KTVU Political Editor Randy Shandobil reported on the CA-10 race on last night's Channel 2 News...
It's kind of amazing to see the impunity with which Garamendi offers up a lie that can be (and is) easily debunked by a good reporter, and then responds, "So what's the point?"
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...
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...
That is the day that Ellen Tauscher announced that she would be accepting the job as Undersecretary of State for Arms Control and International Security. For all intents & purposes, that is also the day the campaign for California's 10th district got under way.
First there was Adriel Hampton, and then Mark DeSaulnier, soon after Joan Buchanan jumped into the fray, and then Anthony Woods, and most recently, after abandoning his flailing gubernatorial campaign, John Garmendi decided he would run in the 10th as well.
So how are their respective campaigns going so far?
