The Republicans spent a massive amount, estimated at $22 million, on their microtargeting and get out the vote drive. The Democratic Party in California, by contrast, spent around $3 million.
(AP) LOS ANGELES State Assembly Speaker Fabian Nunez's political committee has received an election-day windfall -- to the tune of $4 million. Officials say the Nov. 7 check from the state Democratic Party amounted to a refund of unspent funds that Nunez, one of the most powerful Democrats in Sacramento, raised to benefit the party and its candidates.
Think of this as a follow up post to Matt Stoller's post that touched on wasted money in CA, why we came close too losing a seat and why Arnold's landslide victory didn't come with coattails.
In the year and a half I have spent out here in California I have learned a lot of things. One of the biggest lesson is that politics is just bigger here, especially the money. $646,091,654 was hauled in by all campaigns in California this year alone. One person can give $100,000 to governors races. Anyone with $1 million can pay people to gather signatures and get an initiative on the ballot. Once it is up there they can collect unlimited sums to pass it.
Yeah, I know all of this sounds like an endorsement for Prop. 89, but it isn't. That initiative was way before its time and tried to do to much at once. The way to campaign finance reform in California is public financing of elections that does not just rely on corporate taxes to finance it. Reforming the ballot process needs to be dealt with separately. The attempt this year to do both at the same time and make corporations pay the biggest burden allowed way to many people who should be endorsing public financing to work for its defeat. It should help kick off a discussion of the next attempt at reform, but that was not the vehicle. It will take a number of years of coalition building to get it passed.
The other major thing I have learned, particularly this year is that the California Democratic Party is pretty ineffective. Here is the Courage Campaign's Rick Jacobs writing over at the insider CA Majority Report.
At first I applauded yesterday's announcement of Dem candidate for CA Lt. Guv John Garamendi's Monday press conference with Stem Cell Initiative Founder and Bd Pres of the Calif Institute for Regenerative Medicine, Bob Klein and SF Mayor Gavin Newsom on the importance of stem cell research to the nation. (University of California, 600-16th - in front of Genentech Hall, St. San Francisco, 12:15pm. Be there.)
Like many of us, I'd been following the delicious way Rush Limbaugh turned Michael J. Fox's recent ads on behalf of Dem candidates who favor medical research into a national news story.
Then I got to wondering how much - if anything - is known about the truly critical choice California faces in the Lt. Governor race. After all, most of us, even if we live in CA, don't know much at all about the L.G.'s scope of work, let alone it's relationship to stem cell research. And if we live anywhere else, we certainly can't be expected to understand why this CA race should be of national concern.
More below the jump. I'll unpack and shed some light.
