The special election to replace now-Rep. Laura Richardson in her SoCal district is coming up soon. However, it's not just the two candidates, Warren Furutani and Mike Gipson who are spending like crazy to get 'er done. Nope, like every other election in California, this one is dominated by Independent Expenditures. Given that this is the only item on the ballot, turnout will be terrible, so each vote is priceless. And the IEs, and candidates, are spending accordingly.

 The candidates themselves have raised about $500,000 between them, with Furutani leading Gipson with more than $350,000 raised.

While donations to the candidates are capped, money streaming into independent expenditure campaigns, which by law can’t coordinate with the candidates, is limitless. (SacBee CapAlert 11.28.07)

So, I didn't really have a favorite in this race, really. I just didn't know enough about the candidates. I mean, I knew that Warren Furutani is an Asian-American and is endorsed by the CDP and a bunch of Democratic Clubs,  the Sierra Club, a bunch of unions, most of the Assembly, including the Speaker, Mayor Villaraigosa, and state Controller John Chiang, amongst many others. And, I knew that Mike Gipson was an African-American who had held local offices in Carson and is endorsed by Rep. Richardson, Sen. Perata and a bunch of Senators, one Democratic Club, and some other local officials. All well and good, there. I suppose I would lean towards Furutani because all the local Dem Club endorsements mean he has some grassroots support. Cool.

Furutani's IEs are mostly funded by labor, so I'm pretty comfortable with that.  But the amazing part about Gipson's IEs? Yeah, it's the same one that tried to take down John Chiang in the Controller's race. So that we could have Controller Tony Strickland, as that would be, you know wonderful. Yup, it's money from Intuit, the software company, and a bunch of tobacco companies.  I guess the backstory on that is that Intuit didn't like the previous Controller, Steve Westly, cutting into their TurboTax business with his easy filing process. And the tobacco $$? Well, they're always trying to buy politicians, aren't they?

So, while I can't make an official Calitics endorsement, I can say that I, personally, now support Warren Furutani. Unfortunately, Mr. Furutani doesn't have an ActBlue page. So, Mr. Furutani, could you get on that? I'm really not into Dem. candidates using sytems like "Click and Pledge" which allow you to "Pay only 4.75% processing fee per transaction for Visa, MC, Discover, & 5% for JCB- accept only the cards you want." Umm, ActBlue only charges about 3%. Why do all these Dems keep using other providers???? Do we really need to throw away 2% of online donations?