First off, there won't be any results from the CA-10 race until 10:00 p.m. As reported by Lisa Vorderbrueggen, the registrars in the district have been ordered by Gov. Schwarzenegger to hold the results until CA-10 first responders who are serving away from home on the fire lines in San Bernardino, Los Angeles, and Mariposa Counties have had an opportunity to vote. Since they have until 10:00 to cast their votes, the running tallies will not be posted until then.
Of course, the regular polls close at 8:00, and the registrars will immediately commence with counting votes just as if there were no hold. So look for the first results, when they come at 10:00, to be fairly complete. Tonight there will be no hitting "refresh" for updates, no cheering if the numbers shift a little bit. Instead, just look for pretty much one big information dump.
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?"
The Bay Area News Group (Contra Costa Times, Tri-Valley Herald, etc.) yesterday endorsed John Garamendi in the CA-10 race (although it's not online). Of course, Garamendi wasted no time in sending out an email crowing about the endorsement. What's interesting about the email, however, is what Garamendi omitted.
Here's Garamendi's email, with his excerpt from the endorsement:
Garamendi is our choice for the 10th Congressional District
THE DEPARTURE of Ellen Tauscher as representative of the 10th Congressional District to serve in the Obama administration has left a void that will be a challenge to fill.
The diverse district, which runs from Fairfield through much of Contra Costa County and into southern Alameda County, has become increasingly Democratic.
It is heavily favored to elect a Democrat to replace Tauscher, especially without a Republican officeholder seeking the seat.
Among the five Democrats running are three state officeholders: Lt. Gov. John Garamendi, state Sen. Mark DeSaulnier and Assemblywoman Joan Buchanan.
Of the three, only Garamendi has experience working in Washington, D.C., as deputy secretary of the U.S. Department of Interior in the Clinton administration. Garamendi also has broad experience in state government with two years in the Assembly and 14 years in the state Senate. He twice was elected as California Insurance Commissioner, where he helped make significant consumer reforms.
Of all 14 candidates, we believe Garamendi has the right combination of experience, knowledge of key issues and dedication to serving the public interest that make him the best choice to fill Tauscher's seat.
With eight years' experience as insurance commissioner, Garamendi has valuable knowledge needed to make informed decisions about health care reform. As a rancher and with service in the federal Department of Interior, he has credibility with agricultural interests and environmentalists, which puts him in a favorable position to work on critical water issues that affect the Delta.
Garamendi lives on the edge of the 10th Congressional District, but has considerable knowledge about the area, expertise on issues affecting the region, and is not beholden to special interests.
Tauscher's replacement will be going to Congress at a critical time, with major issues confronting the nation, including economic recovery, health care, energy, the war in Afghanistan and reform of financial institutions. The 10th Congressional District needs someone with broad experience and dedication to the public interest. We believe John Garamendi best meets those criteria.
And here's the part of the endorsement that the Garamendi campaign probably didn't want its Democratic supporters to see:
We have serious questions about [DeSaulnier's] commitment to the public interest independent of acceding to the wishes of organized labor, particularly public employee unions.
Many of the financial problems that afflict Contra Costa County today stem directly from decisions DeSaulnier championed while he was supervisor. Most notably, in 2002, at a time when the county faced a $31.5 million shortfall, was already laying off workers and was already experiencing increased public employee pension costs, DeSaulnier supported unsustainable pension increases that hiked benefits for public safety workers by as much as 50 percent.
The plan allowed public safety workers to retire at age 50 with a pension worth 3 percent of their salary for each year served.
Such excessive public employee union benefits have strained some local jurisdictions to the brink of bankruptcy. Indeed, bankruptcy, which would allow the rewriting of unaffordable employee contracts, might be the only way out for some jurisdictions. But Democratic legislators, DeSaulnier and Buchanan among them, have backed an effort to remove the use of local government bankruptcy. They are pushing Assembly Bill 155, which would require state approval of such bankruptcies, severely diminishing local control of fiscal policy.
Now, the Bay Area News Groups is owned by MediaNews Group, whose founder and owner is one William Dean Singleton. It probably wouldn't surprise you to learn that Singleton is rabidly anti-union -- witness the editorial screed that his flagship paper, the Denver Post, published on Page One, above the fold, when Colorado Gov. Bill Ritter signed an executive order allowing collective bargaining for Colorado's state employees. So it's hardly shocking that Singleton's hatred for public employee unions would be reflected in BANG's endorsements.
Here's the problem that I see. Making no bones about their anti-union prejudice, BANG's editorial board has "serious questions about [DeSaulnier's] commitment to the public interest independent of acceding to the wishes of organized labor, particularly public employee unions" but in the same breath claims that "We believe Garamendi has the right combination of experience, knowledge of key issues and dedication to serving the public interest."
So BANG has set up a political equation where public employee unions are the antithesis of the public interest. According to their logic, because DeSaulnier supports those unions, he is disregarding the public interest. But if you apply that equation to BANG's comments about John Garamendi, then logically, his dedication to serving the public interest must necessitate that he has repudiated the public employee unions.
And that raises the question of exactly what was said by Garamendi in his interview with the BANG editorial board. How did he convince an editorial board that he was dedicated to serving the public interest when that same editorial board clearly believes that public employee unions are damaging to the public interest? Could it have been that part about him not living in the district, so he's not "beholden to special interests"? Because that sure sounds like some ugly code to me.
Today is the deadline for candidates to file their FEC Pre-Special Report, which in this race will cover the period from July 1 through August 12. At the moment, Joan Buchanan is the only candidate whose report is up. And the bombshell is that she lent her campaign another $250,000 back in mid-July. So it turns out that she was already at $500,000 before she made a loan of another $250,000 last Friday. Buchanan's fundraising has continued to be anemic, with a mere $30,000 for the six-week period (and a grand total of $94,000). But with her own money added in, she's easily at the head of the pack money-wise.
On the debit side of the ledger, Buchanan spent nearly $400,000 in the last six weeks ($531,000 total), almost all of it on salaries for her field operation. So she's in the final two-week stretch with an army of paid canvassers and plenty of operating capital. And if you're wondering what has possessed her to invest so much of her own money into her campaign, I can tell you that she's spent a fair amount of money on polling. So she must be seeing something that's encouraging her to keep spending.
UPDATE:Garamendi's report is up. He raised $217,000 in the period for a campaign total of $517,000.
Expenditures for the period were $341,000 ($381,000 total). Garamendi reports CoH of $133,000, less debt of $82,000, effectively leaving him with about $50,000. He's also raised another $45,000 since the Pre-Special reporting period, according to his 48-Hour reports. Garamendi's campaign had spent $50,000 on TV as of 8/12.
Expenditures were $206,000 ($278,000 total). The campaign reported $108,000 CoH and $128,000 debt, including a $15,000 loan from the candidate. So DeSaulnier is limping into the final stretch with virtually no money. That's what happens when you do things like pay Ellen Tauscher's fundraisers nearly $40,000.
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.
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...
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...
The special election to replace Ellen Tauscher in CA-10 is taking an ugly turn. The CDP has announced that its endorsement caucus will take place on August 1, and I'm already having flashbacks to Migden-Leno and the 2008 CDP convention.
You see, even though major flaws in the endorsement process were exposed over a year ago, nothing has changed; nor is there, at least to date, any apparent desire on the part of the CDP to address a situation where powerful outsiders are invited to skew the outcome of endorsements in local races.
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...
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?
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.
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.
Back in April, I wrote about Ellen Tauscher, Joan Buchanan, and the AD-15 race. In the comments to that post, several readers questioned my assertion that Ellen Tauscher would be actively supporting Buchanan, pointing out that her "other" protégé, Steve Filson, was also running in the AD-15 primary race. It didn't make sense to choose a new candidate over one she had previously supported, one reader noted. With two "Friends of Ellen" running, surely she would take the high road and withhold her endorsement in this race, another speculated.
Well, no.
The invitations have been sent out. Joan Buchanan is holding a big kick-off fundraiser on October 18. And the honorary co-chair? Ellen Tauscher.
And Steve Filson? Well, it doesn't sound like he's expecting Tauscher to host any big events for him. Over at Calitics Sunday, Filson had this to say:
I do not seek the support from high elected officials. I have the support of teachers, environmental activists, and working families. Democracy is about the bottom up and not the top down. On that, I've learned my lesson.
It's a good lesson to learn. And "friends" like Ellen Tauscher are just the ones to teach it to all of us.
Fred Klaske redefined what it means to run an "insurgent campaign." He currently lives in Castro Valley -- outside the district; yet conveniently close to the campaign headquarters just outside the canyon separating Castro Valley from AD-15.
The office in San Ramon ain't bad, so long as you don't mind all the UPS signs everywhere. (This will be of no solace to The Progressive Connection's babaloo, but Fred Gear, apparently, is tough to come by.)
I was planning in my latest eblast that went out today to discuss the ongoing strike by the UAW against GM, but news often happens faster than real life ... [emphasis added]
And when it comes to the official Fred Klaske for Assembly blog, he wants you to know...
... that with my busy schedule, I won't be able to post here very often ...
... but to be sure to...
... stop by often.
So when you are continuously visiting Fred's infrequently updated blog, be sure to read posts that you've read once already because it is going to take at least two read throughs to fully understand Fred's literary awesomeness.
One month ago, I wrote about the Democrats’ failure to recruit a single candidate in the San Ramon City Council and Mayoral election scheduled for November 2007. In the absence of any electoral challenge, the two incumbent City Council members and the incumbent Mayor, all Republicans, were appointed to new terms last month. Now, I made a fleeting reference to the fact that this shameful state of affairs was going to act as a boost to Mayor H. Abram Wilson’s candidacy for State Assembly in the 15th District, but I guess it’s time to revisit the issue and spell out the ramifications of what amounts to a case of Democratic Party malpractice.
From Bill Baker to Richard Rainey to Lynne Leach to Guy Houston, there has been a steady stream of Republicans representing AD-15 over the last two decades. But in recent years, Democrats have closed the registration gap with Republicans to less than 2%, and the CDP has targeted this seat as one ripe for a challenge.
It’s important to understand a few things about this race. On the Republican side (and I’m basing my assessment here strictly on campaign cash on hand), there are four viable candidates: Scott Kamena, businessman; Judy Lloyd, businesswoman; Robert Rao, businessman; and Abram Wilson, Mayor of San Ramon. Now, it’s probably not much of a surprise to see the results of this August 1, 2007, Probolsky Research poll commissioned by Wilson:
Among the candidates in the race for the Republican Nomination in the 15th Assembly District, Mayor Abram Wilson has the highest name identification among the voters. In fact his positives are more than two-to-one over the next opponent.
WILSON
KAMENA
LLOYD
RAO
Positive Name ID
21%
8%
2%
2%
Negative Name ID
2
2
1
1
In the ballot test Mayor Wilson earns an impressive margin over the next closest opponent.
Yesterday, DailyKos 
Back in April, I wrote about 
One month ago, I wrote about the Democrats’ failure to recruit a single candidate in the San Ramon City Council and Mayoral election scheduled for November 2007. In the absence of any electoral challenge, the two incumbent City Council members and the incumbent Mayor, all Republicans, were 
