Daily Archives: June 9, 2006

Arnold Schwarzenegger, Blog Roundup, education

California Blog Roundup, 6/9/06

Today’s California Blog Roundup is on the flip. Teasers: Angelides, Schwarzenegger, CA-50 post-mortems (almost the last of those, I think), 15% Doolittle, freedom, facts, education, and marriage.

Governor

CA-50 (the likely end of the post-mortems)

Other Electoral

    Dump Doolittle on 15% Doolittle’s poor showing (despite outspending his opponent, the mayor of Auburn — really a city council member 13 to 1) and the poor showing of one of 15% Doolittle’s local minions proteges.

Miscellany

Arnold Schwarzenegger

Arnold: I love Democrats, except the ones running for every race in California

In a move that he thought would make him super-duper popular, Arnold said that he would support a Democrat, depending on who it is.  Except that none of the Democrats actually pass his smell test.  The Right-wing bloggers, of course, went nuts.

“If I like someone, absolutely,” the Republican governor said in response to a reporter who asked at a campaign event in Antioch if he might back a Democrat in the spirit of bipartisanship he has attempted to engender in Sacramento. “Let’s see. But right now, I’m just thinking about moving the state forward.”

Schwarzenegger’s campaign manager, Steven Schmidt, said in a subsequent interview that the governor has endorsed all of the down-ticket Republican candidates — Tom McClintock for lieutenant governor, Chuck Poochigian for attorney general, Bruce McPherson for secretary of state, Tony Strickland for controller, Claude Parrish for treasurer and Steve Poizner for insurance commissioner.(SacBee 6/9/06)

So, where there’s anything on the line, he’s really not so bipartisan.  Steve Schmidt, his BushCo spokesman, did say that he thought DiFi was a great senator.  Mountjoy wasn’t so impressed with that, but I guess they figured they could could throw him under the bus.  It’s not like he has a snowball’s chance in hell of beating good ol’ DiFi.

This is really just Arnold trying to be magnanimous, but then his people pulling him back from the brink.  There should be a lot of these little verbal stumbles.  My personal favorite is still the “close the borders” thing, but maybe we’ll top it this year with those unscripted town halls he wants to do.

Uncategorized

CA-26: An Election Day Mystery

3 Comments

(Ah, the strange whims of voters. – promoted by SFBrianCL)

[cross-posted at SethInCA, Daily Kos, and MyDD]

A week ago, I wrote a diary here asking for suggestions for starting a new blog to cover the race in CA-26. Two nights ago, I watched and reloaded, slightly disbelieving the preliminary results in the Democratic primary in CA-26, David Dreier (R-Closet)’s district. Russ Warner, endorsed by Gen. Wesley Clark, ran on a moderate platform of “protecting the middle class, promoting small business, and supporting our troops, honoring our veterans.” Clark came to the district, raised money for Warner, and even recorded a robocall for him. Warner was supposed to be the best chance in awhile to defeat Dreier, a tough prospect considering Dreier’s power as Rules Committee chairman and the Republican registration advantage in the district (46% R to 35% D).

Meanwhile, Cynthia Rodriguez Matthews, who came out of the closet during the 2004 election and challenged Dreier to do the same ran again. Matthews gave Dreier the closest margin of any reelected congressman in California in 2004 (54-42), thanks in no small part to the anti-Dreier activism of two radio hosts surrounding immigration. Yet Matthews had raised only $516 as of mid-May and $5,361 as of June 1. Her website is a nightmare. Watching the election from afar, I pretty much wrote her off.

So what were the results on election day?

Cynthia Rodriguez Matthews                 12,836   47.0 
Russ Warner                                10,308   37.8 
Hoyt Hilsman                                4,172   15.2

That was, to say the least, unexpected. So now I pose the question to you: what happened?

I’m trying to decide if a comparison with CA-50 makes sense (of course that was a special election, not a primary). In assessing Busby’s loss, Matt Stoller argues that Bilbray ran to the left of Busby, who ran as a moderate and highlighted the “Culture of Corruption,” but didn’t really motivate the base. Kos sounds the same message, writing:

As I travelled the country extensively on my book tour I heard the same points over and over again, in city after city. Regular activists out in the states understand these concepts. But the DC bubble politicians and consultants simply don’t get it.

The “culture of corruption” is a nice secondary theme to weave into our broader narrative, but it can’t be the message on which we pin our 2006 hopes.”We’re better managers” won’t inspire our troops to head to battle.

This will be a base election. Inspire and motivate.

See Montana Democrats like Gov. Brian Schweitzer and Jon Tester for a taste of how that’s done. The corruption message helped MT Dems take over the governor’s mansion and legislature in 2004, but that was just a sub-thread of their broader message.

They, and others like Paul Hackett would’ve won CA-50.

Maybe Warner lost because, despite his big name endorsement, he didn’t motivate the base. Or maybe it was just the low turnout due to other factors. Or an inexperienced campaign staff. Whatever the reason, it was quite an upset, and something of a mystery.