Well, there's new polling data in the CA-10 race that's been released by the John Garamendi campaign. Predictably, Garamendi's polling shows him with a double-digit lead (just barely). Here's the quick summary:
Candidate
Initial
After Positive Bio
John Garamendi
31%
36%
Mark DeSaulnier
21%
22%
Joan Buchanan
17%
20%
Anthony Woods
9%
9%
David Harmer (R)
5%
7%
Adriel Hampton
1%
0%
Undecided
17%
8%
Phone survey of 400 likely voters, Democratic and DTS , conducted 8/2-8/4, MoE 4.9%
The Garamendi campaign hasn't made the crosstabs public, so this poll raises almost as many questions as it answers. But I just can't shake this feeling of déjà vu when I look at these numbers. They make me think of another recent primary race: the Virginia governor's race last June. Of course, I could be totally wrong about this, but the similarities are striking.
You've got the late entry with big name recognition, lots of fundraising ability, and an endorsement from former President Bill Clinton in his back pocket -- that would be Terry McAuliffe. Then you've got the guy who started off as the presumed front-runner (before McAuliffe jumped in), Brian Moran. And you've got Creigh Deeds, who was bringing up the rear, running as a moderate. Three weeks out from election day, a DailyKos/Research 2000 tracking poll showed the following results:
May 18-20, 2009
Terry McAuliffe
36%
Brian Moran
22%
Creigh Deeds
13%
Undecided
29%
But a mere three weeks later, after Moran launched a series of negative attacks on McAuliffe which ended up bloodying both McAuliffe and Moran, Deeds swept to victory.
June 9, 2009 Election Results
Creigh Deeds
49.76%
Terry McAuliffe
26.43%
Brian Moran
23.79%
All of which is a kind of fancy way of saying, "Who knows?"
For the DeSaulnier campaign's response, flip it...
Well, it looks like somebody with some video chops has followed through on the Progressive Sundae post from way back in April about the Congressional district in which John Garamendi really lives (that would be CA-03).
So why does this matter? I'll just quote from last April's post:
[T]here is a larger and more disturbing question than the mere fact that Garamendi is, at least technically, a carpetbagger. The residents of CA-10 have spent the last 12 years being lied to by Ellen Tauscher. She has pretty consistently told people whatever is convenient for her at the moment, with little regard for the truth. It is one of the things that has turned many of the Democrats in her district against her.
So how does it bode for a candidate, in his freaken announcement of his candidacy, to start bending and twisting the truth? Take another look:
[W]hile he and his wife of 43 years own property and have roots in the 10th District, they are not residents within its borders.
"My front yard is in the district, our bedroom is not."
There's a word for those kind of roots. They're called suckers. Which is, apparently, what Garamendi thinks the voters of CA-10 are.
I just got an email today from MoveOn talking about the increasingly violent outbursts at Democratic town-hall meetings across the nation:
All across the country, right-wing extremists are disrupting congressional town-hall meetings with venomous attacks on President Obama's plans for health care and clean energy.
Last night in Tampa, Florida, a town hall meeting erupted into violence, with the police being called to break up fist fights and shoving matches.
A Texas Democrat was shouted down by right-wing hecklers, many of whom admitted they didn't even live in his district.
One North Carolina representative announced he wouldn't be holding any town-hall meetings after his office began receiving death threats.
And in Maryland, protesters hung a Democratic congressman in effigy to oppose health-care reform.
Now, you might think that we'd be immune to this kind of activity here in the Bay Area. But you'd be wrong. Yesterday the Contra Costa Times' crack political reporter, Lisa Vorderbrueggen, noted that for the first time in, well, ever, she'd had numerous calls demanding to know why Congressmen Jerry McNerney and George Miller were not holding town-hall meetings during the August recess (the answer is that they're doing tele-town-halls). In the comment thread of her post, one of the writers for the right-wing Halfway to Concord blog noted that he'd had over 70 google hits yesterday from people searching for town-hall meetings in the area. And even the right-wing wackos over at the infamous Americans for Prosperity are targeting the East Bay.
So who do they have in their sights? Well, it's Rep. Pete Stark, who serves on the Ways and Means Committee and as the Chair of its Health Subcommittee, which is responsible for oversight of Medicare. Stark is holding six town-hall meetings in CA-13 over the course of the August recess.
Now, Pete Stark is a good friend to progressives, and there's little danger that his votes will be affected by hostile crowds at his town-hall meetings. But those of us Bay Area progressives who support health care reform and clean energy owe something to our representatives who stand tall on these issues. We also have an obligation to stand up to the right-wing extremists who are hijacking these town-hall meetings in an attempt to influence the media narrative on reform.
All of which is a sort of long-winded way of saying we need to have Pete Stark's back. We need to fill these town-hall meetings with progressive voices.
So absentee ballots arrived in today's mail. Here's the lowdown. First, the order of appearance on the ballot is as follows:
ANTHONY WOODS
Democratic
Economic Policy Analyst
DAVID HARMER
Republican
Independent Businessman
ADRIEL HAMPTON
Democratic
Investigator
GARY W. CLIFT
Republican
Retired Peace Officer
JEREMY CLOWARD
Green
College Instructor
MARK DESAULNIER
Democratic
Senator
JEROME "JERRY" DENHAM
American Independent
Insurance Agent
DAVID PETERSON
Republican
Accountability System Owner
JOHN GARAMENDI
Democratic
Lieutenant Governor/Rancher
JOHN TOTH
Republican
Physician
MARY C. MCILROY
Peace and Freedom
MARK LOOS
Republican
Small Business Owner
JOAN BUCHANAN
Democratic
Assemblywoman
CHRIS BUNCH
Republican
Small Business Owner
Along with the ballot, voters received a Voter Information Pamphlet, which contains the ballot statements for the candidates. Worth noting is that Democrat Adriel Hampton failed to submit a statement to the Registrar's office, and he was not included in the pamphlet. Hampton joins Republican Mark Loos and the Green, American Independent, and Peace & Freedom candidates, none of whom appear in the pamphlet. Also worth noting is that while all five Republicans who appear in the pamphlet listed their websites, Anthony Woods is the only Democrat who directed voters to his website for more information.
Conventional political wisdom holds that the ballot statement is the single most important component of a campaign -- it is the means by which many, if not most, voters will select their candidate. Also critical is the position on the ballot itself (the closer to the top, the better).
Anthony Woods would seem to be the best served by his slot at the top of the ballot and his page 3 ballot statement. Joan Buchanan is stuck near the bottom of the ballot, but the fact that her ballot statement leads on page 1 of the Voter Information Pamphlet should help her overcome the ballot position to some extent. That leaves Mark DeSaulnier stuck in the upper middle and John Garamendi in the lower middle of the pack, both ballot-wise and pamphlet-wise. That positioning could cost both DeSaulnier and Garamendi, if you believe all that conventional wisdom stuff.
You can read the Democratic ballot statements in their entirety on the flip...
Well, the State Department has responded to the complaint filed by Jason Bezis with regards to Ellen Tauscher's endorsement of Mark DeSaulnier. As you might have expected, they're reluctant to acknowledge that their new Undersecretary, Ellen Tauscher, has acted illegally in continuing to endorse Mark DeSaulnier as her replacement. But they also have asked the DeSaulnier campaign to immediately remove Tauscher's name from all of his campaign material. (Emphasis added)
July 29, 2009
Dear Mr. Bezis,
We are in receipt of your letter of complaint dated July 16 and follow-up letter of July 27, concerning activities of Under Secretary of State for Arms Control and International Security Ellen Tauscher. The Department takes seriously our guidelines concerning political activities of senior employees, and we appreciate your bringing this matter to our attention. In that spirit, we have reviewed the complaint letter and its attachments. We believe that the materials disclose no violation of law or policy.
Our guidelines do not restrict political activities of Department employees before they join the Department. Under Secretary Tauscher began as an employee of the State Department on June 26,2009, having resigned from her former position as a Member of Congress shortly beforehand. The endorsements you cite in your letter and attachments refer to her by titles such as "Representative" and "Congresswoman," and not "Under Secretary." We understand that all these references concern endorsements made before she began employment with the State Department. Endorsements made before State Department employment violate no Department directive. You have not identified an instance where she endorsed publicly a partisan political candidate after having been appointed as a State Department employee.
Under Secretary Tauscher is committed to the highest standards of ethical conduct. To avoid even the appearance of impropriety, on behalf of Under Secretary Tauscher I have asked Senator DeSaulnier to remove all references in his campaign material of any endorsement she may have made.
Again, thank you for bringing this matter to our attention.
Sincerely,
James H. Thessin Deputy Legal Adviser and
Designated Agency Ethics Official
And what does DeSaulnier campaign spokeswoman Katie Merrill have to say in response? Well, she hasn't yet issued a comment. But I'm guessing when she does, it won't be "Seriously?"
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.
To nobody's particular surprise, Joan Buchanan announced last week that she has been endorsed by Emily's List. Some folks wondered aloud why the national organization that exists to elect women candidates had waited until six short weeks before the election to jump into the race. The very name Emily's List is, after all, an acronym for "Early Money Is Like Yeast." So why weren't they all over this race, you know, early?
Well, it turns out they probably were. As I discussed yesterday, Joan Buchanan's ability to self-fund has allowed her a lot of maneuvering room, which she's used to set up a well-oiled campaign that's been operating a little below the radar. Now that the June 30 filing deadline has come and gone and Buchanan has timed the endorsement announcement for maximum impact, I expect that we'll see a lot of money being bundled by Emily's List.
But it looks like Emily's List has been more quietly involved in Buchanan's race for some time. Going back to the FEC reports, we find that the Buchanan campaign reported payments of $2,506.98 on May 22, May 29, and June 15 to its campaign manager, Kate Chapek. That would be the same Kate Chapek who's worked as the Political Program Director for Emily's List and is currently described at LinkedIn as Regional Coordinator for Emily's List. A 2006 blurb from the Michigan GOP offers this description of Chapek:
At the Madison Heights labor union hall, where the Vote America team will run its final get-out-the-vote push, the folding chairs are about to be folded.
"You don't want chairs, you don't want people to even think of sitting down," says Kate Chapek, who parachuted into Michigan five weeks ago.
Chapek, whose enthusiasm and high energy level might have made her a cheerleader in another era, is political program director for Emily's List.
So it's looking quite a bit like Emily's List has a lot to do with the top-notch campaign being run by Joan Buchanan.
Before I get all wound up here, I'd like to start with a not insignificant disclaimer. I do not support Joan Buchanan. In fact, I view her as being dangerously close to a clone of Ellen Tauscher, with her much-vaunted "follow-through" and "pragmatism" really just being code for a big-business background, corporate outlook, and a willingness to concede points before she even arrives at the table. But that being said, she is running the best and smartest campaign I've seen in a long time, and I'm afraid that she's leaving her competition in CA-10 in the dust.
Much has been made of the fact that Buchanan's fundraising was anemic for the second quarter and that she's only in the game because she lent her campaign $250,000 (which she can easily afford). But I'd argue that her approach to financing her campaign was nothing short of genius. If you've ever been to a campaign training seminar, the first rule you may have heard is this: "Campaigns have three finite resources: Volunteers, money, and time. How you manage these three resources will be the difference between winning and losing."
Well, by taking the issue of money off the table in one fell swoop, Buchanan freed up herself and her campaign to focus on the other two resources.
Buchanan had an army of volunteers who worked for her just a few short months ago, and many of them are enthusiastically on board for this run as well. Added to that is a phalanx of paid canvassers (her FEC report showed that she was paying 30 staffers as of June 30). So it shouldn't really come as that much of a surprise that Buchanan's campaign had knocked on 20,000 doors by July 1.
But what is stunning is that the Buchanan campaign has continued to ramp up its canvassing program. Last week, they blew past the milestone of 55,000 doors knocked. On the Saturday before last, with temperatures hovering over 100, Buchanan had 54 canvassers out going door to door.
Yesterday, DailyKos diarist Fenric posted a diary about his/her encounter with a Joan Buchanan canvasser who showed up at the front door. The crux of the diary was that when Fenric questioned the canvasser about how Buchanan intended to vote on the California budget, the canvasser brightly assured him/her that Buchanan intended to support the atrocity that's been wrought by the Big 5. Fenric then declared his/her intention to never vote for Buchanan ever, ever again. All well and good.
That is, until Garamendi staffer SPD waded into the comment thread to gratuitously trash Garamendi's opponents, Mark DeSaulnier and Joan Buchanan, on unrelated issues. And without identifying himself as a Garamendi staffer.
Of course, what makes it really funny (or maybe just pathetic) is that this staffer mocked a reference to Buchanan's "grassroots campaign" as he was astroturfing the netroots on Garamendi's behalf.
So the FEC reports came out last week, and political junkies of all stripes spent hours sifting through them. If you've never done it before, it's a little like searching through your Great-Aunt Lois's basement trying to piece together the untold stories of her life. Now, I'd assume that most readers here have already seen the bare numbers, but just to be complete, I'll include them.
Candidate
Contributions
Distributions
Cash on Hand
Debt
Joan Buchanan
$63,865
$134,419
$179,289
$307,659
Mark DeSaulnier
$209,779
$72,769
$136,510
$77,131
John Garamendi
$300,463
$40,319
$260,144
$54,762
But as usual, it's the stuff inside the report that's most interesting: who's contributing and how the money's being spent. On the flip...
Yesterday, DailyKos 
