A couple brief updates:
• CA-50: Francine Busby, who has competed in this district a couple times, in 2004 and 2006, never breaking 44%, will announce another run, challenging Rep. Brian Bilbray. This is an “Obama Republican” district, where Bilbray only beat Nick Leibham by 50-46 in 2008. And voter registration is trending in our favor. And Busby is kicking things off by hitting Bilbray over his “Party of No” rejection of President Obama’s policies, which makes sense in a district he carried.
Busby says, “Voters called for change in 2008 when they elected Barack Obama. (Incumbent Congressman) Bilbray didn’t heed the message. He played a reckless, cruel game of politics with the lives of struggling San Diegans when he voted no on Recovery and Reimbursement Act that would bring millions of federal stimulus dollars into our economy.
My sense is that CA-50 is something of a tease of a district, with a Democratic ceiling around 46%, but I think Busby is taking the right line to win, and she does have some name ID, which could help. Stay tuned.
• CA-10: I hate to even give space to the Adriel Hampton “boomlet,” but after calling for the legalization and taxation of marijuana, today the Congressional candidate is actually promoting and endorsing the right-wing, corporate-funded and Fox News-promoted “tea parties.” No lie. You know, this guy is more faddish than a junior-high Jonas Brothers fan. Anything with a hashtag is good, I guess. Even if it enables corporate-friendly drowning of government in the bathtub. What a Web 2.0 genius!
Grover Norquist’s or Lawrence Lessig’s? Does he even know the difference?