| While there's never been any real doubt that the Democratic nominee will win the special election to replace Ellen Tauscher in CA-10, it's beginning to look more and more certain that Republicans are queuing up for defeat on November 3. The Republican Party in Contra Costa (which accounts for about 2/3 of the voters in the district) has long been notoriously dysfunctional, but it has apparently chosen this precise time, three months out from the election, to come totally unglued.
Party chair Tom Del Beccaro (who is incidentally Vice-Chair of the State GOP), has pretty much treated the central committee as his private fiefdom for years. But apparently he stepped over some hitherto unseen line by either implicitly or explicitly, depending on whom you listen to, handing over a CCRP endorsement to candidate David Harmer, an attorney from San Ramon, without allowing for consideration of the other candidates or, um, an actual endorsement vote.
Now the situation has devolved into high drama. The players on each side started out with long, convoluted public accusations that basically boil down to, "You're a poopy-pants" -- "No, you're a poopy-pants." From there, they've descended even more quickly to the point where the conservative blog "Halfway to Concord" is soliciting signatures for a letter to Contra Costa District Attorney Robert Kochly and Secretary of State Debra Bowen demanding that Del Beccaro and the CCRP be prosecuted for numerous violations of the California Elections Code and California Government Code. Oh, the hilarity.
Meanwhile, in the "you-can't-make-this-stuff-up" category, we have one of the five disenfranchised Republican candidates, Mark Loos, who is campaigning on the fine GOP message of "Loos For Change."
And no, I'm not kidding.
All of which hammers home the point that Democrats are going to win this election, come hell or high water. We do not have to pander; we do not have to appease; we do not have to equivocate. We need to elect the very best Democrat that we possibly can in CA-10 because whichever Democrat we send to DC this fall is likely going to be there for a very long time. |
