Will Harper over at SF Weekly went on a pretty funny rant today about the sort of pathetic attempt by the SF Bay Guardian to exert its "influence" in the CA-10 race via its endorsement of John Garamendi:
The Bay Guardian loves to complain about a certain Chronicle columnist from Walnut Creek criticizing San Francisco policies. The Guardian essentially contends that suburbanites cannot be expected to understand the complexities of life in a teeming urban metropolis. Don't you get it, Suburb Boy? Being mugged by a homeless crackhead in the Tenderloin or shot by an East Bay club-goer in North Beach is what makes this a world-class city!
This isn't anything new for the Guardian; the paper has been butting into East Bay politics for decades even though its editors often have no clue about bridge-and-tunnel life. Three years ago, for instance, the Guardian recommended that Andy Katz be re-elected to the EBMUD board and that Courtney Ruby replace Roland Smith as "county auditor." The problems with those endorsements: Katz had never been on the EBMUD board so he couldn't be re-elected and Ruby was running to be Oakland's city auditor.
What's now new is the advanced level of hypocrisy. The Guardian has been ranting ad nauseam lately about the illegitimacy of out-of-towners' opinions about the city. So how is the Guardian weighing in on a suburban race any different? Yeah, we're sure the "suburban twits" were waiting for the editors of San Francisco's radical alt-weekly to tell them how to vote.
What's especially funny about the Bay Guardian's endorsement and indicative of how little relevance it has in CA-10 is the fact that two of the three front-runners (Joan Buchanan and Mark DeSaulnier) didn't even bother to show up for an interview with the SFBG's editorial board.
So when the SFBG says "Garamendi has a forceful presence, progressive values, long relationships with key power brokers and knowledgeable advocates, and an unmatched history of intensive work on the most pernicious problems that Congress is now wrestling with, including health care reform and resource issues," what they really mean is, "He's the only one who would talk to us."
Not to be outdone by the other candidates in CA-10, John Garamendi also released a new ad today. And although his first ad, "Proven," is what's still airing on local cable, John Garamendi's campaign is now promoting this third commercial entitled "On Health Care."
I guess the galloping-up-on-the-horse thing is working so well for "rancher" John Garamendi that he decided to devote both the beginning and the ending of his ad to the horse footage. Yee-haw! The rest of the commercial consists of Garamendi offering the following earnest, if incoherent, message:
Voiceover: Lt. Governor and Congressional candidate John Garamendi on health care.
Garamendi: We know that the more we spend, the more uninsured we have. We know that we're not getting the efficiency or the effectiveness that we must have to have the health care that all of us need so our families can thrive, so that our children can get educated, and so that this environment that I grew up in will be here for the next generation.
I'm John Garamendi and I approved this message. And I'll fight for quality health care.
What an epic non sequitur. You know, I support health care reform as much as the next progressive, but even I think it has its limitations. Maybe I just have a stunted imagination, but I fail to see how improving health care will educate our children or protect the environment. But I guess that's why John Garamendi's running for Congress -- because he's got the big vision. Health care Garamendi-style: it will teach the kids and save the trees. But can it rope a cow?
And just two weeks away from Election Day, Joan Buchanan is finally on the air with a commercial. She's got to be crossing her fingers and hoping for a food fight between DeSaulnier and Garamendi.
Well, we're into the FEC's 48-hour reporting cycle now. The Pre-Special reports should be up soon, and we'll be able to see how much money the candidates have been raising and spending (and how they've been spending it).
But in the meantime, the first of the 48-Hour reports is up. (The candidates are required to report all contributions over $1,000 every 48 hours.) The big news from over the weekend is that Joan Buchanan loaned another $250,000 to her campaign, bringing her total to date to $500,000.
And just in case you're wondering if her loan triggered the Millionaire's Amendment, the answer is no. In the past, it would have (the trigger amount in House races was $350,000). But last year's SCOTUS decision in Davis v. FECgutted the provisions of McCain-Feingold (PDF) that would have raised the donation limits for the other candidates once Buchanan crossed the threshold.
Do these sound like epithets you've heard applied to John Garamendi in the race for CA-10?
"He's just a career politician looking for his next job."
"Ten political campaigns, 26 years in the Capitol."
"He has run for Assembly, Senate, State Controller, Governor, and Lt. Governor. Now he's running for Congress"
"He's a carpetbagger."
"He doesn't understand the issues and the people of the district."
Well, while they may certainly be applicable to Garamendi, those are actually all charges that were leveled against Tom McClintock in last year's CA-04 Congressional race against Charlie Brown. In fact, those are charges that were mostly made by Charlie Brown himself. That's why I was totally gob-smacked by Charlie Brown's endorsement of John Garamendi last Monday.
But it's not just the hypocrisy.
You'd think that a guy like Brown, who spent three years running an almost single-issue campaign based on veterans and their treatment, might have been inclined to toss his endorsement to the sole Democratic veteran in the race, Anthony Woods, who served two tours of duty in Iraq. But Brown has given Woods the cold shoulder. I don't know... maybe there's some weird military rivalry thing -- Air Force Academy vs. West Point. Or maybe Charlie Brown hit his head recently and is suffering from amnesia. Go figure.
Some of you may remember the Prevention of Farm Animal Cruelty Act on which Californians voted last November. Proposition 2 specifically banned three methods of housing livestock that are widely considered to be inhumane and unhealthy: veal crates, gestation crates for pigs, and battery cages for chickens. In essence, Prop. 2 said that henceforth, farm animals must be kept in a manner that allows them to turn around freely, lie down, stand up, and fully extend their limbs.
The residents of CA-10 voted overwhelmingly (65.6% - 34.4%) to do away with these barbarous animal cages. But one of the people who now wants to represent us in Congress stood tall in opposition to Proposition 2. That would be "rancher" John Garamendi.
Here's a brief rundown of the three types of cages that John Garamendi thinks should be used in California.
Veal Crates
Veal calves are taken from their mothers immediately after birth and spend the entirety of their short 14-week life "confined in veal crates, usually measuring 2-feet-wide, [where they] cannot turn around, stretch their limbs, or even lie down comfortably."
Gestation Crates for Pigs
A gestation crate, also known as a sow stall, is a 7 ft by 2 ft metal enclosure used in intensive pig farming, in which a female breeding pig (sow) may be confined during pregnancy, and in effect for most of her adult life. [...]
[E]ach pregnancy last[s] four months, with an average of 2.5 litters every year. Sows, which can weigh 600 lbs, spend most of their three or four years of adult life in crates, giving birth to between five and eight litters. As the sows grow larger, they no longer fit in the crates, and must sleep on their chests, unable to turn, until they are slaughtered.
Battery Cages for Chickens
Animal welfare scientists have been critical of battery cages because they do not provide hens with sufficient space to stand, walk, flap their wings, perch, or make a nest.
Let me repeat that. Last November, Prop. 2 was approved by voters in CA-10 by a margin of 197,258 to 103,294 or 65.6% - 34.4%. John Garamendi opposed it. Yet he thinks we should send him to Washington, DC to represent us. Are you confused yet?
(It's good to hear from one of the CA-10 candidates talking about the issues. - promoted by babaloo)
by Senator Mark DeSaulnier
Health care reform is a matter of national economic urgency for small businesses.
To say that the current health care system puts small businesses at a disadvantage is a huge understatement. Small businesses pay up to 18 percent more per worker than large firms for the same health insurance policy. That means higher operational costs, lower wages, fewer profits, and, ultimately, less coverage. More than half of the Americans who are uninsured, 27 million, own or are employed by a small company.
According to surveys, three-quarters of Californian small businesses rate the availability of affordable health care among their top business challenges. With the vocal minority attempting to hijack health care reform, the views of small business owners are being drowned out at a time when we can least afford it - literally.
As a former small business owner, the benefits of health care reform are crystal clear. Small businesses need: reliable, predictable health care costs that are on par with big corporations and foreign competitors.
As the owner of TR's Bar & Grill in downtown Concord for 30 years, I was presented with a familiar lose-lose situation. Small business owners sink more and more money into rising healthcare costs and lose profits critical to further investment and growth, or deny health care to employees, making them vulnerable to medical and financial disaster.
No one should be forced to choose between a sinking business and sick workers. We must fight Big Tobacco, Big Pharmaceuticals, and Big Insurance special interests to ensure small business owners never have to make that absurd choice again.
More and more small business owners are beginning to understand that they will be among the greatest beneficiaries of health care reform that includes a robust public option. And they rightly should be. Firms with fewer than 20 employees accounted for around a quarter of all employment growth from 1992 to 2005.
A combination of tax credits, employee subsidies, exemptions for smaller businesses, and access to a competitive health insurance market that includes a public option - all in the current bill before Congress - will succeed in providing more dependable and cost-effective options to owners and their workforce.
I know, first hand, that if the proposed new health care system existed when I was running TR's, the restaurant would have been more profitable, employees would have taken home more pay, and we would have had the luxury of choosing between a range of higher quality plans.
Now is the time to push back on special interests and ensure that health care reform includes a robust public option. It's what small business owners-our greatest economic drivers-want and need.
John Garamendi's first commercial in the CA-10 Congressional race, "Proven," is already airing on cable news outlets in CA-10.
Garamendi's second commercial, "Leader" is apparently a coming attraction.
You know, Carhartts and cow ponies might resonate in Garamendi's home district of CA-03, but in the highly suburban CA-10... I don't know; it just comes across as so John Kerry.
