For some reason, Attorney General has become the most coveted job in California.  I’m counting EIGHT Democratic candidates either announcing or strongly hinting toward announcing for the primary.  There’s Kamala Harris and Ted Lieu and Alberto Torrico and Pedro Nava and Joe Canciamilla and Rocky Delgadillo among the announced.  There’s Chris Kelly, the chief privacy officer for Facebook (the website that keeps trying to invade your privacy), hinting at an announcement.  And now my city councilman Bobby Shriver is talking about getting in.

Bobby Shriver, the nephew of President John F. Kennedy and the brother of California first lady Maria Shriver, is mulling a run for state attorney general next year, according to his political adviser […]

“There’s been a wide variety of people who have come to him and who he has used as a sounding board to talk about the job of attorney general and the role it takes, the profile it has in terms of moving California forward,” said Harvey Englander, a Democratic political strategist who managed both of Shriver’s successful runs for Santa Monica City Council.

Englander, who described himself as “very close” to Shriver, called the role of California’s top cop “a very powerful position” and one that is “closest to fitting his profile.”

I should say that Shriver is not seen as a progressive ally on the city council.  The Santa Monica Democratic Club did not endorse him in his run for re-election, and nor did Santa Monica for Renter’s Rights.  I wouldn’t say he’s been terrible on the council, but he doesn’t have a grassroots base.  He has been quite good throughout his career on environmental issues, and his vote to reject the proposed Toll Road through the Trestles while on the state parks board earned him removal from his brother-in-law, Arnold Schwarzenegger.

In such a crowded field, his name may help with low-information voters.  It will not help, according to other campaigns in the race with winning the overall primary:

As for Shriver, with whom (Torrico campaign consultant Phil) Giarrizzo said he has worked on environmental issues, “he’s a talented, bright, articulate person, but we’ve seen many times, in the sense that ‘he’s a Kennedy,’ that people look to accomplishment, they look to a record,” Giarrizzo said. Primary voters tend to be very discerning, he noted, and “it doesn’t work that you can just pass along a family name; he will have to run on his own merits … a level of experience he’ll have to communicate. I don’t think we look at him as ‘a Kennedy’ – I think we look at him as Bobby Shriver, an activist and city councilman.”

I would look to leadership in assessing these candidates.  You have Ted Lieu traveling to Washington to meet with Administration officials and get them to raise the threshold on homeowners underwater in their homes eligible for help from the Obama housing plan.  You have Alberto Torrico trying to get oil companies to actually pay for the natural resources they take out of our ground.  And of course, there are the key issues that will face the next Attorney General, particularly in ending the prison crisis through responsible leadership instead of insane “tough on crime” policies that fail our state.  I don’t much care for names and profiles as much as I do leadership.

In the January Assembly district caucuses to elect delegates to the California Democratic Party, many people reported that union members showed up to support delegates running on a slate for Senator John Burton for CDP chair. Many of these delegate candidates were also union members. I spoke to several of these union members running for delegate at my AD caucus. Both seemed like fine people. Clearly they were dedicated union members. Neither of them were Democratic activists. They had no links to or experience with the party. But, in my district, both are now delegates–or, officially, members of the state Democratic central committee.

I am a firm supporter of bringing new people into the party. But I find this development disturbing for several reasons.

First, in other districts, these new delegates forced out dedicated Democratic activists who have contributed substantially to the state party. The people who voted for them did not do so because they cared about the future of the party, but because their unions asked them to.

Second, these “slate” delegates got elected for only one reason–to vote for Senator Burton for chair. Once they have cast their vote, will they contribute anything to their local party? Or to the state party? Or will they simply disappear, having performed the task their union asked them to? I fear the latter.

We elected one new delegate in my district that I supported enthusiastically. A college student, she is the president of the College Democratic club at her school. She is an energetic volunteer in her county party. And just the kind of new voice the California Democratic Party needs.

But Senator Burton and his labor allies have used the recent delegate elections to achieve their own goals–not to bring new activists into the party. In so doing, they have deprived the party of the commitment and experience of the delegates their “shills” displaced, and of the opportunity to bring in more dedicated activists like the College Dem from my district. The lack of these true Democratic activists in our state party could damage our ability to operate effectively around the state for years to come.