Daily Archives: September 20, 2006

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CA-Sen: Dick Mountjoy, wingnut extraordinaire, inches towards a real race

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In the most recent Datamar poll, Dick Mountjoy is within 11 points of Diane Feinstein.  Now, I’ve pointed out the flaws of the Datamar poll here, however this is a bit scary.  The man is totally insane.  And I mean that.  Totally. Insane.

I’d like to point out a few positions from this California Republican icon. Let’s start with immigration

Immigration:
Dick Mountjoy is the author of Prop 187, the proposition which cut off most benefits from people who could not show proof of legality.  His official position:

If we’re to protect our nation, we must control our borders.  That’s why, as our U.S. Senator, I will work to immediately strengthen our border with improved barriers and beefed up law enforcement.  I will also fight against any attempt to give illegal immigrants government funded services, and I will oppose ALL amnesty schemes.[(Mountjoy for Senate) If we’re to protect our nation, we must control our borders.  That’s why, as our U.S. Senator, I will work to immediately strengthen our border with improved barriers and beefed up law enforcement.  I will also fight against any attempt to give illegal immigrants government funded services, and I will oppose ALL amnesty schemes.]

On gay rights:
Anti-gay would be putting it mildly.  Check out this lecture from an anti-gay rally:

Some notable quotes from this video:

“They have been taught to not tolerate the sin, but tolerate the sinner.  They have been taught that these acts are sins no doubt about it…They say “it’s ok’.  You know Papa, you’ve taught us a Christian way of life.  My teacher says it’s ok.  Well, it’s not ok.”

“Separation between church and state, which is not really true.”

And there are a lot more of fun quotes.  Listen people, if this Datamar poll is even close to being accurate, we need to make sure that we get to the polls.  I know DiFi isn’t perfect, but would you really want to risk moonbat over there being in the Senate?

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CA-Gov: Don’t Count Phil Out Yet: Unions to fight back

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Apparently, the state’s unions (in the form of the Alliance for a Better California) are not throwing in the towel against Arnold Schwarzenegger just yet.  From the SF Chron (h/t to Julia at …the Alliance for a Better California):

A coalition of the state’s most powerful public employee unions has agreed to start an independent campaign opposing the re-election of Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger that could cost as much as $25 million, according to several sources familiar with the plan.(SF Chron 9/20/06)

Keep an eye on the Alliance for a Better California Blog  for more information.

Central Valley

CA-04: A Real Race for Doolittle

Charlie Brown’s candidacy is no longer some little joke in the district.  Brown’s internal polling (via TPM) (so take it with a grain of salt) shows a dead heat on name recognition alone.

Charlie Brown (D) 39
John Doolittle (R) 49
Neither  3
Don’t Know 17

Now, once you give positive campaign statements for each candidate, Brown has a sizeable lead. (positive and negative)

Charlie Brown (D) 47 (45)
John Doolittle (R) 39 (38)
Neither  3 (6)
Don’t Know 11 (12)

So, it’s pretty obvious what needs to happen in the next few weeks, huh?  We need to make sure that as many people as possible know Charlie’s background, his beliefs, and his ethics. Of course, all that takes money, so check out the Calitics ActBlue page too.

Los Angeles Area

Holding Wal-Mart Collaborators Accountable

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[Update: Looks like we lost this battle.  The recall was defeated.  Wal-Mart spent over $200K on this race.  Still a fight WELL worth picking. Rosemead residents sent a clear message just for having launched this campaign, and they’ll have another chance to replace these Wal-Mart stooges in the regular election next March.]

The results are not yet in, but polls just closed in Rosemead, California, where two city council members face a recall election as a consequence of their roles in inviting Wal-Mart to town.

Rosemead is a suburb just outside of Los Angeles.  Wal-Mart set its sights on the town after being denied entry into nearby San Gabriel in the 1990s, and after being routed in a 2004 referendum in the South L.A. working class community of Inglewood.  Though over twice as many Rosemead residents signed a petition in opposition to the superstore as signed a Wal-Mart-commissioned store-friendly one, the company assiduously courted council members’ favor and managed to pull together a consensus in favor of construction.  (This is the inverse of the tactic Wal-Mart failed to execute in Inglewood, where the company tried to bypass a hostile City Council by going straight to the voters with a referendum that was defeated by a 3-2 margin.)

Wal-Mart is much like a notoriously bad drunk who tries to crash his way into every party in town.  Now that everyone knows how obnoxious he is, nobody will let him through the door.  His only salvation is that he’s as rich as he is unpopular, and there’s always a couple bouncers somewhere he can bribe his way past.

Two such bouncers, Council Members Gary Taylor and Jay Imperial, faced the music today: a recall election, and a challenge from anti-Wal-Mart candidates Polly Low and Victor Ruiz.  Today’s recall election is Round 2 of Throwing the Bums Out in Rosemead.  In an earlier election, two of three pro-Wal-Mart incumbents were given the toss.  If Taylor and Imperial are defeated at the polls, only one of the original Wal-Mart Council will remain in office.

It is a measure of Wal-Mart’s international disrepute that a small, low-turnout, local election has garnered quite a bit of press attention (front of the California section of today’s L.A. Times).  As if to add to the melodrama, the election was overseen by federal election monitors: The anti-Wal-Mart petition that brought the recall into being was printed only in English, and was challenged in federal court by Taylor and Imperial as a violation of the Voting Rights Act (Rosemead has large populations of Chinese, Vietnamese and Spanish-speaking residents).  The election was scheduled for February, injoined, cancelled, dis-injoined, reinstated, and scheduled for today with election observers.

However this election turns out, the message from Rosemead to city officials all over the country is clear: Wal-Mart is politically toxic.  Jump into bed with it and risk finding yourself out of a job and asking for an application at the wage slave-driving superstore whose groundbreaking ribbon you just cut.

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CA-04: Is Doolittle corrupt, or ineffective?

It’s very exciting when you see Congressional campaigns using frames that have been floating around Kos and the blogosphere for some time.  I have read so many posts that paint the picture of Republicanism in the age of Bush as a bipolar question: they’re either completely incompetent or they’re making it LOOK like they’re incompetent so they can steal.  It’s the “stupid or lying” argument.

Now, Fighting Dem Charlie Brown has internalized this central critique of the entire Republican Party, focused it on his opponent John Doolittle, and manifested it in the new website Corruptorineffective.com.

More on the flip:

The site has two columns and basically poses a central question: is John Doolittle corrupt?  Or is he ineffective?  And there are several examples to bolster either argument.

For example, Doolittle took a hundred grand from Jack Abramoff, who he still considers a “good friend”.  Corrupt.  But Doolittle also has stood by idly while the national debt surged, port and border security has not improved from its disastrous state and dependence on foreign oil remains troublingly the same.  Ineffective.

Every argument in the election, every reason not to return John Doolittle to Congress, can be neatly tossed into these two boxes.  Kos has discussed the value of narrative in these political races.  With this site, Brown completely defines his opponent, and tells a little story about him that gives two concrete narrative frames through which to view the campaign.

There’s even a little poll where you can vote for “corrupt” or “ineffective.”  This site comes with a companion radio spot, the second time the Brown campaign has done this (they released Doolittle Facts along with a spot about Doolittle’s CNMI connections earlier).

I don’t think there’s another campaign that I’ve seen that is as innovative with using the Web to set the narrative as the Brown campaign.  That’s why, in a very gerrymandered state, Charlie Brown has the best opportunity to flip a seat in California.  And with more touches like “Corrupt or Ineffective,” I think he’s going to do it.

Other campaigns need to learn by example.  Essentially, corrupt or ineffective could be applied to HUNDREDS of Republican candidates.  It works great for someone so tied to Abramoff like Doolittle, but there are plenty more like him in Congress.  It’s a powerful argument that gives your opponent nowhere to turn.  You’re either corrupt, or ineffective.  No answer can be satisfactory.  Both answers demand the call for new leadership.  It’s absolutely brilliant.

Call your local race and ask them to come up with something like “Corrupt or Ineffective.”

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CA-Gov: Revenge of the Nerds

So we are seven weeks out from the election, and the mainstream media has all but written Phil’s obituary. Actually, some of them have even done that (Angelides: Killed in a landslide against Schwarzenegger weeks before any ballots were cast)

But as we all know, the media loves a good comeback story. So here it is: Revenge of the Nerds.

Join me on the flip…

I got inspired in part by this annoying post earlier today, comparing Phil to “Beaker” from the Muppet Show. Yeah, yeah, ha ha. So fine. Call us nerds. But as we so dearly remember from this 1984 classic, the nerds are the ones who get the last laugh.

Just as the students at Adams College learned, nerds tend to be much better than dumb jocks at running things, be they student governments or the fifth largest economy in the world.

Having a nerd in the Governor’s Office is about the best thing we could hope for right now, in fact, given that we are still mired in a structural budget deficit in the face of billions of dollars of more borrowing on this year’s ballot, a prison system on the verge of collapse, an education system that is not meeting the needs of the most diverse state population in the country and an overall disengaged electorate.

And so, in the words of Gilbert, I say: Any of you who have ever felt stepped on, left out, picked on, put down — whether you think you’re a nerd or not, why don’t you just come down here and join us? Because no one is really going to be free until nerd persecution ends.