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...
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.
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?
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.
There's an old saying... "Grow where you're planted." Perhaps nowhere is that adage more apt than in the current John Garamendi CA-10 vs. CA-03 controversy.
When John Garamendi kicked off his campaign for the special election in CA-10, he unveiled an introductory video laying out his reasons for running. Unfortunately for Garamendi, who actually lives in CA-03, the video served to demonstrate just exactly how out of touch he is with CA-10. Watch the video for yourself and pay special attention to how Garamendi claims to have helped the residents of CA-10, first through passing legislation 30 years ago to pave the way for windmills on the Altamont Pass (sorry, that's actually in CA-11, Jerry McNerney's district) and then through his actions as Insurance Commissioner after the Oakland Hills fire (sorry, that's actually in CA-09, Barbara Lee's district).
Then, more recently, while speaking from the podium at the CDP convention, Garamendi referred to the special event where he formally announced his candidacy, talking about his visit to the unemployment office in Fremont (sorry, that's in CA-13, Pete Stark's district).
What's become clear through all this is a) John Garamendi doesn't seem to know where CA-10, the district he wants to represent in Congress, actually is; and b) he doesn't seem very attuned to the problems and concerns of the people who live in the district.
But there's a solution. Garamendi could, and should, try running in the district where he's spent most of his life, the district where he lives, CA-03. Now, CA-03 has an honest-to-goodness bad guy Republican that needs to be sent packing, in the form of Dan Lungren. And John Garamendi seems like just the guy to do it. Indeed, there's a Draft Garamendi movement that has sprung up in the last few weeks, and the message is being pushed out via an online petition, a facebook group, and twitter. And far from being a fly-by-night idea, this movement has been gaining a lot of traction, even in far-away Washington, DC. A recent article in the National Journal featured the notion that maybe John Garamendi is running in the wrong district, and an earlier article in Roll Call (subscription), made it clear that the Draft Garamendi movement is on the DCCC's screen:
Andrew Stone, a spokesman for the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, said D.C. Democrats are aware of the movement to draft Garamendi into the 3rd district race, but would not comment further, except to say, "That district is one that we're really paying close attention to."
Now there's a new YouTube video out with none other than John Garamendi himself speaking out on the need for a strong challenger to take on Dan Lungren.
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.
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.
