What a night! As you may have seen, last night I was the highest vote-getter in the 10th Congressional District special primary election and will now face Republican David Harmer in the November 3rd general election.
I want to thank our incredible team of hard working volunteers. They spent countless hours knocking on doors, making phone calls, and making their presence known at community events throughout the district. Our success would not have been possible without them, and they have my deepest gratitude. Because of their efforts, we won all four counties in the district.
I also want to take a moment to acknowledge my competitors in this election:
To David Harmer: Congratulations on your victory among Republicans. I look forward to two months of dialogue focused on the issues and solutions that matter to the people of the 10th Congressional District. I intend to make it clear that a radical right wing agenda that seeks to stop health care reform, starve the education of our children, fails to finance the transportation and infrastructure systems we need, and advocates more tax breaks for the most wealthy is not in the interests of the people of the 10th Congressional District, California, or America.
To Senator Mark DeSaulnier: Your health care town halls helped establish an important dialogue in the campaign about the need for comprehensive health care reform. You are an institution in Contra Costa County, and you have many admirers. You deserve special acknowledgement for your work seeking a constitutional convention. The two-thirds majority requirement has worsened California’s problems and I look forward to working with you to bring a working democracy and majority rule back to California.
More over the flip…
To Assemblymember Joan Buchanan: Thank you for highlighting the concerns of small businesses in your campaign. I look forward to having a conversation with you about innovative ways we can promote job growth in the region. As a former school board member, you also helped focus the debate on education policy, and I thank you for that. I think you’d agree that in the long term, a sound investment in education is the most important economic stimulus of all.
To Anthony Woods: I’m not the first person to say this and I won’t be the last: you have a bright future in politics should you choose to pursue a political career. I first joined the state legislature around your age, and I quickly fell in love with public policy. You have an intelligence, grace, and resume that is worthy of elected office. Thank you for your service to our nation; and thank you for helping to make the issues facing LGBT people a focus in this campaign. You deserve the freedom to openly serve our country, and I pledge that one of my first acts in Congress will be to co-sponsor legislation to repeal “Don’t Ask Don’t Tell.”
To Adriel Hampton: Thank you for highlighting the importance of online outreach. We followed your use of social networking and Web 2.0 tools, and I look forward to chatting with you about the ways we can use the Internet to better reach out to our constituents. You were an accessible and upfront candidate and have my sincere respect.
It’s been a hard fought campaign, and now that the primary is over, we Democrats must unite. We will not allow radical, regressive right-wingers, with their block-progress-at-all-costs agenda, to get a toehold here is the 10th Congressional District – this is a forward-looking, forward-thinking, progressive Democratic district and I intend to fight for every vote to keep it that way!
I look forward to working with President Obama and the Democrats in Congress to protect Social Security, fix our broken health care system, create jobs, broaden educational opportunity, protect the environment, and bring needed federal money back to the district. This election was truly a wonderful experience. I can’t wait to get to Washington, DC to represent the people of the 10th and begin to tackle the many challenges facing our nation!
Lieutenant Governor John Garamendi is the Democratic nominee for California’s 10th Congressional District. He is a University of California regent, California State University trustee, chair of the California Commission for Economic Development, and chair of the California State Lands Commission. He was a twice elected State Insurance Commissioner, Deputy Interior Secretary under President Bill Clinton, and a Peace Corps volunteer. A special election will be held on November 3rd. For more information, please visit http://www.garamendi.org.
Also, It’s good to see that you’ve joined the Calitics discussion. I like your musings posted elsewhere!
Lastly, This is a nice letter penned by a staffer. I’ve known the man for years and I would be shocked if Garamendi every actually reached out to any of the above as it is not in his DNA (unless he needs help on something which involves John Garamendi)…nor do I every expect to see him back in the 10th (unless he runs for Senate or some other higher office sometime in the future). He is the consummate insider DC guy. Still, a hat tip to the staffer for writing such a gracious note.
Rebecca–I have enjoyed reading your posts throughout the campaign. They are nothing short of brilliant. I am so disappointed, again, in the women’s community. While the Rawandan legislature boasts 50% total women, we have sadly slipped to 10% in the US House. The dialog dramatically changes when we get to 30%, as many studies have shown.
I hoped we could keep this seat with this incredibly talented in it for the right reasons candidate-Buchanan. However, I had to lament to my daughters that as long as we have the likes of Eschoo, Woolsey, Watson, Matsui,
Napolitano and Tauscher around (don’t forget the CA legislator traitors to women, Ma, Hancock, Wolk, Pavly, Wiggins, and Hayashi) coupled with women’s groups that have lost their way, we will be waiting that much longer.
Your comment about a staff member penning the above letter had me laughing over my coffee this morning – you hit the nail on the head:)
Rebecca – To your point, earlier in the summer, at Pelosi’s high-ticket ‘Ultimate Women’s Power Lunch’ in San Francisco, I saw most of the congresswomen Rebecca names up on the speakers’ dais and heard all of them make passionate speeches about the need to support women candidates who run for Congress. What a joke. We come to find out they had already endorsed several of the various men who were on the ticket! These women sure talk big at fundraisers about the need to back other women ‘for our daughters sake’, but as usual, screwed their supposed principles when it came down to it. This should be a wake up call. With these kind of ‘principled’ women leaders, the trend for women in power will continue to decline.
I didn’t know that NOW went against the pro-choice woman Democrat! Is this the same organziation which endorsed Hilary and ‘urged women across this nation to stand up and say “I’m ready for a woman”?’ Is this the same organziation which loudly complained when women didn’t get behind Hilary because she was a woman?’
This burns me up…as I am sure it will the other women I send this post to.
I don’t understand why GoBear or anyone else would think that Buchanan has degraded her chances to win the next AD race:
*She ran an entirely positive campaign which largely overlapped her AD 15
*She improved her position with voters in AD 15 in terms of name ID and issue ID ($850K in outreach tends to do that)
*She reached out to a slew of small business owners, boosted their profile and featured their challenges
in her literature and on the campaign trail
*She demonstrated that she is eager to do more for her constituents and to be active on the big issues of the day
*She proved that she is not shy about putting her significant financial resources where her passion is.
I just don’t see the downside.
so which friend of Arnold gets Garamendi’s old job? And all the perks of incumbency (brief as it may be) and a vote on all those commissions Garamendi served on?