By Randy Bayne
The Bayne of Blog
In 2006 and 2008 Dr. Bill Durston stepped up to the plate and ran for CD-03. He ran unopposed in the primary leaving him to work on name recognition, voter registration and building his support for the general election. All much needed activities when you’re running against Dan Lungren.
Until recently there has been no clear candidate in the 3rd. A few weeks ago I heard from Gary Davis, an Elk Grove City Councilman. He told me he was looking at running. Haven’t heard from him until he sent me an email this evening. This weekend at the state convention I met Dr. Amerish Bera. He has filed papers to run and is making the rounds visiting clubs and Central Committees. On the side is the distraction with the attempt to draft Lt. Gov. John Garamendi to run in CD-03 instead of CD-10. A race that was fairly quiet is getting noisy.
To top it off, Swing State Project erroneously reported that Phil Angelides is “taking a serious look” at CD-03. Davis told me in an email that he talked to someone close to Angelides, and he is not running. Davis also mentioned that he is putting his team together after a Tuesday meeting with the DCCC.
With two candidates, Davis and Bera, already in Democrats may get something they don’t want — a contested primary. With a weakened Lungren all but certain to run unopposed in the primary, he will be able to save valuable resources for the general election while Democrats are forced to spend valuable resources deciding who has the best chance of defeating him.
With more than a year to go until the 2010 primary plenty of time remains to sort this out. At this point candidates are filing paperwork so they can begin raising money, gauge levels of support, assess resources, and begin getting a general feeling about their chances for success. Now is the time for us, the Democratic leadership in CD-03, to assess Davis and Bera and work to avoid a primary fight. For now, let it play out. There is opportunity here to learn a great deal about two candidates, perhaps more, and build on that. There is time later to trim the field to one before the primary.
We are closer to winning the district than we have been in a long time. A contested primary, to understate it, is not helpful.
I think there can be a sorting out before the primary, and it’s probably too early to pressure one of the two of them out of the race. It’s worth vetting the pair of them as they go to talk to the Democratic voters around the district. If it’s clear that one is a much stronger candidate, then perhaps discussions of one dropping out are warranted.
Just because insiders / establishment types have their preferences, doesn’t mean they are right.
The problem with “trim[ming] the field to one before the primary” is that it entrusts the decision of selecting the nominee to this tiny group of people – not the Democrats in the district who deserve the right to have their say.
Just because a primary may be competitive doesn’t mean it’s bad. Actually, it makes it interesting, and something to pay attention to. Kind of nice for a candidate who needs all the attention he/she can get, no?
Real competition means that the voters really had a say, and that confers legitimacy.
It also provides battle testing for a candidate (who will emerge with momentum having won something, as Dave Dayen points out) and his/her supporters.
This is not an issue of a “tiny group of people” picking the candidate.This is a blogger who happens to Chair a County Central Committee in the 3rd CD stating the facts. Although the trend is in our favor,this is still a red district. The “tiny group of people” you cite almost managed to put Bill Durston over the top while pulling out a whisker thin win for Alyson Huber. In ’08 there was absolutely NO HELP from outside the grassroots activist community. Now that CDP and the DCCC have targeted the race there is more activity and interest. Great- we want to get rid of Congo Dan. But we need every possible advantage to do so.A contested Primary is not what we need.
Thanks Randy for deleting my follow up comment on your site. Stay classy!
My follow up comment: In all the campaigns around the country I’ve worked I almost always heard the,”Son, we do things differently around here.” It’s typically a bullshit response – and frankly I haven’t seen anything to dissuade me of that in CA-3.
In CA-11 if the decision was left to the central cmte chairs of Contra Costa and Alameda Counties, in their infinite wisdom they would have pushed out McNerney and Pombo would have survived.
Frankly if one of the candidates isn’t legitimate it won’t make much of a difference in the end game. They wouldn’t have the resources for direct mail, etc to reach the primary voters. It will be just a name on the ballot, that’s all. If the “main” legitimate candidate can’t overcome that, then they’re toast in the general anyways.
Below is the text of my initial posting on Randy’s Blog
Read the OpenLeft article about open primaries. Look at CA-11 race in 2006. Primaries being bad was the same argument that Steve Filson used in the early stages of the 2006 race.
Frankly Davis should read the archives of SNTP for advice on what not to do in a primary in terms of positioning his candidacy. Such as saying the DCCC backs you, etc etc. That sense of entitlement just pisses off people and frankly makes the candidate look bad.
A contested primary is good for several reasons: Raises name ID of the candidates. If the election is competitive the earned media will be there. Neither of these guys will have money for TV in a primary with Sacramento being #19 media market in the country – cable TV if they are lucky.
My second and arguably more important reason why primaries are important is that it forces a campaign to get it’s act in gear a lot sooner. A core group of volunteers is battle-tested and they can be leaders in the general to attract and train even more volunteers. The candidate matures from all of the public speaking events and voter contact.
The CA-11 primary forced my candidate to get his operation ship-shape in a hurry. I brought in/trained a core team that destroyed our DCCC backed candidate and was ready to take on a 14-year incumbent in the general election.
And lastly neither of these guys will outraise the incumbent.
It’s gonna come down to voter ID and GOTV – things that money can help execute but if you don’t have the boots on the ground those efforts go nowhere.
————-
As for the ’08 race the problem there was the Durston Campaign made some fundamental mistakes. For instance floating a poll in late September to show viability is way too late.
as long as it doesn’t get into scorched-earth flamewars in close or uphill districts such as the 3rd. getting that name ID out there, and giving the dem voters a choice in the primary is beneficial for the general, even if it doesn’t help with building up a fat pile of money with which to out-buy lungren.
especially for first-time candidates, a beta test primary is well worth the effort.
Normally I agree with your posts, but not this one. The “Democratic leadership” in any district has an appalling track record in picking the candidate the voters want. Let the GOP annoint their nominees; we still believe in democracy.
Against a contested primary; it’s merely asserted that one would be bad.
There’s plenty of evidence to the contrary from here in California, from the aforementioned CA-11 in 2006 to several Assembly races in 2008 (the fight over AD-80 comes to mind). As happened with the Clinton-Obama primary fight, which likely helped us win states like Pennsylvania and Indiana, contested primaries can provide candidates with necessary training and experience on the ground in their districts, build up campaign resources and networks, and perhaps even register Democratic voters for a primary campaign, voters that will return in November to vote for the candidate that wins.
As far as I can tell these candidates should be encouraged to run in CA-3 and a contested primary should be welcomed, not feared.