CA House Races Roundup - 5-16-08

I'll have another House roundup probably by Monday, but I wanted to toss out a few items of note:

• CA-26: I have to applaud Russ Warner's rapid response team for jumping on David Dreier's voting record immediately and choosing the issues where he can reveal that Dreier is not the moderate he portrays as being to his district. On the heels of yesterday's House vote on the GI Bill, Warner released this:

David Dreier voted against a bill to increase educational opportunities for veterans today. The legislation expands the education benefits veterans receive under the GI bill to restore the promise of a full, four-year college education. It passed the House with broad bi-partisan support, 256 to 166.

“I would have voted differently on this bill,” said Russ Warner, a successful small businessman and the Democratic candidate for Congress from California’s 26th district. “It’s important to make the veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan part of an American economic recovery, just like the veterans of World War II were. They put their lives on the line for us, and deserve to be able to come home and go to school if they so choose. We need new leaders with new priorities in Washington, and that’s why I’m running for Congress.”

Russ Warner’s eldest son, Greg, is in the U.S. Army and served in Iraq for 17 months. Upon his return, he challenged his father to make a difference by running for Congress.

Down With Tyranny has more, including a great pic of Warner and his son Greg.

• CA-41: Please take some time to read IndieinSF's piece introducing the community to Dr. Rita Ramirez-Dean, a progressive candidate running for slimebucket Jerry Lewis' seat in the San Bernardino area. It's also linked at DWT. The post talks about the picture on the ground and the changing demographics in the district. Our growth potential in California is dependent on winning seats like this. I've met Dr. Dean and found her to be someone of character. She has also endorsed the Repsonsible Plan To End The War in Iraq, elements of which passed through the House yesterday (Rep. Jay Inslee of Washington even mentioned it on the House floor).

• CA-42: Next week, Ron Shepston has two fundraisers with Amb. Joseph Wilson. One is in Oak Canyon Park near Irvine on Wednesday, May 21, (purchase tickets here), and one is in Santa Monica on Thursday, May 22 (info here). Ron also snagged the endorsement of DFA Orange County.

• CA-24: Mary Pallant's interview at Blog Talk Radio is worth a listen.

• CA-04: Try to get the logic of this: by taking welfare payments in per diem checks from the state, Tom McClintock was denying benefits to soldiers. That's the premise of Doug Ose's new ad. Quite a logical leap, but potentially effective.

California Election Roundup 5-7-08

• CA-03: Bill Durston may be unopposed in the June 3 primary, but he's running very hard and trying to pick up as many decline-to-state voters as possible. He's actually running a GOTV operation. The gambit here is to prove to donors and the political establishment that CA-03 is competitive. I also think it makes sense just as practice for the general and for name recognition.

• CA-04: The Club for Growth, whose record this year in primaries is actually a little mixed, has released an ad attacking Doug Ose in his race against Tom McClintock. There's plenty of outside money on both sides in this one.

• CA-42: Communications Workers of America, Southern California Council has endorsed Ron Shepston. It's somewhat notable considering that Ed Chau got the Cal Labor Fed endorsement.

Anything else you're hearing, please put it in the comments. This is an open-source elections thread.

Darcy Burner: Progressive Leader

I was happy to co-host an event last night for Darcy Burner (WA-08), a future leader in the Democratic Party. My friend occams hatchet wrote up a great capsule summary of the event.

Darcy was the featured guest at the event; two other netroots congressional candidates, Ron Shepston of CA-42 and Mary Pallant of CA-24, also attended.

Darcy told the story of how she came to be involved in politics: In 2003, around the time her son was born, her brother was being shipped off to Iraq. Darcy thought about the state of the country and the state of the world, and realized that no matter what choices she might make for her son as he grew up, unless a dramatic change took place in the direction the nation was heading - well, she did not like her choices.

So, as she likes to say, she did what any responsible American parent would do: she decided to run for Congress.

She started with zero name recognition, but ran a textbook campaign and almost toppled Republican incumbent Reichert.

Although Darcy came up short in her 2006 bid - but only by a little; five voters per precinct, to be exact, as she will remind you - she put a very big scare into the Republican Party. So much of a scare, in fact, that George Bush and Karl Rove both have visited Darcy's district in an effort to raise money for Reichert. (She also will remind you, with a smile, that when an online counter-fundraiser was held last fall to offset the Bush $1,000-a-plate event for Reichert, 3200 donors contributed $123,000, outraising the president himself.)

This year Darcy show a lack of leadership in the Congress over the issue of the war. People kept asking her on the campaign trail how she would end the war, and she grew tired of waiting for the leadership to give her something she can use. So she took the matter on personally, joining with military and counterterrorism officials and creating The Responsible Plan To End The War In Iraq, which doesn't just call for a full withdrawal of all military forces and a diplomatic, economic and humanitarian surge to manage that withdrawal, but calls to end the failed structures that got us into the war in the first place, things like Constitutional reform, and green energy, and ending media consolidation, and restoring the balance of power between the executive and the legislative branch.

So far 54 Congressional challengers have signed on to this plan, giving it a value that is measurable. If dozens of freshman Congressmembers enter Washington with a mandate to end the war, that has a rare power. Which is amazing. But the real takeaway of the night is the fact that Darcy handmade the button that I was given as one of the co-hosts of the event. She told me that she needed a bunch of buttons for visibility during her initial campaign run and decided that it would be cheaper to buy what you need to make buttons instead of buying the buttons themselves. It's a little thing, but it shows initiative and a commitment to get things done. And it was charming. She's as far removed from an everyday politician as anyone I've ever come across. And maybe that's why she's such a natural leader; there's no artifice and no cringing fear about the consequences.

After a day where there was a lot of sturm und drang among the grassroots in California, particularly because of the Democratic campaigns purging delegate slates for upcoming elections, I was reminded of these two amazing events I got to participate in this week, both with Tim Goodrich and last night with Darcy Burner. The grassroots is strong when we are all working together for incredible candidates who can bring about progressive change. And that's what I saw last night.

Disclosure

Ron Shepston is a friend, and I've just signed on to be the netroots coordinator for his Congressional campaign. He's an avionics engineer, a Vietnam-era veteran, and a Daily Kos diarist who stepped up to contest a seat in CA-42 that was unopposed in 2006. Rep. Gary Miller is a complete slimeball and it's great that he'll have some competition this year. And it's all the better that he's showed some leadership and become the first California Congressional candidate to endorse the Repsonsible Plan to end the war in Iraq.

George Bush or the next President must give the order to prepare a plan to leave. Generals implement orders. From General Franks to General Petraeus, they have all attempted to plan to wage a war and occupation they didn’t want to wage. As a veteran, I know that generals have few choices – they could do their best to execute their orders, or leave the service.

Generals don’t get far by being negative so they will always look for a way to succeed. It’s no surprise that General Petraeus can sound positive in the face of such a daunting occupation. It’s part of his job [...]

When Darcy Burner first asked if I wanted to be part of the effort to create the plan I immediately said “yes”. I was grateful for the opportunity to be involved in something this important to the future of America, Iraq and in fact, the world.

The Responsible Plan will not only end the war but change the conversation around national security. As Darcy Burner put it in her op-ed in the Seattle Times, it became endlessly frustrating waiting for the elites in Washington to come up with a plan to end this war. So she built it herself, and is assembling a group of leaders that will enter Congress with a mandate for change.

This plan presents a set of actions that Congress can take to convert our current military approach in Iraq to a more effective civilian one that addresses the root problems we face. It proposes using the full strength of our nation to achieve our goals and strengthen our country, and includes measures to rebuild the military, expand the capabilities of the State Department, and keep our promises to returning veterans.

We can do all of these things and save hundreds of billions of dollars that can then be used here at home addressing our growing list of urgent needs: economic stimulus, affordable health care, better schools, improvements to infrastructure. Ever wondered why there is so little federal money to replace the aging and dangerous Highway 520 Bridge? Taxpayers in my congressional district alone have sunk roughly $1.5 billion into funding the war so far — money that now can't be spent here at home.

The national media like to say that Iraq is off the table, but voters in the 8th Congressional District don't seem to have gotten that memo. The voters I talk to understand that this war is undermining our country. Five years is long enough, and $3 trillion is too much; as a nation, we simply cannot afford this misguided war any longer.

Ron Shepston is at the forefront of this effort, and I invite you to support him with a donation so he can keep this message going. He's in a contested primary against a carpetbagger from Montebello, and considering that the primary will have low turnout, he needs some help from his friends. Getting a solid progressive like this as the nominee has benefits even if he doesn't win - a nominee appoints members of the California Democratic Party and enhances efforts to change the party from within. We need more people like Ron Shepston in public life. I'm proud to be part of his campaign.

Rewarding Good Behavior In The Congress

The House and the Senate racked up a couple victories this week. The House passed the long-awaited Wellstone Mental Health And Addiction Equity Act. This would allow for parity in how insurers cover mental health and addiction treatment as compared to physical health treatment. The bipartisan vote was 268-148. Considering that our troops can't even get mental health on the battlefield, the need for mote mental health professionals is urgent. But by ensuring that this treatment must be covered, it'll create a good incentive for industry, research and potential breakthroughs. You should be covered if your damaged organ is your brain as surely as if it's your arm. Here's CA-42 House candidate Ron Shepston on the personal side of this:

My brother has been diagnosed with a mental illness but won’t tell us what it was. Before she passed away, my mom was diagnosed as paranoid schizophrenic so this issue is very close to home for me. Mr. Miller’s complete disregard for the consequences of marginalizing those with mental illness in an ill-conceived pursuit of economic nirvana displays a scary callousness so characteristic of Republican members of Congress. Given all the facts Americans would make the decision that the kind of society they want to live in would be one which considered those who struggle with mental illness in while contributing to society. Republicans’ only hope is to obscure the facts.

And the Senate approved by an overwhelming margin an overhaul to the Consumer Product Safety Commission, boosting the annual budget and revamping facilities, banning lead in all children's products, and raising fines for non-compliance. You'll recall that the acting head of the CPSC asked NOT to give her more money to do her job. But the drumbeat of toxic products from overseas, particularly China, made it impossible to stand by idly. The Republicans tried to water down the bill through a series of amendments that were rejected, and they should have those votes draped around their necks in their re-election campaigns.

In addition to these passages, the House is trying to overturn the horrid EPA decision denying a waiver to California for regulating greenhouse gas emissions, and three powerful chairmen in the House are calling for a halt to telecom immunity in the face of a new whistleblower revelation that communications were going directly into the NSA through a special circuit. Maybe we've turned a corner.

CA-42: Caught In The Wildfires

My column at Capitol Weekly about Ron Shepston's experiences during the Southern California wildfires is up here. It's really a pretty amazing story.

As the flames closed in, and evacuation was recommended, Ron and his family packed up. One of his neighbors, a 37-year retired battalion chief with the Orange County Fire Authority named Mike, had plenty of experience with fighting fires, and with the limited official resources, he thought he could help protect the community if the fire engulfed the canyon. The problem was that his body was beaten from years of service. After escorting his family to safer ground, Ron told Mike he was willing to help. “I’ll be your legs,” he said.

Ignoring a mandatory evacuation, Ron and Mike went to work, setting up hoses, hooking into hydrants, watering down wood structures, and clearing fuel away from danger. They also provided assistance to federal, state and local firefighters about prime lookout spots to view the progress of the fire, and the local terrain. This lasted for 10 days, a non-stop firefighting effort in an attempt to protect the community. “I could hear the roar of the flames on the ridge,” Ron said, “There were flames rising 100 feet.”

Go throw me a bone and read the whole thing. There's some discussion of Orange County's failure to protect its residents by gutting firefighting operations, as well as the stark contrast between a leader like Shepston and Gary Miller, who has yet to make even one public statement about the fires. This will be an issue in the campaign.

Fire Update

While many of the fires are starting to be contained, or at least are blazing away from population centers, the real issue is the Santiago Fire, which is approaching the Silverado Canyon residential areas, forcing some to evacuate for the second time in a week.

Even as thousands of residents joyously returned to neighborhoods throughout the region, 100-foot-tall flames from the Santiago fire burned into the eastern end of Silverado Canyon [...]

"It's an extremely active fire in Silverado Canyon right now," Rich Phelps, a U.S. Forest Service spokesman, said of the community, which was spared in several previous fires. "Things are pretty rough."

Exhausted and on edge, some of the evacuees who gathered in a nearby strip mall wept when authorities couldn't reassure them about whether they could stop the latest threat.

"It's sickening. We thought yesterday we had dodged the bullet. We heard the fire was 50% contained and away from Silverado Canyon," said Ray Verdugo, 55. "Now we're hearing that within the hour it could rip through here and take our homes."

Nine fires continued to burn Friday night, at the end of a weeklong siege that has included nearly three dozen separate blazes. The total acreage burned topped 500,000, only 12,000 acres more than had been reported a day earlier but more than double the size of all of New York City's five boroughs. The number of homes reported destroyed increased from 1,775 to 1,889. The death toll remained at seven.

This is the area we're going to have to watch today. And it's also the hometown of our friend and Congressional candidate Ron Shepston, who at last count was volunteering with firefighting efforts, in a amazing expression of leadership, battling to save the homes there. Best of luck to him, and let's hope he stays safe. Check in with us if you can.

Meanwhile, in Riverside, Orange and San Bernardino Counties, the problem is air quality. You might want to stay indoors today.

UPDATE: As much as people want to make their stereotypical comparisons between this and the Hurricane Katrina efforts, there were significant problems here. Bureaucratic red tape hampered firefighting efforts from the sky, and all of the evacuations were forced by a lack of equipment for battling the blazes. It's ignorant to even suggest a similarity; dead bodies in waterlogged streets is no comparison to an inviting Qualcomm Stadium parking lot.

CA House Races Roundup - September 2007

OK, I'm getting this in just under the wire. Time for the House roundup for September. There are a little over 13 months until Election Day, and with the end of the 3rd quarter on Sunday (donate), this election is really not that far away. In fact, CQ Politics has put out their initial assessment of the House landscape. It's favorable for Democrats, but predictably, there are only two California seats on that radar: CA-04 and CA-11. But there have been a lot of developments in the other races throughout the state as well.

I'm going to rank them in order of most possible pickup, including their number from the last roundup. I'm also, as usual, including the "Boxer number." Basically, seeing how Boxer fared in her 2004 re-election against Bill Jones in a particular district is a decent indicator of how partisan it is. If I put "57," that means Boxer received 57% of the vote. Anything over 50, obviously, is good.

First, let's look at the one threatened seat currently held by a Democrat.

1) CA-11 (McNerney). CQ Politics has the seat "Leans Democratic," and only two Democratic seats are less safe (Tim Mahoney in FL-16 and Nancy Boyda in KS-02). Dean Andal has the funds to make a challenge here, and he's become a born-again environmentalist, which is curious considering his prior anti-environmental history. But McNerney has done himself no favors. His bungled rhetoric during the Iraq debate in August was met with outcry, and this week's vote to condemn MoveOn.org, an organization that gave him over $50,000 in 2006, didn't exactly enthuse activists either. He tried to respond by blasting Rush Limbaugh's comments and asking that he be taken off the air; I'm not sure how that jibes with the First Amendment. McNerney will clearly have a lot of DCCC incumbency protection, but this is obviously a race that won't be easy, and McNerney is making it difficult for activists to continue to support him.

Now, to the top 10 challengers.

1) CA-04 (Doolittle). Last month: 1. Boxer number: 40. This is one of six Republican-held seats listed in CQ's ratings as "No Clear Favorite," and one of only two where the incumbent is running for re-election (the other is Robin Hayes against netroots hero Larry Kissell in NC-08). Charlie Brown, who has a great interview in CQ this week, actually announced his campaign just a few weeks ago as part of a barnstorming tour. As for John Doolittle, his legal woes continue. Eleven years' worth of documents have been subpoenaed by the Justice Department, as part of the Abramoff case. Doolittle is refusing to comply with the subpoena, setting up what could be a Constitutional showdown. Meanwhile, he has at least three high-profile primary challengers, and a lot of pressure within the district to resign. The more candidates in the primary actually helps Doolittle, as it spreads out the vote. If it's a two-person primary, he could easily lose. And Brown would be in excellent position to beat Doolittle if there's a rematch.

2) CA-26 (Dreier). Last month: 2. Boxer number: 48. Russ Warner, last seen at the Calitics Q3 event, has been busily raising money for the end of the quarter. I'm told that the numbers will be better than Q2. Warner has also gone on the offensive against David Dreier's shameful voting record, being one of the first Congressional challengers to use the SCHIP vote as a campaign issue. That's going to be a big vote to highlight next year. Meanwhile Dreier nearly caused an international incident in Colombia by sitting on a lectern, continued to whine about supposedly shoody treatment on the House Rules Committee (yeah, that never happened under Republicans), and had some shady connections with those who were trying to steal the Presidential election with the Dirty Tricks Initiative in California.

Of course, there's a primary, but Hoyt Hilsman's campaign website hasn't been updated since July. Russ Warner is running a professional campaign, and a good one thus far.

3) CA-50 (Bilbray). Last month: 4. Boxer number: 48. Nick Leibham, who has two nice-looking dogs, is about to get the endorsement of Francine Busby for the Democratic primary, according to our man in San Diego.

The field has been slowly clearing for a while now, with Michael Wray opting against a run and John Lee Evans running for School Board. Steve Schechter has also filed FEC paperwork to run in the district, but this endorsement would line up the one major recognizable Democratic face in the district behind Leibham. Putting to rest any remaining speculation that she might run again, much of the drama is likely over in the primary, leaving now more than a year of Bilbray-hunting.

Avoiding a primary would obviously be a plus for Leibham. Meanwhile, Bilbray is being his usual brown-hating self, calling on the feds to pay local governments for the services spent on "illegal immigrants." This is immigrant bashing at its worst, but while it offends the conscience of the sane, his base is energized by these theatrics. Leibham will have to do a better job of finding new voters than Busby did to have a shot at this district.

4) CA-24 (Gallegly). Last month: 3. Boxer number: 47. I'm still keeping this race fairly high, maybe higher than it should be, because of the possibility of retirement. We've seen the mass exodus of Republicans from the House, as the prospects for them regaining those plum committee chairmanships grow dim. Gallegly says he's running, but he resigned last year before un-resigning, so he's not that credible a source. So far, the only challenger in this district is Mary Pallant, who officially declared her candidacy this week. Pallant is a fellow AD delegate of mine, and a very progressive Democrat.

In announcing her intent to run, Pallant emphasized her stance as a “progressive Democrat,” and invoked Roosevelt in her campaign theme, a Newer and Fairer Deal for the 21st Century. Her platform is described as ending the occupation of Iraq, she said, as well as implementing a universal single-payer healthcare system, seeking energy independence while enforcing environmental protections and pursuing economic strength and security through economic self-sufficiency.

Other candidates seem to be waiting this one out until they see if Gallegly actually runs. Jill Martinez, the candidate in 2006, is rumored to be running again, but hasn't declared officially. Brett Wagner kind of says he's running, but his website hasn't been updated since February. Education activist Chip Fraser may run; he once walked from Ventura to the state Capitol to promote education reform. The district is smaller than that!

5) CA-42 (Miller). Last month: 5. Boxer number: 41. Ron Shepston and his team have been spending September making appearances and raising money. He did both in a Blue America chat on Firedoglake. Blue America support has in the past been crucial to Congressional success around the country. Meanwhile, Gary Miller has been voting for endless war in Iraq and against children's health care and S-CHIP. That puts him in line with every other California Republican, but Miller is also incredibly corrupt. Although, he claims that he is not under FBI scrutiny, which is an inspiring political message.

Miller agreed to an on-the-record, unrecorded interview with The Hill days before the August recess, in which he rejected the
notion that the FBI is investigating him.

On Jan. 31, 2007, the Los Angeles Times reported that Dick Singer, a spokesman for the city of Monrovia, Calif., said federal agents had interviewed city officials about a $10 million land deal in which Miller did not pay capital gains taxes.
Miller says no taxes were owed because he was forced to sell the land under threat of eminent domain.

Miller also pointed out that a “federal agent” could be any federal entity, such as the IRS. He said he wouldn’t be surprised if the IRS had questions after the liberal-leaning group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington filed a complaint to the federal agency against him in August 2006.

“I’m sure the IRS wanted to see the information. A federal agent could be anyone — anyone flashing a badge,” Miller said.

Though there's not much new to report, these ethics concerns aren't likely to go away, and a good candidate could capitalize on them, a la Charlie Brown with John Doolittle.

6) CA-44 (Calvert). Last month: 7. Boxer number: 45. The Inland Empire was one of the areas where they were out gathering signatures for the Dirty Tricks initiative, before it cratered, and Ken Calvert was quoted in the article:

Rep. Ken Calvert, R-Corona, also favors the system, saying it could help improve the state's dismal voter-turnout rates. He said presidential candidates from both parties, who have written off California as a lock for the Democrats, would have to campaign in Inland Southern California and across the state.

"They'd have to be here, and that would create excitement," he said. "People would think their vote matters."

We'll see if Bill Hedrick can make any hay out of that next November. In addition to Calvert's dismal voting record and serious corruption issues. Calvert was one of 5 US Congressmen on a junket to the CNMI where rumors of sex tourism abound (Dana Rohrabacher and John Doolittle were on this trip as well).

7) CA-52 (open seat) Last month: 10. Boxer number: 44. There are new candidates on the Democratic side in this San Diego-area race. Former Special Forces regular JIm Hester and ex-Navy SEAL Mike Lumpkin are running. Lumpkin seems to be keeping a busy schedule and generating a little press, both offline and in the blogosphere; Markos wrote enthusiastically about him. I still think it's going to be hard to beat the son of Duncan Hunter, and hard to criticize him while he's serving in Afghanistan or possibly Iraq.

8) CA-41 (Lewis). Last month: 6. Boxer number: 43. Jerry Lewis has announced that he's running for re-election again, so that puts the retirement rumors to rest. In addition, he's managed to get the Justice Department drain the money swamp committed to investigating him:

The veteran prosecutor who'd been heading up the Lewis case has been forced into retirement, The Los Angeles Daily Journal reported yesterday (not available online). It knocks the investigation, already stalled, further off course.

Because of civil-service rules, a 25-year veteran of the U.S. attorney's office who just recently took over the probe of Rep. Jerry Lewis must exit the office for good by the end of September, marking the third significant departure from the office's corruption unit since Lewis first came under suspicion last year.

Michael Emmick, who first joined Los Angeles's U.S. attorney's office in 1982, has been serving under one-year appointments since 2004, after he triggered a contractual clause that will allow him to collect retirement benefits immediately upon leaving the office.

It's highly unlikely that the Lewis investigation is going anywhere. Furthermore, since Lewis will run again, it's likely that Tim Prince, the likely challenger, won't. Worse, Louie Contreras, the candidate in 2006 who didn't campaign at all past the primary, and may have been hand-picked by Lewis himself as a sock-puppet challenger, appears to be running again.

9) CA-03 (Lungren). Last month: unranked. Boxer number: 42. In my preference to highlight races where there's actually an announced candidate, I'm highlighting this one. Dan Lungren is fairly entrenched as an incumbent, but 2006 challenger Bill Durston is running again. Who knows? Maybe the Charlie Brown magic will wear off on Durston and propel him to make a race out of it in this Republican district. Here's his website.

10) CA-45 (Bono). Last month: 8. Boxer number: 49. I'm breaking my "no candidate" rule because I want to see this potentially competitive district be challenged, and I do believe someone will eventually step up. But more important than that, I wanted to mention that someone in Congress is named Miss Mary Mack. Notably, Bono was the only California Republican to vote for SCHIP, which suggests that she knows she has to moderate her views in the district.

Special mention: Because it ought to be mentioned that Dana Rohrabacher thinks the premier of China wants to poison the President. This guy is in Congress, by the way.

CA House Races Roundup - August 2007

We have 15 months to go before Election Day, and it's time for another roundup of Congressional races. I am going to continue to focus on the top 10 challenges to Republican incumbents. There is certainly a concern in CA-11 with the Jerry McNerney/Dean Andal race, particularly after McNerney's "I'm a moderate" comment seemed to depress supporters. On the bright side, he did vote against the ridiculous FISA bill. And as we go into September, I would hope he would continue his efforts to end the occupation of Iraq. I will certainly cover the McNerney race in future roundups.

But for now, let's take a look at the top 10 challenges. I'm going to rank them in order of most possible pickup, including their number from the last roundup. I'm also adding the "Boxer number." Basically, seeing how Boxer fared in her 2004 re-election against Bill Jones in a particular district is a decent indicator of how partisan it is. If I put "57," that means Boxer received 57% of the vote. Anything over 50, obviously, is good.

1) CA-04 (Doolittle). Last month: 1. Boxer number: 40. Charlie Brown got some amazing news this week. Mike Holmes, an Auburn city councilman and a Republican, announced he was running in the primary to unseat ethically challenged Rep. John Doolittle. Holmes ran a primary race last year and got around 30% of the vote. This gives Doolittle two challengers next June (Eric Egland has already announced), which is a lot better for Doolittle than one challenger to which anti-Doolittle forces can focus their energies. This makes it more likely that a wounded Doolittle will survive the primaries (if he's not indicted by then) and face Brown, who's flush with cash and unopposed in his primary. Brown also made a great impression at the Yearly Kos Convention, so there will be plenty of online support for him.

2) CA-26 (Dreier). Last month: 2. Boxer number: 48. Another candidate who made a big impression at Yearly Kos was Russ Warner. At the California caucus he gave a version of this speech:



Warner's fundraising stats were already impressive for the district, and now we're starting to see some grassroots support. If he can tap into what Hilda Solis has been doing online (Solis has endorsed him), there could be a groundswell. Meanwhile, Dreier is whining that local Democrats blocked funding for expanding the Gold Line light-rail service to "focus on projects in their districts rather than regional priorities." Right, because the Gold Line doesn't mainly go through Pasadena, in Adam Schiff's district. Dreier is such a tool.

3) CA-24 (Gallegly). Last month: 3. Boxer number: 47. The August recess is retirement season for GOP Congresscritters. We've already seen three of them go this week alone. So naturally thoughts turn to who's next, and Gallegly, who tried to get out in 2006, is a prime candidate. There certainly must be some talk about it in the district: he's got four declared candidates already: Jill Martinez, Brett Wagner, James "Chip" Fraser, and Mary Pallant.

4) CA-50 (Bilbray). Last month: 4. Boxer number: 48. Michael Wray has dropped out of the primary in CA-50, leaving John Lee Evans and Nick Leibham to contest for the right to battle Brian Bilbray next November. The best way to attack Bilbray, who doesn't get off that illegal immigration message for a second, is to highlight his pro-Bush, anti-progress voting record, including denying health care to 6 million American children with his vote against SCHIP last month. Leibham apparently raised $89,000 last quarter, and Bilbray has a paltry $213,000 CoH, which is interesting.

5) CA-42 (Miller). Last month: 7. Boxer number: 41. The big news here is that we have a candidate, and it's blogger Ron Shepston. You've undoubtedly read a little about him on Calitics. LA City Beat has a nice article about Ron and the netroots movement behind him in this race. It's not going to be easy. But Ron has raised about $7,200 on ActBlue alone, and his offline fundraising is progressing. And Miller is still taking heat from the DCCC, who sent out a notice to reporters attacking his vote against SCHIP.

6) CA-41 (Lewis). Last month: 5. Boxer number: 43. Like with Gallegly, we're waiting to see if the rumors about Lewis' impending retirement are true. We do know that Lewis has continued to bring home the bacon (a little questionable earmarking isn't going to stop him) to his district, and then there's this:

A lobby firm connected to a federal investigation has seen business boom this year for its clients, many of whose projects are in a powerful House appropriator’s district.

The House Appropriations Committee’s ranking member, Rep. Jerry Lewis (R-Calif.), has sponsored or co-sponsored $55 million worth of earmarks in this year’s defense spending bill — close to half of the funds won by the California Republican in the legislation — for clients represented by one firm.

A former appropriations aide to Lewis, Letitia White, and former Rep. Bill Lowery (R-Calif.), who is friendly with Lewis, work at the company, Innovative Federal Strategies (IFS).

Tim Prince is all but in this race. I met him a few weeks back and he seems like a nice guy.

7) CA-44 (Calvert). Last month: 6. Boxer number: 45. Last month's ruling that a city government agency illegally sold Ken Calvert a bunch of land hasn't gotten a ton of traction yet. He has been targeted by MoveOn in a Riverside-area protest where protestors presented him with a report on how much money district taxpayers have spent on the war in Iraq. Calvert is dug in on Iraq, which is of course going to be a major issue in 2008. Bill Hedrick will be Calvert's opponent, and, um, check out the blog!

8) CA-45 (Bono). Last month: 8. Boxer number: 49. Still no opponent named, and I'm flirting with the idea of dropping any race out of the top 10 unless there's a named candidate. This is really a missed opportunity right now.

9) CA-46 (Rohrabacher). Last month: unranked. Boxer number: 45. I'm adding nutcase Dana Rohrabacher to the list for a couple reasons. One, he has an announced opponent (Jim Brandt, who ran against him last year). Two, it gives me an opportunity to print this quote.

Rep. Dana Rohrabacher, R-Huntington Beach/ Long Beach, was baffled when asked recently about his use of the popular online gathering site Facebook.

"Faith book?" the befuddled congressman replied.

Hilarious.

10) CA-52 (open seat). Last month: 10. Boxer number: 44. Duncan Hunter was unable to beat people who weren't running in the Ames Straw Poll in Iowa. He's gone from this seat, but his son is running and it's a safe bet that the Republicans will retain it.

The Bermuda Triangle

It's nice that the California Democratic Party is targeting three members of the Southern California "Culture of Corruption" caucus (Gary Miller, Jerry Lewis, Ken Calvert) with a website. It'd be nicer if they supported the grassroots candidates that are running in those respective districts (Ron Shepston, Tim Prince, Bill Hedrick). After all, THEY'RE the ones who need name ID and recognition, not the Republicans.

I'm not sure what the CDP is after here. They've got just a few seats to go to grab 2/3 support in the state legislature, yet perusing through their site you see almost no mention of that. When you hear Art Torres speak, he never really talks about State Assembly or State Senate seats, only the Congress. Why does our state party see its role as solely to support federal or statewide candidates? One would think that party building would start locally. Building the Democratic bench in the state legislature would bubble up to the Congressional seats, too, yet the CDP seems determined to go the other way around.

I'm not totally criticizing it, I just wonder why this party has a different way of looking at its role than, say, New Hampshire or North Carolina does.

CA-42: The Lay Of The Land

It's great that the netroots candidacy of Ron Shepston for Congress is getting so much attention. His race against the unfathomably corrupt Gary Miller represents a progressive hope and a decided alternative, and people are so excited that, at press time, he's raised over $5,300 dollars through ActBlue in just a couple days.

Superlative. Outstanding. Fantastic.

Now let's really look at what he's getting into. The campaign has asked me to contribute a guest column to the rollout providing the lay of the land. We'll start with the bad news and move slowly into the good.

Previous diaries in the CA-42 campaign rollout series:
7/15: thereisnospoon's CA-42: A Kossack is running for Congress
7/16: atdnext's CA-42: The Case Against Dirty Gary Miller
7/17: Major Danby's CA-42: I'm managing a netroots U.S. House campaign
7/18: CanYouBeAngryAndStillDream's CA-42: Hi, I'm Ron Shepston and I'm running for Congress
7/19: hekebolos's CA-42: A Netroots campaign-- politics the way it should be.

Here is a map of the 42nd District of California:



As you can see, it covers three counties, starting in San Bernardino County at Chino, moving into LA County with Whittier and Diamond Bar, and then Orange County with Brea and La Habra, snaking all the way down to grab Mission Viejo in the southern portion of the county. Seems like a strange shape, doesn't it? It should. California's districts were gerrymandered to the extreme for incumbent protection after the 2000 Census. Democrats and Republicans made the deal to lock in a set number of seats. Between the 2000 Election and the 2002 Election, Miller gained 8 points from his challenger because the district was made more Republican.

Now, it doesn't always work: Richard Pombo was forced out of office by Jerry McNerney last year. But he is literally the ONLY incumbent to be deposed since this Congressional map was put into place. More on McNerney later.

So this is a very Republican seat. George W. Bush beat Kerry 62%-38% in 2004, and Gore by 58%-38% in 2000 (when it was more Democratic). The district has a Cook Partisan Voting Index score of R +10 (meaning the district votes 10 points more Republican that the nation at large). Only a few California districts are higher. It'd be great to have a metric of Gary Miller's most recent election, but in 2006 he was one of only 10 Republicans to run unopposed. So we have to go back to 2004 and 2002 to look at results in this newly configured district. They ain't pretty.

United States House election, 2004: California District 42
Republican Gary Miller 167,632 68.2
Democratic Lewis Myers 78,393 31.8

United States House election, 2002: California District 42
Republican Gary Miller 95,737 67.6 +8.6
Democratic Richard Waldron 41,306 29.2 -8.2

So since this district has had its current configuration, Gary Miller's opponent has never received more than 31.8% of the vote. We'll call that Ron's baseline of support, since I'm not sure Lewis Myers or Richard Waldron offered up anything but token opposition. The question is where to get the other 19%.

Let's look at the demographics of the district (linked from Gary Miller's House website! Thanks Gary! You can return to your regularly scheduled ripping off of America now!).

About 57.5% of the district is in Orange County, including the largest population center, Mission Viejo (no wonder they snuck it into the district). The registration edge here is 55-27 Republican, and no area has a Democratic advantage (La Habra is the closest, at 45-37, which stands to reason because it's close to the LA County part of the district). The area of the OC in the district is 20% Latino and about 11% Asian.

LA County needs to be Shepston Country. The registration edge here is lower (43R, 36D), and Rowland Heights is actually plurality-Democratic. Of course, it's only 21% of the district. It's heavily Asian (40%) and Latino (23%). I don't know if sprawl goes out this far and if these are Los Angeles bedroom communities for those priced out of the more expensive areas, but it's certainly possible.

Finally, San Bernardino County is the final 21.5% of the district, and it's also closer (45R, 38D). In Chino there's a 42%-41% advantage for Democratic registration. The Latino population is strong out here; 37%.

The final numbers for the district are about 50% registration total, with a 21-point registration advantage for Republicans (51R, 30D). The district is very diverse, 44% nonwhite (23.8% Latino, 17.5% Asian, 3.4% African-American).

So the key would appear to be to raise registration rates in Democratic areas, bring in big numbers in LA and San Bernardino County, and make sure the Latino vote turns out. A tall order. And did I mention that Gary Miller has $800,000 Cash on Hand after raising $137,000 in the most recent quarter?

But there's more of the story to be told, points that argue in Shepston's favor, and in favor of a strong challenge in a district some would call unwinnable.

• CORRUPTION: This was considered the number one issue according to exit polls in 2006. Miller hasn't been tested on this, since the revelations about his dirty dealings didn't come out until the 2006 election, when he was unopposed. And if anything, they've grown worse since then. So there is a case to be made that voters will reject someone who appears to be doing the business of profit-taking instead of legislating.

• IRAQ: Gary Miller has voted in lockstep with the President on an issue that has scant support in the country, even in a district as red as this. I assume that the netroots team running this race will not run away from the issue of Iraq as many consultants have the knee-jerk reaction to do.

• THE ALBATROSS: Ron Brownstein makes the case:

Unpopular departing presidents, though, have consistently undercut their party in the next election. Democrats lost the White House in 1952 and 1968 after Harry Truman and Lyndon Johnson saw their approval ratings plummet below 50%. Likewise, in the era before polling, the opposition party won the White House when deeply embattled presidents left office after the elections of 1920 (Woodrow Wilson), 1896 (Grover Cleveland), 1860 (James Buchanan) and 1852 (Millard Fillmore). The White House also changed partisan control when weakened presidents stepped down in 1844 and 1884. Only in 1856 and 1876 did this pattern bend, when the parties of troubled presidents Franklin Pierce and Ulysses S. Grant held the White House upon their departure [...]

It's true that Republicans in 2008 should perform slightly better among voters who disapprove of the president than George H.W. Bush and Gore did, because their nominee, unlike those men, won't be the retiring president's vice president. But another pattern underscores how hard the challenge will remain: On average, 80% of voters who disapproved of a president's performance have voted against his party's candidates even in House races since 1986, according to the respected University of Michigan post-election polls. When a president takes on water, in other words, everyone in his party flounders.

This tracks with the idea that "there is no safe district" in the post-Bush era, and that any partisan numbers over the past several years are somewhat irrelevant to the landscape today.

• DEMOGRAPHIC SHIFTS: Getting the Latino vote out in a year where the Republicans have done absolutely everything to present themselves as the biggest brown-haters on the block is crucial. You don't have to have that long a memory to remember the anti-immigrant Prop. 187 fights out here in California, which set back Republicans to this day. So making sure there's a high turnout among the substantial Latino base would seem to me to be a key. And I would gather than even more are in the district now, being priced out of LA County.

• STOPPING THE GRAVY TRAIN: Gary Miller has been using his money gained in fundraising from his rich buddies to reward Republicans in close races:

Miller's expenditures are listed at OpenSecrets, and you can see that he spent his money (in 2006) enriching the coffers of Republican candidates in close races all over the country. He didn't need the ill-begotten money for himself, so he gave it to his most endangered colleagues. A list:

Anne Northrup $1,000
Barbara Cubin $1,000
Deborah Pryce $1,000
Dave Reichert $1,000
Geoff Davis $1,000
JD Hayworth $1,000
Jim Gerlach $1,000
Keith Butler (MI Senate challenger) $1,000
Joe Knollenberg $2,000
Mary Bono $1,000
Mike Fitzpatrick $1,000
Mike Sodrel $1,000
Rob Simmons $1,000
Thelma Drake $1,000

That's 14 candidates to the tune of $15,000. A lot of those Republicans lost, but the recipient of the biggest expenditure from Miller's campaign was the NRCC, the committee dedicated to re-electing Congressional Republicans, which sent mailers and put up attack ads and made robocalls all over the country. They benefited from $112,000 from one Gary Miller. All of the sleazy developer money he's received over the years helped re-elect some of the worst Congressmen in the country by the skin of their teeth. That's $112,000 we wouldn't be likely to see in the NRCC's coffers if Miller were actually challenged and forced to run a campaign.

It's not like Miller is going to run out of money any time soon; he's rich beyond reason and can self-fund. But he wouldn't be as likely to fund others if challenged.

In conclusion, there are many signs out there that Ron Shepston does have the opportunity to be competitive and offer the voters in the 42nd a real alternative. The best comparisons we can use for California are the aforementioned Jerry McNerney in CA-11, and Charlie Brown in CA-04. Both went up against corrupt politicians in red areas. Both excited grassroots and netroots activists to donate to and work on the campaigns. Both engaged in bottom-up campaigning, with the big dollar money not coming in until later. And despite the warped political landscape and the partisan gerrymander, McNerney is a Congressman and Charlie Brown is about to join him. If he's diligent and bold and unyielding, Ron Shepston can do the same thing.

CA-42: Ron Shepston

A friend of mine, Ron Shepston, has announced a run for Congress against Gary Miller, perhaps the most singularly corrupt Representative in California, which is saying quite a lot. Miller was unopposed last year, and it's great to see someone step up to challenge him. And unlike many candidates that embrace the netroots after rising through regular channels, Ron comes FROM the netroots itself. So does his whole campaign staff. In the interest of disclosure, I'm on some of their email lists but am not a paid advisor.

Pay Ron a visit and let him know what you think of this effort. And if you can drop a few shekels at his ActBlue page that'd be great as well.

I'll have more on this campaign effort on Friday.