:
But according to his campaign finance reports, he heads into the home stretch without much campaign cash left. McClintock spent more money than he raised, ending September with just $94,000 in his campaign account.
He is not currently airing airing any television ads, and hasn't been for the last two weeks.
If he's off the air right now, it's going to be next to impossible for him to get back on. The NRCC doesn't have a whole lot of money to play with, especially considering all the incumbents they have to defend. And the GOTV efforts, radio, phone calls, mailers, etc., cost plenty of money. If McClintock's living from hand to mouth right now, he's not going to get back on TV. And needless to say, Charlie Brown has plenty of money to blanket TV in the final two weeks. It's incredible.
And what's amazing is that this is how McClintock handled the primary as well. He overspent early and wound up running on fumes the last couple weeks. It wasn't a big deal against Doug Ose, but against a formidable opponent like Brown it'll matter. The supposed fiscal conservative can't even manage his own campaign stash.
