Thu Apr 02, 2009 at 19:18:40 PM PDT
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| Can an entire Congressional district suffer from Stockholm Syndrome? In the case of CA-10, it certainly seems like it. Let's take a peek at the chart for CA-10 and see if helps us to assess the mental state of its voters.
Case History
Throughout the '80s, CA-10 was actually located in the South Bay and represented by longtime Democratic Congressman Don Edwards. What we know today as the Contra Costa and Alameda County portions of CA-10 were pretty evenly split up amongst three Congressional districts - CA-07, CA-08, and CA-09 (represented at the time by George Miller, Ron Dellums, and Pete Stark respectively). The Solano County portion of CA-10 was in CA-04, which was represented by Democrat Vic Fazio.
Meanwhile, throughout the '80s, the population in the East Bay exploded. After the '91 census and subsequent redistricting, the physical areas covered by CA-07, CA-08, and CA-09 were reconfigured, downsized, and renamed as CA-07, CA-09, and CA-13 respectively. The appellation of CA-10 was given to the new district created from the excess portions of those three districts (much of Contra Costa County, a smaller portion of Alameda County). Fairfield was added to CA-07, and Dixon was put in CA-03. (As a side note, the '91 redistricting put Edwards into CA-16, where he won reelection. When Edwards retired in 1995, he was replaced by Zoe Lofgren.)
 
 
Then, after the '01 Census, the districts were once again redrawn. The Contra Costa/Alameda cities of Danville, San Ramon, Dublin, and Pleasanton were subtracted from CA-10 and added to CA-11 (McNerney), and the Solano County communities of Dixon and Fairfield were taken from CA-07 and added to CA-10, leaving CA-10 in its current awkward and unlovely configuration.
So what does all this have to do with Stockholm Syndrome, the psychological phenomenon that leads victims to identify and sympathize with their captors? Well, here's the story of CA-10 in a nutshell.
 Up until the election of 1992, residents of Alameda and Contra Costa Counties had been represented by either George Miller (CA-07), Ron Dellums (CA-08), or Pete Stark (CA-09). I think we can agree that's a pretty progressive set of Congress members.
Suddenly, in 1992, with a newly redrawn district, voters in CA-10 elected the execrable Bill Baker to Congress. Then, in the Republican Revolution of '94, he was easily re-elected. Democrats in the district (which was pretty evenly drawn, registration-wise -- see the 1999 registration statistics, the farthest back the SoS site goes) were in shock. They had gone from being represented by some of the most progressive voices in the country to being represented by a social and economic arch-conservative wacko.
What had happened? Well, the most obvious answer to that question (though not the right one) was that the newly-minted Congressional district was deeply conservative. Democrats were spooked and didn't quite know how to react to this new state of affairs. Instead of analyzing the demographics and registration of the district and questioning the efficacy of their local party apparatus or its apparent lack of leadership, they rushed to the conclusion that the Democratic message was wrong for this new district and that if they were to ever regain the seat, they needed to triangulate madly (these were the Clinton years, after all).
The rest of the patient's chart is on the flip... |
| babaloo :: CA-10 And Stockholm Syndrome |
| Diagnosis
 1996. Enter Ellen Tauscher, announcing her candidacy as a business-friendly Democrat. You know, not one of those scary tax-and-spend liberals. Socially liberal and fiscally conservative. A moderate. Just what the Democrats in the district needed if they were to ever reclaim the seat in a Republican district. Of course, most people overlooked the fact that she was enormously wealthy and able to self-fund to the tune of $1.65 million and focused on the "she's a moderate" part of that equation. And so Ellen Tauscher was elected by a narrow margin in a hard-fought race. The following cycle, in 1998, she was able to fend off the Republican challenger. By 2000, the Republicans had pretty much given up.
Then came the '01 census and redistricting. In its new configuration, CA-10 was suddenly D+10 in registration. In the years since, that number has steadily risen, to the point where it's now D+18.
And that's where the Stockholm Syndrome comes into play. If you walk precincts in the district, if you attend events and talk to Democrats, they will almost all tell you the same story. It goes something like this. "Yeah, I don't agree with some of the things that Ellen Tauscher does, but she's the best we can do in this district. This is a really conservative district, and if we ran liberal candidates like other parts of the Bay Area, the Republicans would win. We have to have a moderate like Ellen in order to be able to win in this district."
So where do they get that idea? Well, first and foremost from Tauscher herself, who has used this myth to cover for her pro-business giveaways, her hawkishness, and her New Democrat/Blue Dog affiliations. The media has also been complicit. Most of the district is covered by Lisa Vorderbrueggen, a local political reporter who uses the nomenclature of "liberal," "moderate," and "conservative" as such a crutch that it's a miracle she can walk anymore. Almost every article you will read from Lisa cements this view of the district. In one recent article discussing potential candidates, Lisa managed this hat trick of meme reptition:
He is a renowned moderate who could be a good fit for this centrist district. [...]
And as a progressive candidate, he may be too liberal for the moderate CD10.[...]
CD10 is still a centrist district with a high number of swing voters. I expect the Democratic front-runners will run toward the middle.
And so the poor Democrats of CA-10 have come to believe that they must stay with their captors and help them or... well, very bad things will happen to them.
Treatment
So how can this mass delusion be treated? Well, in a perfect world, there would be therapy and lots of it. But we have a special election coming up in the next few months, and we don't have the time for that. So how do we treat the patient? Sadly, look for any serious candidates to promote themselves as moderates; they know what's up in the district. The trick is going to be to try to see through the labeling that they will feel compelled to adopt.
As progressives, we're going to need to do what we keep telling the media THEY should do. Stop with the labels already, and start focusing on specific issues. Ask the candidates how they would have voted on some of the issues that have been important to us in the past. Ask them how they would vote on issues that they'll have to address once they get to DC. Ask them about specific legislation that they've authored/supported in their current/previous roles. Perhaps more importantly, ask them what caucuses they would join in DC. Blue Dog? New Democrats? Populist? Progressive? And if they don't give you a straight answer, assume the worst. Just don't rely on the tired labels that are going to be rendered even more meaningless by CA-10's psychological issues.
Prognosis
The result of this election is going to be critically important to the health of CA-10. If Democrats in the district can manage to elect a candidate who stands tall on their issues, perhaps they can, over time, come to realize that they were needlessly hiding behind/empowering their captor by accepting her labeling. Unfortunately, if voters are persuaded that they must flock to another Tauscher-like figure, the district may suffer such a severe setback that recovery becomes impossible. |
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