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?"
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.
It turns out that a fellow by the name of Jason Bezis must be on the same wavelength as Progressive Sundae. On the same day last week that this blog questioned the legality of Ellen Tauscher's endorsement of Mark DeSaulnier, Bezis, a lawyer from Lafayette, filed a 17-page complaint with the State Department vis-à-vis that endorsement. Citing much of the same material as the PS post (the State Department cable banning political endorsements by presidential appointees, the prominent Tauscher endorsement on DeSaulnier's website, and the campaign brochure that features Tauscher on three of its four pages), Bezis requested the following remedy:
I believe that the State Department Legal Adviser, State Department Inspector General and/or another responsible entity (e.g., Office of Special Counsel division that enforces the Hatch Act) should require Undersecretary Tauscher to repudiate her endorsements of all candidates for partisan political office, especially in election races that are now underway. Her statement should specifically state, "I neither endorse nor oppose any candidate in the special elections of September 1, 2009 and November 3, 2009 for California's 10th Congressional District, notwithstanding any of my previous statements. I instruct all candidates for those elections to cease and desist from use of my name and likeness in campaign advertisements, broadcasts, campaign literature, and similar media where they state or imply that I have endorsed or opposed their candidacies."
When the news broke last March that Ellen Tauscher was going to be nominated to a position in the State Department, the jockeying to replace her began immediately. In those early days, back before John Garamendi even quite knew where CA-10 was located, Mark DeSaulnier was considered the prohibitive favorite. (Remember, this was when folks were speculating about whether Joe Canciamilla would enter the race.)
"The reality is that this primary is coming down to who the Big Four support -- [Rep.] George Miller, Ellen Tauscher, Torlakson and labor," said California Democratic consultant John Shallman, who is working for DeSaulnier. "And I'm extremely confident they're all going to be behind Mark."
And that's been the DeSaulnier message in a nutshell: "Leaders we trust, trust Mark DeSaulnier." But there are some serious problems with that message... on the flip.
We've all heard the old saying "Don't look a gift horse in the mouth" -- to wit, when someone gives you a gift, don't question its value; instead, just accept it and be grateful.
But the reality is a little bit different. In our world today, if someone offers you a gift horse, you'd better check it out carefully. Looking at a horse's mouth will tell you a lot about its age and overall health. And with the expense of keeping a horse pushing well over $1,000/month locally, a little bit of caution at the outset (e.g.; looking that gift horse in the mouth) could help you avoid being burdened with a costly liability.
And so it's been in CA-10 with Mark DeSaulnier and his endorsement by Ellen Tauscher. I'm guessing that when Tauscher's endorsement was offered, it never occurred to Mark DeSaulnier to question such a gift and weigh the overall costs associated with receiving the seal of approval of an incumbent who is widely disliked by the progressive base of the Democratic Party. He just accepted the endorsement gift and dismissed its potential downside.
But the expenses associated with Ellen Tauscher's endorsement have mounted, with precious little indication that there's any real upside to having received her imprimatur.
Way back in April, I wrote a post about Sen. Jon Kyl's plan to place a hold on Ellen Tauscher's confirmation to the position of Under Secretary of State for Arms Control and International Security.
Well, it looks like Kyl's threat was far from idle. That hold was placed sometime last week, although there seems to be a lot of confusion as to whether Kyl put a hold on just Tauscher and one other nominee or whether it's a blanket hold on all State Department nominees. The precise reason for the hold seems unclear as well.
Here's what The Cable is reporting about Kyl's action:
A Congressional source says that Sen. Jon Kyl (R-AZ) put a hold on all State Department nominees earlier this week because he is not satisifed with the information he has been receiving from the administration on the progress of arms control negotiations with Russia. [...]
I want to amplify a little bit on the post by ajsuited yesterday because the more I find out about the Garamendi poll that he wrote about, the worse it smells.
The press release about this poll from the Garamendi campaign gave out limited information as to how the poll was conducted, which raised a number of questions. However, Peter Charles left a comment at Calitics where he shared more information about the details of the poll. Those details exposed three glaring errors that jumped out from the information that was provided to the poll's participants.
When the participants were given bios of the three Democratic candidates, here's what they heard about Mark DeSaulnier, Joan Buchanan, and John Garamendi:
3a. Democrat State Senator Mark Desaulnier has served in the state legislature since 2004. Before that he served on the Contra Costa Board of Supervisors from 1996 to 2004. His top priority issues will be rebuilding the country's economy, implementing clean energy programs, and regulating Wall Street banks. He is endorsed by Congress members Ellen Tauscher and George Miller, local firefighters, teachers, police and environmental groups.
3b. Democrat State Assemblywoman Joan Buchanan was elected to the State Assembly last November. Before that she served for 10 years on the San Ramon (ruh-MOAN) Valley school board. Her top priority issues will be more jobs and improving the economy, increasing renewable energy programs, and reforming public education. She will likely be endorsed by local elected leaders, school board members, teachers, and civil rights and womens groups.
3c. Democrat John Garamendi is California's Lieutenant Governor. He has lived in the Sacramento portion of Congressional District 10 for 30 years. He previously served as Deputy Secretary of the Interior for Bill Clinton. He is running for Congress to continue reforming health care, rebuild our economy around clean energy, and reform bank and credit card laws. He will be endorsed by local nurses, firefighters, teachers, police officers as well as former President Bill Clinton and Al Gore.
The problem here is that the pollster misrepresented all three candidates, and he did it in a way that predictably favored the candidate who hired him.
You have to ask yourself this question. If a pollster will lie about both his own candidate's and the opposing candidates' biographies, what else will he lie about?
And those aren't the only problems. To get into the really wonkerific world of why Garamendi's polling sample is all wrong, flip it...
I had a discussion with a colleague about the recent poll touted by the Garamendi campaign. After her analysis and my own this is what came to mind:
In the movie '16 Candles' Anthony Michael Hall's character got Molly Ringwald's underwear to prove that he got some. But in reality Ringwald's character gave it to Michael-Hall so he could pretend to have some cred amongst his underclassman brethren.
So even though I'm getting a little bored talking about John Garamendi, I just can't help myself today. A couple hours ago, Garamendi posted his very first diary at Daily Kos.
Apparently, Garamendi's been stung by criticism that he doesn't understand local problems that concern the voters in CA-10, like traffic. So to show that he's down with the hot-button issues in the district, Garamendi went to the Metropolitan Traffic Commission website, and read up on their regional 25-year transportation plan for the Bay Area, Transportation 2035. Every five years, the MTC updates and reprioritizes the previous 25-year plan so that there is an ongoing vision for handling the future demands of the nine-county Bay Area.
So in his diary, Garamendi basically gave a broad outline of the findings in the latest plan, which in many ways aren't that different from the Transportation 2030 plan released in 2005. There's a heavy emphasis on the use of public policy tools to encourage smart growth near transit hubs, which in turn leads to increased use of public transportation, as well as a willingness to look toward HOT (high occupancy toll) lanes, the proceeds of which would be used to fund highway maintenance and transportation programs for the elderly, poor, and disabled.
While I commend Garamendi for studying up on the MTC proposals and presenting his findings to Daily Kos readers, I'm a little surprised that he apparently missed the irony of his posting. You see, his opponent in the CA-10 race, Mark DeSaulnier... well, as a long-time member of the MTC, DeSaulnier sat through the series of public workshops, studied the results of public surveys, and worked with MTC staff to draft their long-term plans, both Transportation 2030 and the early stages of Transportation 2035. So in an effort to establish his own bona fides, Garamendi basically just tried to lay claim to the transportion plan that DeSaulnier helped to create.
Watch out for the conventional wisdom; it'll bite you every time. So in the CA-10 race, the conventional wisdom is that with John Garamendi's entry into the race, he becomes the immediate frontrunner by virtue of his name recognition, his long experience, and his fundraising capacity. But what if those things have been overestimated? After all, Garamendi had all of those things when he ran for Lt. Governor in 2006. How did he do then? Well, the answer is... not too well.
The Secretary of State site doesn't break down the results of the Lt. Gov. primary by Congressional district, so we'll just have to look at the county-wide results, where Garamendi lost by anywhere from 9 to 19 points in the counties that comprise CA-10:
John Garamendi
Jackie Speier
Alameda County
30.1%
49%
Contra Costa County
37.6%
50.3%
Solano County
38.9%
48.2%
Note: I've omitted Sacramento County from the chart (the county from which Garamendi hails) because it's such a small part of the district, with only 652 registered Democrats eligible to vote in the CA-10 primary.
Now, the Draft Garamendi movement is proposing that Garamendi would be better suited to a run in CA-03 against Dan Lungren. Just for the sake of comparison, here are the primary results from 2006 for the counties that make up CA-03:
John Garamendi
Jackie Speier
Alpine County
55.7%
31.8%
Amador County
58.5%
33.8%
Calaveras County
62.7%
30.1%
Sacramento County
42.1%
47.2%
Solano County
38.9%
48.2%
All of which is a kind of long-winded way of saying that Garamendi's perceived advantage in the CA-10 race may end up amounting to what most of the conventional wisdom in politics amounts to... not much. These numbers would certainly indicate that CA-03 holds a lot more promise for Garamendi than CA-10.
Let's try to get this straightened out, once and for all. There's been a lot of back and forth about whether John Garamendi is a resident of CA-10, CA-03, or stuck in some sort of twilight zone between the two.
Unsurprisingly, most of the confusion has emanated from the Garamendi campaign. You might want to ask yourself why. Initially, several weeks ago, we heard that Garamendi was considering the CA-10 race and that he lives in Walnut Grove, which is in the district.
Then, more recently, we heard that, well, actually, part of Walnut Grove is in the district and part of it is CA-03.
Then, yesterday, at his big announcement ceremony, Garamendi offered this explanation:
But Garamendi acknowledged that while 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," he said, while also noting that it is not a requirement of a congressional candidate to live within the district he or she represents.
Now, let's really investigate the meaning of that sentence. Think of Bill Clinton and the definition of "is." We know his bedroom is in CA-03. But his front yard is in CA-10. That has led many to speculate today that the district line is this crazy meandering construct that cuts people's houses in half. Sure, Garamendi's bedroom is in CA-03, but what about his kitchen, his bathroom, or his living room? And what about his front yard? Is his house in CA-03 and his mailbox in CA-10?
Well, here's what I've come up with from parsing Garamendi's claim. John Garamendi's bedroom has not been severed from the rest of his house -- or his yard, for that matter. You see, Garamendi lives in a house on the CA-03 side of the Sacramento River, which is the boundary line between the two Congressional districts. So "bedroom" appears to have been a metaphor for "my residence," and "front yard" appears to have been a metaphor for what he sees when he looks out from his balcony.
And for your viewing pleasure, here's a map of CA-03, with both John Garamendi's home in CA-03 and his ranch in CA-03 marked.
And finally, just to provide some juxtaposition, here's a map of CA-10, with Garamendi's house marked.
But there 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.
According to the blog DoD Buzz, Ellen Tauscher is in for a bumpy ride on her Senate confirmation hearing.
At a breakfast speech today, Sen. Jon Kyl (R-Ariz.) made a point of quoting some of Tauscher's recent statements on missile defense and he made clear he did not like the idea of her taking the State Department position. Tauscher has made it very clear she is skeptical of the Groundbased Midcourse anti-missile system and wants to see much more system testing done. Kyl is one of the system's biggest boosters on the Hill.
During his speech this morning, Kyl noted wryly that Tauscher's ostensible new job requires Senate confirmation, a clear signal that he may place a hold on Tauscher's nomination. A congressional aide confirmed that Kyl is expected to place a hold on Tauscher's nomination once it is formally made by the White House. [...]
Tauscher must have a pretty good idea just how much opposition she is likely to attract from Kyl and other conservative Republicans. When she announced she would take the arms control job in mid-March she said she faced a confirmation process that "is fraught with uncertainty and can take weeks, if not months."
News of the Senate hold is sure to throw the race for Tauscher's Congressional seat into turmoil. The candidates will be gearing up for a race that may or may not be happening at some amorphous point in the future, and we're sure to pick up even more quixotic candidates ala Gino Van Gundy.
But there is one good thing about the hold (on the flip)...
The differences between the candidates in CA-10 could not have been more sharply drawn than they were at last night's Contra Costa Democratic Central Committee meeting. While there are real, substantive differences between Mark DeSaulnier and Joan Buchanan, those were not on display last night. Instead, DeSaulnier and Buchanan were talking gala versus pippin apples relative to John Garamendi's mandarin oranges. There are probably two reasons for the disparity in their presentations: 1) Garamendi has no familiarity with the district or its issues; and 2) Garamendi hasn't participated in any legislative activities for almost two decades.
Capitol Weekly reported this morning that it looks like Lt. Gov. John Garamendi will enter the race to replace Ellen Tauscher in CA-10.
We hear that John Garamendi is getting ready to jump into the Congressional race against Mark DeSaulnier for Ellen Tauscher's vacant, East Bay Congressional seat. Garamendi has name ID in a race that will likely feature low turn-out, and has to be seen as a front-runner (this from a column that has not seen a lick of polling in the race). So, let's go to the dominos, shall we? Of course, it's bad news for DeSaulnier and Joan Buchanan, who both wanted to run for the seat. Of course, everyone's got a free run at it, so there's nothing to stop DeSaulnier or Buchanan from plunging into the race. DeSaulnier already has some top endorsements, and is unlikely to back down now.
Apparently, they're hearing the same kinds of reports that I'm hearing. Last night at the Oakland Meetup, Shara Perkins, the campaign manager for Mark DeSaulnier, showed up to make phone calls to CDP delegates on behalf of Hilary Crosby, who is running for Controller of the CDP and has been endorsed by DeSaulnier. DeSaulnier was unable to attend the Meetup himself because he was at the endorsement meeting of the Contra Costa Central Labor Council (he got their endorsement by a unanimous vote).
Speaking at the Meetup, Perkins indicated that the DeSaulnier campaign had been hearing all day that Garamendi is definitely jumping into the CA-10 race.
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).
Politico is reporting that Joan Buchanan has dropped a poll in CA-10. In a real shocker (not), her poll shows her with the lead among all candidates.
State Assemblywoman Joan Buchanan commissioned a poll showing her narrowly leading DeSaulnier in a crowded election field that includes two unannounced Republican candidates.
The poll shows Buchanan leading DeSaulnier 21 to 18 percent, with Republican San Ramon mayor Abram Wilson at 14 percent and former GOP Assemblyman Guy Houston at 13 percent. [...]
The poll, commissioned by the Democratic firm Fairbank, Maslin, Maullin and Associates, was conducted between March 22-23. It surveyed 400 likely district-wide voters, and has a 4.9 percent margin of error.
MoveOn just sent out an email to its members asking them to lobby their Congressional representatives on the upcoming (maybe today, maybe tomorrow?) House vote on Iraq appropriations:
According to the Washington Post, Democrats have apparently worked out a "deal" to give President Bush billions of dollars more for Iraq -- no strings attached -- in exchange for increased domestic spending.
The WaPo article details how the leadership (Steny Hoyer and Harry Reid in this case -- Nancy Pelosi seems to be noncommittal at this point) has decided that Democrats must "compromise" with Bush on Iraq in order to gain an additional $11 billion for domestic spending on items such as emergency drought relief in the southeast and the subprime mortgage crisis.
Apparently lost on these master tacticians is the fact that Bush has adamantly stated he will veto any domestic spending appropriations over and above what he has requested. But Hoyer, in demonstrating Democrats' willingness to yield to Bush, has already given away the store. The same article quotes House Minority Whip Roy Blunt: (emphasis added)
Blunt said yesterday that Democrats will give in on war funding, with or without additional money for domestic programs. "There's no reason to make a bad bargain," he said. "The president holds all the cards."
Of course, the president doesn't hold all the cards. He simply holds all the backbone.
Yesterday, DailyKos 
But the reality is a little bit different. In our world today, if someone offers you a gift horse, you'd better check it out carefully. Looking at a horse's mouth will tell you a lot about its age and overall health. And with the expense of keeping a horse pushing well over $1,000/month locally, a little bit of caution at the outset (e.g.; looking that gift horse in the mouth) could help you avoid being burdened with a costly liability.
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.
