(Satan may have a few words to say about this one. – promoted by Julia Rosen)

Cross-posted from Huffington Post

Last year at this time, CNN ran a piece about the Courage Campaign’s petition drive to move the California presidential primary forward from June to February 5th. Many doubted that our premise would be born out, namely that by having California competitive in the presidential primary, we might actually have a say in policy formulation and make long term political alliances that would benefit the state, not just export money to finance campaigns in other states.

Put simply, we were right. After the tumult of Iowa and New Hampshire and Michigan, followed Saturday by a first-ever caucus in Nevada and then an election in South Carolina, California has become a key “battleground” state for all of the leading candidates. While no one, least of all the pollsters, has a clue what will happen, the people of California have already won.

I remember four years ago, when as the Chair of the Dean Campaign in California, we could but sit and watch as Iowa and New Hampshire and then Arizona and New Mexico, decided that John Kerry would be the nominee. Not this year.

(much more below)

Last Friday, Senator Clinton visited East Los Angeles as the venue for a major policy speech on an economic recovery package. She was not in Arizona or New Mexico; she was right here, in the county with the most registered Democrats of any in the nation. Flanking her was the ever smiling Mayor Villaraigosa together with Speaker Fabian Nunez. And behind them was a gaggle of elected officials who undoubtedly went home with bruised ribs from elbowing each other to get in the picture next to the candidate. She has opened at least three offices in the state and her campaign team says she’ll win the “ground game” here, something no one even tried in 2004.

(Even long time Clinton surrogate and hatchet man Chris Lehane, who would rather have his name in a news story than eat dinner, has been noticeably quiet. As you may recall, Chris Lehane was hired by the studios at the clip of $100,000 a month to break the WGA strike; perhaps the Clinton apparatus finally understands that the senator cannot effectively cultivate organized labor support while a family retainer is out selling his contacts in the media and politics to try to destroy everything for which organized labor stands.)

Senator Obama has held rallies up and down the state. He’s due back here tonight for an already sold out fundraiser. But he also has a real campaign here. LA City Council President Eric Garcetti, one of his state co-chairs, tells me that the campaign has seven offices open. Former Dean organizer Buffy Wicks runs the field operation here and has already recruited and trained over 4,000 precinct captains.  Steve Phillips, who has long championed greater political access for communities of color, founded a 527 called Vote Hope to engage those communities on behalf of Senator Obama and to keep building beyond the election.

Sal Rosselli, president of United Healthcare Workers West whose 150,000 member local voted to back Senator Edwards, tells me that Senator Edwards will be in LA for a rally at noon on Thursday with SEIU State Council President Anelle Grajeda and others. This follows a slew of visits to California by Senator Edwards, who is the conscience of this race. He was in Fresno, walked picket lines and spoke often about the inequalities that must be bridged in order to restore America’s greatness. While the Edwards campaign does not have a permanent presence here, his West Coast fundraiser, Terri New, doubles as organizer, leading teams to Iowa, New Hampshire and Nevada.

The CNN/LA Times poll yesterday showed that Senator Clinton leads in California with 47%, followed by Senator Obama with 31% and Senator Edwards with 10%. We only have to look to New Hampshire to understand the accuracy of the paid pollsters these days; the voters will decide based on what their friends and family say, not based on the media or paid ads.

Admittedly, I know far less about what is happening with the Republicans, but know they care so deeply about California that Governor Huckabee’s campaign manager, Ed Rollins, has been leading the dirty trick initiative designed to steal 20 or so Electoral College votes for the Republicans. While we managed to keep that initiative off of the June ballot, Mr. Rollins still hopes it’ll be back for November, demonstrating clearly how the Republicans plan to use their skills in the dark arts over coming months. Regardless, expect to see more of Senator McCain, Governor Huckabee, Mayor Giuliani and Governor Romney, newly excited by his win in Michigan. They all need California to win the nomination.

Because this is all about delegates, we’ll almost certainly have multiple winners from California. The Democrats give convention delegates to every candidate that achieves 15% or more from any congressional district. That means that a statewide poll that shows one candidate way ahead may not accurately predict the delegate count, which is the only count that elects the nominee. And it also means this race may go on well past February 5th.

The California primary has already transformed politics in this state. The residual from statewide organizing is evergreen. Because the candidates are actually building campaigns here, we have a huge opportunity in this state to take on the fundamental issues that hobble us and that our government refuses to address. Only through people power from outside of the system – and that means from the sorts of voters who are joining together for their various candidates–can we hope to fix the mess that Proposition 13 created thirty years ago, the result of an initiative system of “citizen government” that has run amok.

The Courage Campaign is running an online poll as an attempt to engage progressives up and down the state for whomever they choose. Unlike those who poll for a living, we do not pretend to be scientific. We seek to encourage opinion leaders to talk to their own social networks about the candidates. That’s the best way to learn and ultimately the most effective way to persuade. Together with our partners in Ohio, Colorado, Michigan, Washington and Wisconsin, we’ve created an online horse race of sorts that requires people to convince their friends to vote. So far in California, Obama and Edwards are very close for first place, with Clinton and Kucinich working for third and fourth. But as we know, anything can happen.

“Tsunami Tuesday” is three weeks away, but we already know that progressives in our state have won by moving the primary forward.

I’ve already told you a little bit about the Hidden agendas scheme to eliminate rent control. (tag here). On sfbg.com Ted Gullicksen, the president of the San Francisco Tenants’ Union, writes to kick off the campaign to save rent control:

If you think the mortgage foreclosure crisis is big, imagine what would happen to San Francisco if rent control were repealed.

With 180,000 rent-controlled apartments currently housing more than 350,000 San Franciscans, the end of rent control would be disastrous. Literally hundreds of thousands would be forced from their homes and forced to leave the city.

The pain and suffering people would face as they lost their homes would be immense, making the foreclosure problem seem insignificant by comparison. Maybe even worse, repealing rent control would destroy forever the soul of San Francisco, eliminating altogether the city’s character and diversity and leaving it nothing more than a wealthy enclave affordable only to the very rich.

Devastating indeed.  While I think Ted’s vision of SF without rent control is within reason; I personally can’t imagine it all.  As Ted says, the soul of San Francisco would be indescribably altered for the worse. Ghettoization, already quite visible in the City, would become more and more pronounced. Many older and long-term San Franciscans would be forced to flee the City. To where they would go, I have no answers.

It’s just not a City in which I would like to reside. So, for those of you in the City this Saturday, I recommend that you attend an event on Saturday: Save Rent Control Campaign Kicks Off With Citywide Tenant Conference on January 19, 1:00 PM at 474 Valencia St (at 16th), nee I implore, beg, plead, grovel, whatever. You can download the flyer (PDF) here. Spread it to all of your friends. It will be a rocking good time, I’m sure, and it’s a very important issue.

The San Francisco Bay Guardian has long been considered the voice of progressives in the Bay Area. Publisher Bruce Brugmann has been working to give progressives a voice for a long, long time. (He even supplies the world with transcripts of Sup. Tom Ammiano’s joke of the day voicemail message.) That the “Weekly” papers have now been brought under a larger corporate banner and have moved considerably to the center, their publication has become one of the most important reads for progressives in the state, if not the most important. (Save Calitics of course. 😉 )

With that, I bring you the Bay Guardian’s endorsements. As a good non-partisan paper they made endorsements in all three primaries by endorsing Obama, Ron Paul, and Cynthia McKinney.  On California Propositions, they said yes on 92 & 93, and No on 91, and 94-97.  As for the SF props, Yes on A&B, No on C.

See the flip for more discussion of the SFBG endorsements.

President: Obama, Paul, and McKinney

The SFBG readily acknowledges that Paul and McKinney will not win, and for Paul, that is a good thing. They take fault with his libretarian, anti-tax, “anti-gummint” (jsw’s phrase) stances. However, they point to the importance of having a Republican that is anti-war on the ballot as a point of contrast.  As for the Dem race, well, it reads kinda like the Calitics endorsement. We loved Edwards, but it was not to be. The same for the BG. On Clinton, here’s the money quote:

We are convinced that deep down she has liberal instincts. But that’s what’s so infuriating: since the day she won election to the US Senate, Clinton has been triangulating, shaping her positions, especially on foreign policy, in an effort to put her close to the political center. At a time when she could have shown real courage – during the early votes on funding and authorizing the invasion of Iraq – she took the easy way out, siding with President Bush and refusing to be counted with the antiwar movement. She has refused to distance herself from such terrible Bill Clinton-era policies as welfare reform, the North American Free Trade Agreement, and don’t ask, don’t tell. We just can’t see her as the progressive choice.

Prop 91: No

While we merely stated that Prop 91 had no campaign, the good folks at the Bay Guardian were absolutely correct in pointing out the underlying reasons for not supporting any such measures to restrict gas taxes to roads:

Driving a car is expensive for society, and drivers ought to be paying some of those costs. That should mean extra gas taxes and a reinstatement of the vehicle license fee to previous levels (and extra surcharges for those who drive Hummers and other especially wasteful, dangerous vehicles). That money ought to go to the state General Fund so California doesn’t have to close state parks and slash spending on schools and social services, as Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger is proposing.

Prop 92: Yes

Different place, same story as the Calitics endorsement:

Some teachers fear that Prop. 92 could lead to decreased funds for K-12, and that’s a real concern. … But many of the same concerns were voiced when Prop. 98 was on the ballot, and that measure probably saved public education in California. The progressives on the San Francisco Board of Education all support Prop. 92, and so do we. Vote yes.

Prop 93: Yes  (Brian’s Disclosure)

The Bay Guardian diverged in only one place from the Calitics endorsement, and this was it. They, like Mal Burnstein, oppose term limits in general, especially the “Mark Leno versus Carole Migden bloodbath.”

But it’s sad that the California State Legislature, once a model for the nation, has been so stymied by corruption that the voters don’t trust it and the best we can hope for is a modest improvement in a bad law. Vote yes.

Props. 94-97: No

The Calitics Editorial Board view on these is about the same as the Bay Guardians. Not enough money to the state, not enough labor protection, and too much to too few:

The governor cut this deal too fast and gave away too much. If the tribes want to expand their casinos, we’re open to allowing it – but the state, the workers, and the other tribes deserve a bigger share of the revenue. Vote no on 94-97.

You have to be a complete fool to claim to be a Democrat and then package in your campaign trial balloon a prepared statement of praise from Joe Lieberman.  Anyone you has been paying any attention knows that is the kiss of death in Democratic politics, especially in a blue seat in a major blue geographic area effectively serviced by mass transit. I’m surprised we haven’t seen any quotes (yet) from Dan Gerstein.

I don’t have a problem with people who worked for Lieberman running for office, but there needs to be an apology right off the bat so voters recognize that the candidate has learned the errors of their ways and is willing to take responsibility all those who have suffered due to their support for Bush’s main man in the senate.

But that isn’t the route Yul Kwon (CA for Leiberman) is taking. Nope, he seems to think Lieberman praising him makes him look good (like Bush, or like Brownie during his confirmation). That just isn’t the case. Speier v Yee would have been a hard fought but fair campaign. Yet anyone running on the Connecticut for Lieberman ticket in the Bay Area should expect far, far worse.

UPDATE: Even one of our friends at the California Majority Report agrees that, “being a former Lieberman staffer doesn’t really win one a lot of friends in the Democratic Party.”

Full disclosure: I work for the Courage Campaign

We’ve got ourselves a heck of a horserace shaping up as the PickYourPresident poll continues.  In just 24 hours we’ve seen a lot of movement in the standings, with John Edwards cutting Obama’s California lead in half.  Elsewhere, Clinton bumped Edwards for 2nd in Ohio and the two are separated by a whisker in Michigan- further evidence of a Clinton surge over the weekend.

I’ve got big plans to head for Reno at the end of the week (Friday, also when the poll ends), and I’ve got no idea what to expect from the Nevada caucus.  Given that Nevada has never seen a caucus like this, it’s impossible to predict with certainty what will happen there.  But given how unpredictable the nomination process has already been on both sides, I can’t imagine it’ll be definitive.  I’m waiting right now for Michigan results to be finalized, but that won’t matter much on the Democratic side.  Momentum is a fickle beast, but Super Tuesday is the one time it could actually matter.  Polling throughout Feb 5 states have shown that races are tightening all over.  Who knows what could happen at this point, but if you have a candidate that you support, the more public your support, the better.

Edit: Also, of course, go to PickYourPresident.org before the voting closes on Friday to cast your vote.

National Rankings:

1. Sen. Barack Obama

2. Sen. John Edwards

3. Sen. Hillary Clinton

4. Rep. Dennis Kucinich

5. Gov. Bill Richardson *

6. Sen. Mike Gravel

And the California Rankings:

1. Sen. Barack Obama

2. Sen. John Edwards

3. Rep. Dennis Kucinich

4. Sen. Hillary Clinton

5. Gov. Bill Richardson *

6. Sen. Mike Gravel

*Richardson received votes before withdrawing from the race.