Despite the recent PPIC poll on the May 19 ballot initiatives, nobody should be confident in which direction this election will go. Though the polling position for the "Yes" side is increasingly untenable, it's clear that they will have far more resources to draw from leading up to the election, and will bombard the airwaves with their message (probably a message of fear). Just yesterday, another $1.5 million dropped into the Yes campaign's coffers.
A. Jerrold "Jerry" Perenchio, former chair of the largest Spanish-language media company in the United States, has donated $1.5 million to back two May special election measures.
Perenchio's donated the money to the Budget Reform Now committee, which calls for "yes" votes on Propositions 1A and 1C.
Proposition 1A would impose state spending restrictions, establish a "rainy day" fund for budget shortages and extend tax increases for two years. Proposition 1C allows the state to borrow $5 billion against future profits of a revamped state lottery.
I should note that Perenchio spent $1.5 million to back Arnold's 2005 special election, too. So he doesn't have the greatest track record. And it is not the case that the side with the most bucks wins the election. See T. Boone Pickens' Prop. 10 last year. While special interests can spend lots of money and get their way in the California legislature*, that's not always the case at the ballot. But this disparity could be great, and that will move numbers a little.
Calitics will be offering endorsements on the May 19 election within the next couple weeks.
* - Please read that report by the Sacramento Bee, and this sidebar about the top 10 spenders in Sacramento and how well they did with their bills. The money goes in and the favors go out, on a truly epic scale. We have to take our state back with major structural reform.
Judy Chu's event was held in a smaller venue than Cedillo's and had fewer attendees but had a few things going for it that Cedillo didn't. First was the visibility. Chu had bands of young people out on the street with signs cheering on Chu urging cars to honk in support. Also, while there was no member of congress on hand to tout Chu as Xavier Becerra did for Cedillo, Chu had a larger and more diverse group of local leaders speak on her behalf ranging from State Contoller John Chiang to Assemblymen Ed Hernandez and Mike Eng (Judy's husband) to Hilda Solis's sister Irma. While Cedillo spoke to a room full of primarily hispanic supporters (I'd say 90+%), the mix of Asian, hispanic and white faces there to support Judy and speak on her behalf was notable. While Cedillo is trying to tap into the majority hispanic population in the district (60% hispanic vs. 20% Asian), Judy Chu, having served on the Monterey Park City Council, in the Assembly and now on the Board of Equalization, already has a voting base in the district that spans all ethnic groups. Cedillo on the other hand has never represented any part of this district before.
Pretty interesting that Hilda Solis' sister not only showed up, but announced that "my whole family supports Judy Chu." The new Secretary of Labor isn't going to make an endorsement in this race, but that's about as close as it gets. And it's important, especially when combined with the Cal Labor Federation endorsement.
There's kind of a competition between who is the candidate of exclusion versus inclusion in this race. Chu says that she's the only one in the race from the district (that's not true; Emanuel Pleitez was born there, and Baldwin Park USD Board member Blanca Rubio lives there as well), and that a carpetbagger shouldn't be allowed to come in from out of town; Cedillo clearly is using his ethnic identity to make the point that the candidate should be representative of "our community." Both are exclusionary messages.
Meanwhile, Chu levied the first attack of the campaign by highlighting a Roll Call story about Cedillo doing a Washington fundraiser at the offices of the C2 Group, a lobbying firm in DC. Their clients include Fannie Mae, Amgen, Comcast Corp., the Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers and the American Beverage Association. What's more interesting about that fundraiser is that half a dozen Democratic Congressmembers are sponsoring it, including Rep. John Salazar (D-Colo.), chairman the Congressional Hispanic Caucus' political action committee. Will Cedillo get substantial CHC funds for this race?
It would be good to know where these candidates stand on the issues of the day, and a political campaign is a great way to make that known. There's a special election in the state on the same day as the primary - how do Chu and Cedillo stand on Prop. 1A? What about the AIG bonuses? At some point, it would be good to see the race turn to actual issues instead of sniping and exclusionary politics.
CapAlert reports that on December 5, Don Perata took ANOTHER $400,000 from his unused campaign account and moved it into his legal defense fund.
The latest transfer means the Oakland Democrat has now taken a total of $1.9 million raised in an account earmarked for ballot campaigns and used it to shore up the legal fund he created to fight an FBI corruption probe.
The transfers are legal, though California's campaign watchdog agency is considering stricter regulations of ballot accounts like Perata's [...]
The FBI has been investigating Perata since 2004, inquiring about his business dealings and those of his family and close friends. Both Perata's and his son's homes were raided by FBI agents four years ago.
No charges have ever been filed, though Perata has tallied up more than $2.1 million in expenses fending off the investigation.
His defense fund was $250,000 in debt as of the end of September, as the former leader faced the unwelcome prospect of being out of office - and without leverage over potential donors.
So Perata has transferred $1.9 million (out of the $2.7 million he had amassed) from the ballot committee to ease his legal debt load.
Once the election ended, Perata had no use for that $1.9 million in his campaign account as a termed-out legislator. However, there was plenty of use for it BEFORE the election, when Prop. 11 was being outspent 10 to 1 and losing by less than 2 percentage points.
Again, the alibi that he needs this money to fight off a "fishing expedition" from Bush partisans at the US Attorneys office doesn't scan at all. Those prosecutors are all resigning in a month. If he's done nothing wrong, what use could he possibly have for $1.9 million dollars over the next 30 days? Or are the expected Obama US Attorneys going to continue this partisan witch hunt?
By the way, the rank and file in the CCPOA is pretty pissed off about what amounts to theft of their political donations.
On PacoVilla's Corrections Blog, a Web site popular with state correctional officers, one user wrote: "Not only did we (CCPOA) back the wrong horse (No on 11) but now we're paying for Perata's corruption defense and from (CCPOA spokesman) Lance (Corcoran)'s comment ... it sounds like we're very happy to be privileged to do so."
By the way, there's still $600,000 or so left in that account. So don't be shocked when Perata drains that out too.
When Josh Richman, the fine reporter for the Oakland Tribune, called me for comment yesterday on the breaking news that Don Perata transferred $1.5 million dollars the day after the election from an IE account intended to elect Democrats to the State Senate and wage initiative campaigns into his personal legal defense fund, my initial reaction was "I'm not surprised." My slightly longer reaction is captured in the article:
David Dayen, an elected Democratic State Central Committee member from Santa Monica, blogged angrily this summer about his party's contribution to Perata's legal defense fund, contending the money would've been better spent on legislative races. The same goes for Leadership California's money, he said Wednesday; despite a Democratic presidential candidate carrying California by the largest margin since 1936, Democrats netted only three more Assembly seats and none in the state Senate.
"Every time I asked the California Democratic Party about getting more active and involved in local elections, they said the state Senate and the Assembly control those races "... and we don't have a lot of flexibility. So Perata, at that time, and Nunez or Bass had the authority to run those elections," Dayen said. "Now we see what happens when you vest power in these closed loops - suddenly self-interest becomes more important than the good of the party."
He believes this is why Perata didn't step aside as Pro Tem earlier, as Assembly Speaker Fabian Nunez relinquished his post to Karen Bass in May: "Darrell Steinberg was sitting there ready to go "... and we were all like, 'What the hell is going on?'
"We speculated it had to be that he still needed the leverage to make the calls to raise money for himself."
I want to expand on that. The behavior of Don Perata can be directly tied to the continuance of a status quo that has failed and is failing California families. At no time is the way elections are run - without transparency, without accountability, without meaningful checks on the potential for corruption - questioned by the powers that be. It is enabled through a shrug of the shoulders and the words "that's the way things are." What Perata did was perfectly legal, although that is subject to change, as the state Fair Political Practices Commission votes today on making such transfers illegal. But as Michael Kinsley famously said, "The scandal isn't what's illegal; it's what's legal." The bigger scandal is that there's no desire or even interest at the top to see that change. And why not - it suits them just fine.
California has 63% majorities in both chambers of the legislature, has just seen a 61% share of the vote for a Democratic Presidential candidate - and yet this state is completely, inescapably and hopelessly beholden to right-wing interests, as a function of a backwards set of governing rules that have climbed the budget hole over $40 billion dollars, without any reasonable hope of getting out of it. It's been beyond clear for several years now that the ultimate solution will come at the ballot box, and yet the state party has entrusted the most crucial elections, the ones that could net a working 2/3 majority in the Senate, to someone more concerned with saving his political hide. And so Hannah-Beth Jackson, who came within 1,200 votes of flipping a Republican seat, reads a story like this in shock and anger. And the citizens in SD-12, promised a recall of Jeff Denham; and those in SD-15, expecting a candidate in their majority-Democratic district to take on Abel Maldonado; they are similarly angry. Money they had every right to expect would go to help them now goes to help one man.
(By the way, the alibi from the defenders of Perata on this doesn't scan at all. First of all, nobody begrudges him from raising money in his own defense - the problem lies in taking that money from an account intended for campaign work. And second, if this is a "political witch hunt," as they say, why would he need this lump sum of money 75 days from the time when a Democratic Administration with no inclination to prosecute Democrats on allegedly bogus charges is about to be installed? It's either a witch hunt about to end or a going concern. The alibi is pathetic.)
But the larger point is that the status quo, the closed systems at the top of the Democratic leadership, the lack of transparency and accountability, create the crises we see in our state, or at least disable anyone from reacting to them. And this is not likely to change. John Burton is going to be the next state CDP Chair. He's been in politics for 205 years, and he's basically muscled out the competition for the job. Does anyone think that a lifelong pol, with a long history of backroom deals, the guy who was Arnold Schwarzenegger's cigar-smoking buddy (that seems like a good profile for the opposition party chair), gives a damn about urgently needed reform? He's making sweet little noises about turning red areas blue, but there's absolutely no hope that he will provide any change from the insular, chummy, mutual backscratching society that exists in Sacramento. Grassroots activists should be furious that, in the wake of seeing countless opportunities wasted and crises lengthened, we're boldly taking off into the future with a Party Chair who was first elected in 1965.
The future of California is a mystery right now, because there is a crisis of leadership and an unwillingness to reform. At the very least, activists should look to electing Hillary Crosby as State Party Controller so that someone in the room will have a reform message that can spark a modicum of change. But until the fundamentals are altered, we will lurch from one disaster to the next.
The LA Times has decided to expose, not before Election Day but a month after, the juicy little fact that 1/4 of all state lawmakers have outside jobs which can cause direct conflicts of interest with their lawmaking duties, as they often vote on legislation that directly impacts their private income.
There can be a case made, though not a compelling one, that the shortness of legislative terms requires lawmakers to have some backup income in place for the future beyond their $150,000 a year salary. However, when termed-out legislators can grab highly sought and lucrative state board positions, that point becomes fairly moot. Not to mention the fact that political donors can continue to fund termed-out politicians for "strategic purposes," a perfectly legal enterprise.
Assemblywoman Nicole Parra may have found the perfect antidote to life in the Assembly doghouse - travel to political bashes in Maui, Las Vegas, Chicago and New Orleans, courtesy of political donors [...]
Campaign disclosure statements show that Parra, a lame-duck lawmaker who did not seek election to another office, largely emptied her campaign coffers this year - in part by spending thousands of dollars on travel, meals, parties and conferences [...] Parra spent more than $150,000 in campaign funds this year, including donations of $30,000 to WEAVE in Sacramento, $15,000 to the California Democratic Party, and $3,600 apiece to about a half-dozen legislative colleagues.
California law allows legislators to spend unlimited campaign sums for a political, legislative or governmental purpose.
My larger beef is with the 38 million who permit this activity through our collective silence, relatively speaking. Without an independent media dedicated to exposing sunlight and ferreting out these ugly deals inside Sacramento, and then without significant follow-up from citizens and groups to force consequences, we basically get the government we deserve. California's media landscape shrinks almost by the day, as a nation-state of 38 million has a number of political reporters that you may not even have to go into double digits to count. The "watchdog" groups are competent press release factories, but extract little in the way of consequences. And everybody has so internalized the concept that state elections are essentially a formality, including both sides of the political aisle, that the public wastes its own opportunity to have a voice on these matters. The perfect example is AD-30 this year, a hotly contested race with millions of dollars spent on both sides, which attracted an appalling 84,804 voters total at last count, less than half of the number for a similarly contested race in AD-10, and close to 1/3 of eligible voters, registered and unregistered, in the Bakersfield-area district. And this was a Presidential election! If I were elected from there I'd be embarrassed to serve.
This outright apathy allows corruption to slip through the cracks, as an unwatched Sacramento goes about its plunder. The byzantine series of rules have made California ungovernable because so few people show a legitimate interest in changing them. The future of California lies only in finding more people who care about the state than currently exist. Otherwise, a narrow political class will continue to take profits, and nobody will even notice.
So Debbie Cook and Dana Rohrabacher debated yesterday afternoon. I could write 1000 words about it, but I could also just provide you with this picture, which says it all:
As in, "I can't believe I actually have to run for my seat."
But if you want to know about the substance, Todd Beeton, who was there, has a writeup.
But even though crazy Dana is always likely to say some crazy shit, and he did, what I took away from the debate most of all was how unabashedly progressive Debbie Cook is and how lucky we would be to have her in Congress. This is a fairly red (albeit getting bluer every day) district, one where you might expect the Democratic challenger to moderate her views for the electorate. Nope, not Debbie. I'll write about the debate more later, hopefully with video, but here are just three of the issues where Debbie shined today:
• On global warming, Cook, who is an energy expert, in response to Rohrabacher's global warming denier nonsense, asserted "The debate is over. I can't get into a discussion over climate change, to me it's just a fact, we need to move on to solving our oil depletion problems."
• On Proposition 8: "I strongly oppose Proposition 8, I am in favor of full marriage equality."
• And on healthcare reform, Cook advocated for a single-payer Medicare for all model. "Health care is a right every American should enjoy."
Yes, Crazy Dana denied global warming. Again. Not sure if he attributed it to dinosaur flatulence this time. But here's the actual discussion:
Rohrabacher went on to accuse those "who claim that humankind is changing the climate," including Cook and his other opponents, of fear mongering.
"[They are] trying to stampede us into policies that will take us towards technologies that just deal with carbon dioxide and have nothing to do with personal health," Rohrabacher said.
Cook, who led Huntington Beach in joining the U.S. Mayor's Agreement on Global Warming, dismissed Rohrabacher's claims, stating that the scientific debate over climate change had ended.
"Debating climate change is just a distraction from the real work that we all need to do," Cook said. "Humans are overtaking the ability of the planet to sustain itself. Now, we need to move toward a green future because that's the only thing that can save us."
Apparently, Rohrabacher's plan was to relate everything back to illegal immigration and the Wall Street bailout package, which he would have replaced with capital gains tax cuts and more deregulation, so I'm not seeing Mr. Populism in there.
Cook stayed on message and did not take the bait. Here was her explanation.
After the debate, Cook explained why she refused to go after the incumbent.
"It's not my style," she said. "You don't want to make the same mistake that the Republicans have made with McCain in going negative, negative, negative. I think it's quite apparent that he's done nothing for this district in 20 years. And if people don't understand that, me telling them isn't going to change anything."
"He's an a**," Cook continued. "I can't respond to him. He's a liar."
Yes, that Donald Segretti. The head of the "dirty tricks" division of the Nixon campaign, the guy who stole stationery from Ed Muskie and wrote all kinds of lies about possible Nixon opponents in 1972, alleging Scoop Jackson had an illegitimate child and Hubert Humphrey was guilty of sexual misconduct and Muskie had insulted Franch-Canadians. By the way, Segretti was a co-chair of John McCain's Presidential campaign in 2000. And he was Karl Rove's mentor in ratfucking.
Donald Segretti offered J. Timothy Gratz $100.00 per month, plus expenses, to co-ordinate these projects. Gratz agreed to work on the project and he was given an advance payment of $50.00. Gratz later told Anthony Ulasewicz that "although the whole incident seemed strange" he agreed to help "as most of the ideas he suggested seemed like they were worth doing anyway". However, Gratz claimed he told Karl Rove, Chairman of the College Republican National Committee, about this dirty tricks campaign. We now know that Rove himself was part of Segretti's campaign. In fact, he probably played a leading role in this dirty tricks operation. Rove had become friends with CIA asset, Robert F. Bennett in 1968. According to one report, Bennett became a "mentor of Rove's".
In 1970, Karl Rove used a false identity to enter the campaign office of Democrat Alan J. Dixon, who was running for Illinois State Treasurer, and stole 1000 sheets of paper with campaign letterhead. Rove then printed fake campaign rally fliers promising "free beer, free food, girls and a good time for nothing," and distributed them at rock concerts and homeless shelters, with the effect of disrupting Dixon's rally.
Nice company that Rohrabacher attracts.
Donate to Debbie Cook: Having the money to get her message out is all that stands between her and victory.
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.
You can now add Rep. Brian Bilbray (R-CA 50) to the new heap of GOP incumbents who should be suddenly very worried. A new poll, conducted for atty/ex-San Diego City prosecutor Nick Leibham's (D) camp, shows him trailing Bilbray by a miniscule 44-42% margin.
This may feel like deja vu for GOPers. In the '06 special election to fill imprisoned-Rep. Duke Cunningham's (R) term, Bilbray needed $4.5M from the NRCC to skate by a relatively lackluster Dem. What's worrisome for Bilbray is that the cash-starved NRCC can't afford to put anywhere near that amount in his CD to save it this year. And the DCCC has enough cash, if it chooses to enter the contest, to make a difference. The NRCC simply can't afford to overwhelm Dem efforts here like they did in '06.
This is particularly acute in CA-50. Leibham beat Bilbray in fundraising in the third quarter, and they are almost even in cash on hand. Which means that, barring a life raft from the national party, Bilbray is largely on his own. And he doesn't have much to run on. Here he is whining about that powerful ad from Leibham supporter Joe Hoar, a retired Marine General, which ripped Bilbray for voting against the new GI Bill:
Bilbray said he was one of the GI Bill's original co-sponsors, but voted against it after congressional Democrats loaded it up with extraneous goodies, including a "massive tax increase" and a foreign aid package for Africa and Mexico.
"That's the kind of cynical tactics we said 'no' to," the Carlsbad Republican said. "We forced it to come back as a clean bill and we were able to pass it and it was signed into law in June."
Actually, it wasn't a clean bill at all, it was folded into an Iraq appropriation. And he objected to it initially because it was funded by a tax on millionaires.
Liebham supporters have put up an attack website called Wrong Way Bilbray highlighting his votes. Now that the campaign has settled into attacking Bilbray on the issues, with the Democratic wind at their backs, they are gaining traction.
And more than CA-50, what we're seeing is an across the board re-evaluation of Republican incumbents, with multiple GOPers in trouble.
(Updated with new information at the bottom... - promoted by David Dayen)
The FEC reports are starting to come in for our candidates. I'll update them here, but the preliminary numbers are very strong.
• CA-50: Wow. Nick Leibham raised $413,000 in the third quarter, his best quarter of the cycle by a factor of four. With $334,000 cash on hand, he's going to be able to get his message out in the final weeks. As much as anything, this is why Leibham is Red To Blue. No word on Brian Bilbray's take yet. Leibham's latest ad uses a local war hero to hammer Bilbray for his vote against the new GI Bill, and it's very powerful, a great improvement over the attention-getting stunts from earlier in the year. I'm starting to feel good about this race.
• CA-45: Julie Bornstein raised around $102,000 in Q3, while Mary Bono Mack raised $245,000. The cash on hand situation shows Bono Mack with $462,548 in the bank compared to Bornstein's $179,308. That's not terrible, especially if the DCCC steps in with some outside help - they just added Bornstein to their emerging races list (along with Bill Durston in CA-03). Her latest ad, showing Bono Mack as a rubber-stamping bobblehead, is spot-on ("Do you think George Bush is right 92% of the time?")
• CA-52: In our toughest winnable race, Mike Lumpkin raised $107,000 and has $125,000 CoH, and Duncan D. Hunter raised $290,000 with $321,000 CoH. It'll take a monumental effort to win this one, but I don't consider it impossible. Lumpkin just got put on the D-Trip's Races To Watch page, along with Russ Warner (CA-26).
• CA-46: A nice writeup about canvassing for Debbie Cook from friend of the blog Andrew Davey (atdleft).
more money updates when they roll in...
UPDATE: Debbie Cook raised $114,000 and has $181,000 in the bank. Nothing yet from Dana Rohrabacher. Will she outraise him three quarters in a row?
UPDATE: More numbers:
CA-04: Charlie Brown: raised $539K, $456K cash on hand. GREAT numbers.
Tom McClintock: raised $978K, but spent a ton, and has only $94,000 left, with $110,000 in debts. He is BROKE. Brown has an infinite lead in CoH.
CA-03: Bill Durston: raised $149K, $145K CoH.
Dan Lungren: raised $173K (wow, Durston almost outraised him), $680K CoH. Dr. Bill is going to need some help.
CA-26: Russ Warner: raised $289K, which is great, but he's spent a lot early. He has $119K CoH.
David Dreier: raised $255K. Wow, Warner outraised Dreier. He still has $1.7 million in the bank, and he doesn't seem to be using the money. He only spent $345K in Q3. I don't know if it's for leadership purposes or what, but he has a hell of a war chest that he's not using.
CA-11: Jerry McNerney: raised $601K, $1.02 million CoH.
Dean Andal: raised $345K, with $850K CoH. Some prize recruit.
CA-50: Brian Bilbray: This was the number I was waiting for. He raised $262K and has $382K CoH. OK, Nick Leibham didn't just beat Bilbray in Q2, he destroyed him. And the cash on hand is virtually even. Wow.
CA-46: Dana Rohrabacher: Drum roll... raised $148K. OK, he beat Debbie Cook for once. The CoH is $497K, but much like Dreier, he's spent next to nothing. $35K in the quarter.
Overall, these are good numbers. Lots of our candidates have the resources they need. Keep up the pressure.
• Nancy Pelosi is going to ask for a second stimulus that includes aid for state and local governments, extending unemployment benefits and investment in infrastructure. This is desperately needed and she needs to follow up and we have to pressure her. It's good for California and the nation.
• 538 did a "road to 270" feature on California a couple days back. Nothing in there you wouldn't expect, other than some good demographic information (our Starbucks/Wal-Mart ratio is second in the nation).
• I don't know if we've featured this in a post or not, but this ad for the Yes on 4 campaign is completely despicable and everybody involved in it should be ashamed of themselves. Apparently devoid of shame, the campaign, after saying they'd only run it once, has expanded it and aired it in selected markets last night after the Presidential debate.
• Here's a fundraising breakdown for all 12 propositions. No on 4 has quite an advantage and they need to use it. Yes on 5 has a large advantage as well. There is no committee for No on 1A. Same with No on 10. It's an interesting set of numbers.
• This is a sad story about a family of six murdered by the head of household, who had an advanced degree in finance but couldn't find a job. I take no pleasure in saying this could be replicated around the state as we hit this downturn.
• You may remember Delecia Holt, the perennial Republican candidate in the San Diego area who suffered allegations of campaign fraud. She's now been arrested for writing bad checks and avoiding bill collectors.
So we raised nearly $3,000 in about two days, and combined with our $2,500 in matching funds we contributed around $5,500 to five great candidates: Charlie Brown (CA-04), Debbie Cook (CA-46), Hannah-Beth Jackson (SD-19), Alyson Huber (AD-10), and Manuel Perez (AD-80).
Great work, everyone. Thanks so much for participating. You rock.
OK, we're over $2,600, but we still need to get $500 per candidate to reach our matching goal. Thanks so much, everyone. If you want great Democrats like Hilda Solis in Washington and in Sacramento, please do what you can to help us out.
(You guys are awesome. Thanks so much for getting us to our goal. But there's still more work to be done before midnight; we need to get $500 raised for each candidate. Right now 4 of our 5 candidates need a little more. Visit our ActBlue page and donate!)
Calitics Match candidate Charlie Brown is facing California's Alan Keyes, perennial candidate Tom McClintock, in the most hotly contested Congressional race in the state. And I think the pressure is getting to McClintock.
He put together a website called "Vets for Tom" which has a page with a list of resources for veterans. There is substantial evidence that McClintock's team plagiarized the resource list from Charlie Brown's website.
Campaign manager Todd Stenhouse said that not only did a list of resources on the site exactly match what was on Brown's site, but one link that was broken on Brown's site had the same problem on McClintock's site.
When visitors clicked on the "AmVets" link on McClintock's site, Stenhouse said, the broken address took visitor to a site with an address from Charlie Brown's site, in what Stenhouse called "a smoking gun."
"Everything he's learned about veterans and the military, he's apparently learned from Charlie Brown," Stenhouse said, referring to Brown's criticism of McClintock, a state senator, for voting against legislation related to veterans. McClintock established the veterans' site late last week.
There's really not much more to say on that. Some people lead and others follow.
Meanwhile, Brown and McClintock are strating to meet in forums and debates. Last week Brown called into a Sacramento radio show where McClintock was appearing, and last night they discussed the financial industry bailout. As expected, McClintock favors the exact same failed solutions which brought us to this crisis in the first place, like suspending the capital gains tax. Brown's position is more nuanced, supporting enforceable standards on executive compensation and returning proceeds from selling assets to taxpayers, while concerned about the consequences of doing nothing (which is McClintock's specialty).
The larger point is that McClintock is an enthusiastic supporter of the failed policies of the past, while Brown would reliably represent the future and lead on key issues.
((I'm told that Act Blue is back up and running, so you can donate now. And we're almost to our goal! $180 left! Who will put us over the top?) - promoted by Robert in Monterey)
Thanks to everyone who has supported our five candidates in the Calitics Match thus far. We're past halfway to our goal, and Debbie Cook has well surpassed our $500 match (way to go!).
Today is crunch time. It's the final day before the end of the third quarter, which is the reporting deadline for federal candidates. This is the best opportunity to make your donations the most meaningful; the quarterly fundraising announcements are key to gauge support, and money put into field and messaging now will pay bigger dividends in the future than a quick cash infusion at the last minute. Please support these candidates and Calitics will match you dollar for dollar.
The Yacht Party Republicans still think you're stupid. They believe they can hide behind the gated communities they've created through gerrymandering, and that Sarah Palin's presence at the top of the ticket will lift their hopes. No, really:
A statewide poll this week underscored the effect Palin has had on the Republican base. According to the Public Policy Institute of California, GOP satisfaction with their presidential choice has doubled since Palin joined the ticket. Unfortunately for McCain, that has not translated into gains against Democrat Barack Obama in California, which has gone to the Democratic presidential candidate in the last four presidential elections.
Still, state Republicans were rejoicing at the possibilities. Thomas G. Del Beccaro, the state party vice chairman, said new volunteers were streaming in faster than at any time since the 2003 recall election. Republicans, he said, were hopeful that a resulting increase in voters would help the party in legislative and congressional races where they might not have been as competitive otherwise.
This is bravado. The wingnut base wasn't going to stay away from a Presidential election. It's the growing decline-to-state base, along with increased Democratic registration statewide, that has the potential to sink the Yacht Party just as Sarah Palin's favorable ratings have sank as voters face the terrifying prospect of her in a position of power. This is the real shift in the electorate:
Since the two parties largely settled on presidential nominees in April, voter rolls have increased by roughly 19,500 - or 2 percent - in Placer, El Dorado, Sacramento and Yolo counties, according to new figures from the California secretary of state's office. Democrats accounted for 10,500 of those new voters. Just 2,400 were Republicans. Most of the others declined to state an allegiance.
The regional numbers mirror a statewide trend. California's Democratic voter rolls have increased by 181,118 since April while the number of Republicans grew by 6,823. Republicans saw a net loss of registered voters in 25 counties, including a loss of more than 15,000 in conservative Orange County. Similar trends are playing out nationally, in several battleground states.
You can see the data for yourself. Particularly in this financial crisis, Californians are ready for a new direction away from failed conservative policies.
All that stands between our five candidates and victory in November is making sure they have the resources to compete. We can help provide that today. Please visit the Calitics Match Act Blue page and give what you can. We'll double your donation to make it that much more meaningful.
The most remarkable quote of the week came from a backbencher Yacht Party Republican named Mark Wyland, commenting on the historically late state budget. If the California Democratic Party had a locker room, this would be serious bulletin-board material:
Voters are unlikely to punish lawmakers for the budget delay in any substantive way on Nov. 4 unless it's to pass a ballot measure that would change how political districts are drawn, said state Sen. Mark Wyland (R-Carlsbad).
"My experience with voters is that they really don't care how long it takes to get a budget," Wyland said, following his participation in a panel discussion at an event on reforming state government.
According to Wyland, prolonged budget stalemates like this year's sometimes encourage voters to keep their incumbents. Because districts are usually heavily skewed in registration to one party or another, he said, sitting legislators are more likely to hear encouragement for their party's ideological position than disfavor.
And voting against the party - in Wyland's example, for tax raises or to reinstate the unpopular vehicle-license fee - is an invitation to face a primary challenge in the next election cycle, he said.
This is the calcified opinion from the Yacht Party, and why they'll never be moved from their ideological perches. They believe that they have more to fear from internal challenges on the grounds of insufficient fealty to failed conservative policies than from the consequences of those policies. And there's a lot of evidence on their side, although not as much as they think.
But the most glaring point made in this statement is one of contempt. It shows contempt for voters to act in the best interest of an ideology than in the best interest of the state. It shows contempt for voters to hold the budget hostage, causing extreme hardship in the lives of state employees, community health centers, policemen and firefighters, and public schools, and expect nobody to notice. It shows contempt for voters to use the tyranny of the minority to advance a cause completely at odds with the prevailing opinion of the state. Real people were affected and harmed by this budget, and all of us will be in the future as the bills of conservative borrow-and-spend economics and systematic destruction of government come due.
And the thing is, Wyland is relying on a failed model. Demographic shifts and a reckoning of the failure of conservatism has made no district safe. Indeed Californians can punish Yacht Party Republicans for their intransigence and obstructionism. There are a number of races at the federal and state level where Democrats have more than a chance to unseat Republicans and turn seats blue. In fact, with some luck and proper resources we can get very close to that 2/3 majority needed to pass budgets and fix the structural revenue deficit. That's where you come in.
The Calitics Editorial Board has identified five seats which strike a balance between winnable races and progressive leadership. We've decided to start a major fundraising push for these five candidates between now and the end of the quarterly reporting requirement on September 30. That gives us only a few days, but here's the kicker - Calitics will match every donation made to these candidates up to $500 each, for a grand total of a $2,500 candidate match.
Charlie Brown (CA-04): A recent Research 2000 poll showed Brown leading perennial candidate Tom McClintock 46-41 in this deep red district. Brown, a retired Air Force Lt. Colonel, nearly defeated indicted Congressman John Doolittle in 2006 and has shown tremendous leadership on veteran's issues and the FISA fight before even coming to Congress. He's a better Democrat we can all be proud of.
Debbie Cook (CA-46): Running in a tough district against certifiably crazy Rep. Dana Rohrabacher, Debbie Cook is running with an unabashedly progressive message. The Mayor of Huntington Beach, Cook is an expert on peak oil and energy issues, and would instantly be one of the most knowledgeable voices in the Congress on how to move toward a post-carbon future. She also believes in ending the Iraq occupation responsibly and achieving the goal of quality and affordable health care for all.
Hannah-Beth Jackson (SD-19): A former Assemblywoman and creator of Speak Out California, a blog and resource for Golden State progressives, Hannah-Beth Jackson has proven her progressive bona fides time and again. Running in rapidly changing Ventura County against the former state director of the Club for Growth, Tony Strickland, Jackson can prove that even Tom McClintock's old seat is not safe from the progressive wave. She would lead in the State Senate on issues of economic justice and the environment.
Alyson Huber (AD-10): AD-10 is another district where the demographics are changing, and Alyson Huber is perfectly suited to take advantage of this and turn the seat blue. Huber, an attorney and working mother, is focused on increasing access to health care and education for all Californians. She would help tremendously in bringing us closer to that needed 2/3 majority.
Manuel Perez (AD-80): A transformative leader, Manuel Perez is ready to take that leadership to Sacramento. Part of a growing group of Hispanic-Americans in the Coachella Valley who are leading a major progressive challenge to the typical politics of the region, Manuel has created community health clinics, served on the Coachella School Board as a trustee, taught classes, and organized his community to fight for change. He is uniquely suited to take his varied experience and lead in the State Legislature.
The time is tight, but we need to make Mark Wyland and the Yacht Party Republicans he represents cry. Please contribute to our Calitics Match fundraising effort before Tuesday!
The general election has begun. On a random Thursday night, when most political junkies were watching POW McCain's cottage cheese and lime Jello speech at the RNC convention, in a town notoriously hard to get anywhere in on time, 2,000 people showed up at the opening of Barack Obama's first campaign office in Southern California.
There were a couple speeches from locals (Eric Garcetti, Harb Wesson, Mark Ridley-Thomas, and a couple others) at the beginning, and they handed out a few yard signs and bumper stickers, but basically, this was an office opening. Just a walk-through of the building. And the campaign sent only one email out about it, with just 24 hours advance notice.
I've been mulling this around in my head for a few days. Three powerful members of the House Judiciary committee have have sent a letter to the Justice Department calling for an investigation into leaks surrounding the inquiry into State Senate President Pro Tem Don Perata.
No article since November 2004 has explicitly said that any information came from a federal government source. But in a letter to U.S. Atty. Gen. Michael B. Mukasey obtained by The Times on Monday, U.S. Reps. John Conyers Jr., Linda Sanchez and Zoe Lofgren wrote, "We are disturbed and concerned that news story after news story . . . has cited federal law enforcement sources as the basis of information."
The only article specifically mentioned in the July 31 letter was a story in the San Francisco Chronicle. The article cited "sources familiar with the probe," a broad term that could encompass federal agents, defense attorneys and people who have been questioned [...]
On Friday, the day after the congressional letter was sent, a Wall Street Journal article said the investigation into Perata "gained momentum over the past year." The article's details were attributed to anonymous people "close to the defense," who said Perata's longtime political consultant, Sandi Polka, was granted immunity to compel her to answer questions.
The Perata investigation certainly has dragged on for years, leading to him needing more and more funds to raise in his defense. In particular, the dumping of $250,000 from the California Democratic Party into his legal defense fund raised a lot of eyebrows around these parts. After the initial explanation of "We're the CDP and we can do what we want," a secondary explanation was that the investigation had been politicized and that this was part of the DoJ's efforts to prosecute and delegitimize Democrats. A couple weeks later, out comes this letter, signed by two members of the California delegation. But it's Conyers' participation that makes me believe that this is a real concern. I trust Conyers enough to think that he wouldn't simply badger the DoJ to help out a political problem in California.
Of course, let's look at what the letter is actually alleging. It's not suggesting that the investigation itself is unnecessarily political, but that someone inside the investigation is using the media to disparage Perata. That may well be true, but it doesn't necessarily follow that the whole investigation is a farce.
Let's now look at what this does NOT suggest:
• It in no way excuses the CDP for paying off Perata with $250,000 in the middle of an election year, whether that money was simply laundered through them and earmarked for Perata or not. Based on this SacBee report, it appears Perata is perfectly capable of raising money for himself:
Senate President Pro Tem Don Perata has solicited at least $200,000 this year from political interest groups for a nonprofit foundation that promotes and rallies support for one of his bills.
The arrangement, apparently legal, allows the Senate leader to solicit unlimited funds for his own political agenda without having to detail how the money is spent.
"He may have found a loophole in the Political Reform Act that needs to be closed," said attorney Bob Stern, a co-author of the state's Political Reform Act who now runs the Center for Governmental Studies in Los Angeles.
Which leads me to point 2:
• There is no way that Perata should still be Senate President Pro Tem at this point. While he has done a good job of hammering Republicans for their intransigence on the budget, this image hit, as well as the constant distraction of having to find new ways to raise money for his legal bills, are not what we need at this sensitive time, ESPECIALLY when Darrell Steinberg is waiting in the wings and perfectly capable of performing the same duties without the black cloud of indictment hanging over the head of the Democratic leadership. They haven't even taken a caucus vote on this yet, to my knowledge - it's currently scheduled for August 21, but during these budget negotiations that's doubtful to come off.
It is perfectly consistent to be skeptical of the Justice Department's case against Perata and to ALSO demand that he step down from his leadership position, and to excoriate the CDP for their conduct in either shoveling Perata money or acting as a conduit for that fund transfer.
This is a budding scandal. The front page of the Washington Post today profiles Harry Sargeant III, a bundler for John McCain who has a knack of getting big-dollar donations out of working-class people in the Inland Empire who've never made a political contribution in their lives.
The bundle of $2,300 and $4,600 checks that poured into Sen. John McCain's presidential campaign on March 12 came from an unlikely group of California donors: a mechanic from D&D Auto Repair in Whittier, the manager of Rite Aid Pharmacy No. 5727, the 30-something owners of the Twilight Hookah Lounge in Fullerton.
But the man who gathered checks from them is no stranger to McCain -- he shuttled the Republican on his private plane and held a fundraising event for the candidate at his house in Delray Beach, Fla [...]
Some of the most prolific givers in Sargeant's network live in modest homes in Southern California's Inland Empire. Most had never given a political contribution before being contacted by Sargeant or his associates. Most said they have never voiced much interest in politics. And in several instances, they had never registered to vote. And yet, records show, some families have ponied up as much as $18,400 for various candidates between December and March.
Both Sargeant and the donors were vague when asked to explain how Sargeant persuaded them to give away so much money.
This is extremely odd. Non-donors don't just pop up and max out, especially when they don't fit the profile of having $2,300 to spare. There's at least the possibility here of straw donations, where these names are either picked out of the phone book and used as shells so big-money folks can deliver more than campaign finance limits to the candidate, or the contributors are willing participants who give and then get the money back (with a little extra for their trouble) from the same big-money boys.
Adding to the intrigue is that these donors declined to talk about the donations (at first denying they had made them) or who asked them to do so. Half these people aren't registered to vote. And all of them appear to be Arab-American, a community with which Sargeant has unique contacts:
Sargeant's business relationships, and the work they perform together, occur away from the public eye. His firm, International Oil Trading Co. (IOTC), holds several lucrative contracts with the Defense Department to carry fuel to the U.S. military in Iraq.
"It is very difficult and is a very logistically intensive business that we have been able to specialize in," Sargeant said. "We do difficult logistical things that don't necessarily suit a major oil company. It's a niche we've been able to occupy."
The work has not been without controversy. Last month, Rep. Henry A. Waxman (D-Calif.) initiated a review of IOTC's contract to determine whether it was overcharging the military for jet fuel, and to learn how the company, which did not submit the lowest bid, landed the contract to supply the fuel. The Pentagon has said that IOTC won the contract because it was the only company with a "letter of authorization" from the Jordanian government to move the fuel across its territory to Iraq.
Greg Sargent and Eric Kleefeld have more on this element of the story - Sargeant (no relation to the TPM writer) is apparently being sued by the brother-in-law of the King of Jordan.
This is a very shady tale and I'm guessing we haven't heard the end of it. John McCain's absentee leadership has led to serious violations of campaign finance law already - and this could be the worst yet.
He's running for two offices at the same time. Tom McClintock is actively raising money for a 2010 Board of Equalization campaign in the event that he loses the Congressional race against Charlie Brown. The proof is right here. From the press release from the Brown campaign:
Since the beginning of the year--and even after he announced his exploratory committee for Congress-- Tom McClintock spent over $50,000 for his potential 2010 campaign for California State Board of Equalization and raised over $32,000 during this time period. These figures include 3 contributions to his 2010 statewide campaign fund on the same day he announced his congressional bid for CA-04, and thousands more in the months that followed---including a contribution from tobacco giant Reynolds American.
Reminiscent of Congressman John Doolittle, Senator McClintock also made a $15,000 donation marked "charity" to his own political organization---"Tom McClintock's Citizens for the California Republic ."
In addition, Senator McClintock employed the same finance director - Igor Birman - to solicit contributions for both his federal and state committees. Mr. Birman was paid to solicit funds for the non-federal committee through March 5, 2008 and began receiving payments from the federal committee on Feb. 6, 2008.
Using state campaign funds for a federal campaign is illegal.
I think McClintock has to admit that he has a problem. The man is addicted to running for office, so much so that he can't stop one campaign before he starts another. Even Alan Keyes has enough sense to run one race at a time.
Charlie Brown's statement:
"I decided to run for Congress to do what the career politicians have repeatedly failed to do-bring people together to solve problems in our district and across our country. I have no ambition for higher office because I believe there is no greater honor than to serve the nation I dedicated my life to defending, and to represent the community where I have lived, worked and raised my family these past 17 years.
It's time for State Senator McClintock to level with the people in our community. What office are you running for? Will you give back all the money you've raised for your statewide bid since February 1, 2008 - including the money you took from the tobacco companies?"
Aside from being illegal, how could voters in the 4th District expect that the guy who's already looking for his next office has any interest in or concern for their lives and their challenges? McClintock is just trying to cash a paycheck. He has one political job, and is running for two or maybe three more.
This is the defining narrative of this whole campaign - leader vs. opportunist.
Swing State Project did the definitive cash-on-hand rankings for House races. I've culled just the California ones from that list, and then used their massive fundraising round-up to add in the other California challengers, and then plowed through the FEC database to find the rest. I wanted to add in how much money each person raised in Q2 to give you guys an idea of how their recent fundraising is going, but I had no idea how to find those numbers for the other candidates not in SSP's database. For example, check out Brian Bilbray. There's NOTHING about how much he raised from April 1 to May 14 this year. Huh. I have no idea how the SSP guys got their $210,000 figure, so I'm not even going to try and derive those numbers. Oh well. (I've put McClintock as the incumbent because he belongs to the same party as Doolittle. Same for Duncan Hunter's son.)
Cash figures are in the thousands of dollars. Fundraising table after the fold.
Update: The races David listed have now been added, and I finally figured out how to find the Q2 fundraising numbers for everybody. Well, almost everybody.
