Welcome back to the long-awaited California House races roundup!  These things take up an inordinate amount of time, but I’ve finally found some, and I’m ready to go with this roundup.  There’s a lot of additional information, including Q4 2007 fundraising numbers, the turnout in the February primary offering a decent snapshot of Democratic chances in a particular district, and quite a few new candidates to speak about.  I’m going to rank the top ten challenges to Republican-held seats across the state, as well as take a look at the two intriguing races held by Democrats.  But first, it should be mentioned that the deadline for applying to run for a Congressional seat is fast approaching (March 7, I believe), and 4 of the 19 Republican-held seats in the state still have no challenger: CA-02 (Herger), CA-19 (Radanovich), CA-22 (McCarthy), and CA-25 (McKeon).  This is especially distressing in CA-19 and CA-25, where turnout in the Feb. 5 primary was either even or favored Democrats.  So anyone in these 4 districts: run for Congress!  It’s a résumé builder!

(By the way, you can follow all of the candidates in all these races at the 2008 Race Tracker.

OK, let’s get into it:

DEMOCRATIC SEATS

While most of the 34 Democratic-held seats are safe, two are worth noting (actually 3; Minuteman member Jim Gilchrist is going to run against Loretta Sanchez in CA-47, which is hilarious.  Apparently he’ll campaign in between legal proceedings with other Minuteman members).  One race has an upcoming special election:

1. CA-12 (open seat).  There will be a special election in this district to replace the late Rep. Tom Lantos.  The primary will be held on April 8, with a general election on June 3, the same day as the statewide Congressional and legislative primary.  Candidates must get into the race by next Monday, February 25, so we’ll know by then if we’ll have a contested primary on the Democratic side between former state Senator Jackie Speier and reform advocate Lawrence Lessig, who has set up an exploratory committee.

Lessig, whose name has been bandied about in a draft campaign, has a couple Power Point presentations up about his plan to change Congress and about whether or not to run for Congress.  I must admit to some degree of ignorance about Lessig in general, but he has a definite following among Silicon Valley types and the techno-savvy.  He would run a reform campaign against earmarks and lobbyist money, and for public financing.  Jackie Speier has spent the last couple months consolidating support in the district, however, as she was going to mount a primary challenge to Lantos before his death.  She’s also reached out to a lot of local bloggers, so I don’t think this is exactly establishment vs. anti-establishment.  It should be VERY interesting if Lessig jumps in, and either way we’ll end up with a great Congressman in CA-12.

2. CA-11. Incumbent: Jerry McNerney.  Main challenger: Dean Andal.  Cook number: R+3.  % Dem turnout in the Presidential primary: 53.9%.  Jerry McNerney has fund-raised impressively (over $1.065 million in 2007), and his strong advocacy of the RESTORE Act over the telecom amnesty bill that came out of the Senate, gives me some degree of confidence that 2008 will not feature some of the same missteps as in 2007.   I don’t think McNerney will be able to draw on exactly the same activism that he did in 2006; but incumbency has its advantages.  His strong environmental record, and commitment to constituent services give him a leg up.  His opponent, Dean Andal, has put up some nice fundraising numbers (about $535,000 in 2007), but calling him a rock star is a bit of a stretch.  The high Democratic turnout in the primary shows that the demographics continue to change here, and I’m confident that McNerney will do well.

REPUBLICAN SEATS

I’m going to do three tiers in setting apart the top 10 seats where we have challenges to Republican incumbents.

First Tier

1. CA-04.  Open seat.  Dem. challenger: Charlie Brown.  Repub. challengers: Rico Oller, Doug Ose, Tom McClintock.  PVI #: R+11.  % Dem turnout in primary: 45.4.  A lot to report here.  John Doolittle dropped out in January, and since then it’s been a feeding frenzy on the Republican side.  Former state senator Rico Oller jumped in right away, followed by former Rep. Doug Ose (who’s already running ads touting his record on ethics, which is funny since he donated to John Doolittle’s legal defense fund recently).  And now there’s the talk, which has gone beyond rumor, that Tom McClintock will jump into this race.  McClintock, by the way, is from Thousand Oaks.  So we have three carpetbaggers, coming from far and wide into the Sierras to try and take a Congressional seat, and here we have Charlie Brown, with a ton of money, respect inside the district, and fresh off a near-victory in 2006, who is trying to make positive change right now instead of waiting for November.  He’s giving more than $23,000 of his campaign money to assist organizations that serve veterans and their families.  That’s a stark contrast.  So while a few people have written off this race, with the prospect of a bruising primary on the Republican side and our excellent candidate, I think Charlie Brown remains well-positioned to pull this off.

2. CA-26. Incumbent: David Dreier.  Challenger: Russ Warner.  PVI #: R+4.  % Dem. turnout: 50.6.  I get bullish on this race more and more.  First of all, Hoyt Hilsman dropped out of the race, clearing the field for Russ Warner.  Warner, who has raised over $400,000 in his campaign, can now commit that entirely to the general election.  David Dreier has completely lost sight of this district and he’s facing his first real challenger basically since he was elected in 1980.  Now, it’s not smooth sailing; Dreier has $2 million dollars in the bank.  But look at that Democratic turnout on February 5.  That excitement gap will continue at the top of the ticket, and Russ Warner needs to ride the wave.

3. CA-50.  Incumbent: Brian Bilbray.  Challenger: Nick Leibham.  PVI #: R+5.  % Dem. turnout: 51.2.  Another piece of good news with that February 5 turnout.  And there is almost fiscal parity in cash on hand.  Brian Bilbray has raised $419,000, with $262,000 CoH, and Nick Leibham raised $211,000, with $188,000 CoH.  This North County Times article lays out the stakes:

Doug Thornell, a spokesman for the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, which raises money for Democratic candidates and ranked the Republican-held 50th district as vulnerable, said party leaders were impressed by Nick Leibham, a Rancho Santa Fe lawyer challenging Bilbray.

In December, Democrats listed the race for the 50th Congressional District seat held by Bilbray as one of the top 40 to watch in the nation, in part due to Leibham’s ability to raise campaign funds.

Leibham, an attorney and former criminal prosecutor for the city of San Diego, said his campaign platform includes addressing energy independence, global warming and a “timely and responsible” withdrawal of troops from Iraq.

For his part, Bilbray said that “When I’m in Encinitas getting my hair cut, the feedback I’ve been getting is great.”  Which is, you know, extremely sophisticated polling.  But his votes against S-CHIP and on other issues could come back to haunt him.  His fallback position is to blame undocumented immigrants, but we’ll see if he can go to that well again.

Second Tier

4. CA-45.  Incumbent: Mary Bono Mack.  Challengers: Paul Clay, David Hunsicker, Julie Borenstein.  PVI #: R+3.  % Dem. turnout: 52.4.  In this Palm Springs district, Mary Bono Mack, who likes to hang out with Judith Nathan, has only $219,000 cash on hand.  That’s more than any of the three candidates set to face her, to be sure, but that’s dangerously low.  Julie Borenstein is a former Assemblywoman who has a proven electoral record.  I’m intrigued by the possibilities here, especially with that turnout number.

5. CA-03.  Incumbent: Dan Lungren.  Challenger: Bill Durston. PVI #: R+7. % Dem turnout: 53.1.  That is the best percentage turnout in any of these Republican-held districts.  Dan Lungren is a carpetbagger who found his way into a Sacramento-area district some years ago.  Bill Durston has maintained a presence online, hitting Lungren for his environmental record and trying to get him listed as one of the League of Conservation Voters’ “Dirty Dozen.”  Durston, a Vietnam vet, has an excellent public record on the issues.  This is obviously a long shot, but 53% Democratic turnout?  I don’t know, running on getting out of Iraq and fighting global warming could be potent, especially with the top-of-the-ticket coattails.  (I must confess that I do like Lungren’s X Prize idea.)

6. CA-52.  Open seat.  Repub. challengers: several.  Dem. challengers: several.  PVI #: R+9.  % Dem. turnout: 47.6.  I still think it’s going to be very difficult to challenge the likely Republican candidate, longtime Rep. and worst Presidential candidate ever Duncan Hunter’s son, also named Duncan Hunter.  However, Democrat Mike Lumpkin did raise $78,000 in 2007, which is not a bad number.  Here’s a story from DKos about the Democratic candidates in this district.  Lumpkin is a former Navy SEAL who the diarist calls “the most conservative of the three” candidates (the others are Vickie Butcher and Jim Hester, himself ex-Special Forces).  I’m pretty sanguine about our chances here, but I’d like to see what another Fighting Dem can do.

Third Tier (Orange County corruption sector)

7. CA-46.  Incumbent: Dana Rohrabacher.  Challenger: Debbie Cook. PVI #: R+6.  % Dem. turnout: 47.6.  This one actually has a chance to get interesting.  Everyone knows that Dana Rohrabacher is out of his mind.  His statements are routinely offensive and astonishing, and his ties with child molesters and even the Taliban are well-known.  But he’s never really had to run a tough race in his nine elections to Congress.  Debbie Cook is the mayor of Huntington Beach, the biggest city in the district.  She’s running in this seat, she just announced at the Democratic Party of Orange County convention.  If she can get the money, I think she has the potential to be a formidable opponent.  Here’s her statement of candidacy:

“Our nation faces big problems: a growing energy gap, a struggling economy, global warming, the escalating costs of health care, and the war in Iraq.” Mayor Cook said. “We need new people with new passion and new ideas who have experience working across party lines to get results.”

More here and here.

8. CA-41.  Incumbent: Jerry Lewis.  Challengers: Tim Prince, Dr. Rita Ramirez-Dean.  PVI #: R+9.  % Dem. turnout: 46.8.  Tim Prince had a kickoff party recently and is organizing on the ground in the district.  Dr. Dean is doing the same.  Both face an uphill battle against Lewis, but it should be entirely focused on corruption.  Lewis received more earmark money than anyone in Congress in 2007, despite being in the minority party, getting over $137 million for pet projects.  He’s still under an FBI investigation.  There’s still a lot of stuff you can pin on Lewis, it’ll just take the right candidate and a lot of money.

9. CA-44.  Incumbent: Ken Calvert.  Challenger: Bill Hedrick.  PVI #: R+6.  % Dem. turnout: 50.1.  That is an enticing number.  Bill Hedrick needs the resources to compete.  Ken Calvert is also under investigation by the FBI, and the Jurupa Parks district recently turned down a half-million dollar settlement in a case where Calvert profited from a shady land deal.  Again, a lot of smoke.  Hedrick needs to pick up on it.

10. CA-42: Incumbent: Gary Miller.  Challengers: Ron Shepston, Ed Chau.  PVI #: R+10.  % Dem. turnout: 44.2.  Ron Shepston is the sentimental favorite, someone who came out of the netroots to make this challenge against corrupt incumbent Gary Miller.  He’s built a campaign team (including some of those who helped Jerry McNerney defeat Richard Pombo) and is planning a lot of house parties.  However, there’s a primary challenger (Ed Chau) which will eat up some money, and the turnout number in the February 5 primary is worrying.  Like these other races, there are corruption allegations that you can sink your teeth into.

Here and across my series of 872 blogs, I’ve been pretty vocal about the superdelegate situation, about how it’s a media creation designed to set Democrats against themselves and damage the party’s credibility as we move into the fall.  I’m not the only one, either.  Today comes a thinly sourced story about how the Clinton campaign is vowing to go after pledged delegates who represent the distribution in the various state primaries and caucuses, a charge that the campaign summarily denied.  The truth is that the Democratic Party’s somewhat convoluted system practically demands that some pledged delegates will be up for grabs, but this Politico/Drudge effort doesn’t pass any kind of smell test.  Essentially, my feeling is that the Democratic Party put together a system they never thought they would have to use.  For decades now both parties have created a calendar designed to nominate a candidate as early as humanly possible.  They never considered the implications of having two equally strong candidates and a campaign that would grind on (although let’s get some perspective on that; it’s only February 19 here, and the scenarios being games out may be inoperative in a matter of weeks).  Now that the system is being trotted out, pretty much for the first time ever (arguably, 1984 brought these rules into play), it’s showing a little rust.  OK, a lot of rust.  They’re trying to patch it up and have a bunch of elder statesmen manage this situation.  I think this is a freak-out that is far too premature.

over..

However, I have to continue to call B.S. on this idea that superdelegates will somehow subvert the popular will and act to destroy the Democratic Party from within.  I understand there’s not a lot of belief from those who have seen the party screw over their base time and time again in recent years.  While I agree that the concept of superdelegates should come as a surprise to many, and they almost certainly should be fixed so this doesn’t happen again, there’s a ton of misinformation out there about who these superdelegates actually are.

I talked with Garry Shay, a superdelegate from here in California, a DNC member and the Chair of the Rules Committee for the California Democratic Party.  He is a party activist who has a day job and was concerned by all the media attention taking him away from his work.  He was an antiwar activist who worked hard for George McGovern.  He was elected by the executive board of the CDP to his DNC post and essentially is a representative of the state party rank and file.  That includes someone like me, who ran and won a seat on the Democratic State Central Committee in this state.  The barriers to entry, then, are very low, and the likelihood that these superdelegates are not “party bosses,” whatever that means, but committed activists, is very high.  Shay surmised it was about 1/2 of all superdelegates.  These are in large part, the people who elected Howard Dean to the chairmanship of the party, against the will of much of the elected leadership.  A good summary of who these delegates are is here.

Why are there superdelegates at all?  Basically, before 1972 the process for choosing a nominee was far less small-d democratic.  The McGovern reforms regarding primaries, and the 1974 charter added some structure to the process.  Shay didn’t agree with me totally that this created rules that were essentially designed to not come into play, but he did say that superdelegates were created to “give members more of a connection to the nominee,” almost a psychological basis, rather than a concerted effort to impose their will on the party.  In fact, superdelegates have never sought to choose the nominee in a way that didn’t reflect the popular will.  Even in 1984, when Walter Mondale had a plurality but not a majority of delegates, the superdelegates did not step in and anoint Gary Hart.  

The either/or of whether a political figure has a responsibility to his own conscience or a responsibility to his own constituents is an age-old argument, and I don’t think any side of this debate, with their own partisan reasoning, is going to advance it in any meaningful way.  But clearly, there are outside pressures that would have come to bear on them with or without the overwatch by progressive organizations like MoveOn and DFA.  The candidate with the most votes is going to get the majority of the superdelegates (probably by a similar proportion), and all of these machinations are going to amount to nothing.

Of far more concern to Shay, and myself, is what to do with these delegates in Michigan and Florida.  It’s an issue with few or no winning moves.  Shay suggested a couple possibilities, like seating Florida with delegates halved, or holding new elections.  But there are pitfalls with every scenario and clearly the rules were enforced with an eye to a clear winner emerging.  This was a mistake, but the bigger mistake is exacerbating this by assuming all kinds of bad motives on the superdelegates and the party itself.  The party gave out a bunch of votes to make everybody feel like they were participating and happy about the process.  They never expected it to be decisive.  And it still might not be.  This is a failure of forward thinking, perhaps even incompetence, but not an attempt to hijack the democratic process.

That is safe, but the reputation of the Party may not be.  Several developments over the last few days have given me pangs of concern about the Presidential race – the teflon coating being placed on McCain, the continued implementation in progressive political circles of right-wing smears on Obama and Clinton, and now this furor over superdelegates, which makes the process look very suspect.  This is a narrative that can easily be fed to swing voters across the country, that the Democratic Party is some sort of top-down monolith that will ignore your votes.  It’s actually not true; the superdelegate effort was designed to create inclusion instead of exclusion.  But exposing the underside of the primary process, between caucuses that are inherently disenfranchising and superdelegates that have a bigger say in the process than previously known and delegate distributions that don’t reflect the popular vote, is giving the electorate something of a foul taste.  Come the fall, much of that is likely to be forgotten.  But it could be effectively implemented to really harm efforts both in retaking the White House and downticket.  This is pretty bad news.

By the way, my perfect solution for the superdelegate problem in the future is to only have their votes count on the SECOND ballot, not the first.  That way, they don’t have a say in the initial process, and a percentage of the elected delegates can be established as a bar that can be scaled by a nominee on the first ballot.  This won’t piss off those party officials and will reassure the public, and most important won’t give the media an excuse to include superdelegates in their counts.

This is a quickie.  I’ve been checking in on the final vote totals at the Secretary of State’s website every day or so, and today was the first change I’ve noticed that actually effects delegates.  In CA-53 in San Diego, additional votes have given Barack Obama a 443-vote lead in a district he trailed in.  This being a 5-delegate district, he would get a 3-2 split there now if counting ended today.  He’s creeping up in CA-50 as well, within 556 votes.

Also, the statewide vote is down to a 9.2% spread, with Clinton at 51.9% and Obama at 42.7%.  That extrapolates to the same delegate split of 71-58, for now, but it’s inching closer to 70-59.

So by my numbers, Clinton leads 204-166 now.  Ridiculously enough, that one delegate shift in CA-53 is equivalent to the recent calling of the entire state of New Mexico for Clinton.

This, of course, also makes Susan Davis’ district no longer “significant” in the eyes of the Clinton campaign.

I am firmly committed to getting a 2/3 majority in both houses of the state Legislature by 2010.  Fabian Nuñez believes that, in the Assembly, we can get halfway there by November.

Speaking at the Sacramento Press Club yesterday, Assembly Speaker Fabian Nunez said Democrats should add three seats to their 48-32 majority in the California Assembly in November’s elections.

Nunez made the prediction after new figures from the Secretary of State show a surge in Democratic registrations in all but two Assembly districts, including three held by incumbent Republicans who will be forced to leave office.

They include the desert/Riverside area seat held by Assemblywoman Bonnie Garcia, the San Diego seat of Assemblywoman Shirley Horton, and the Contra Costa/Sacramento Delta seat held by Assemblyman Guy Houston.

These are clearly the three seats to target.  AD-80 (Garcia’s seat) has some excellent candidates on the Democratic side, including Greg Pettis and the Hispanic Barack Obama, Manuel Perez.  We have good candidates in AD-78 (Horton’s old seat) and AD-15 (Houston’s) as well – as those Caliticians in those districts can attest.  Plus, we not only have registration advantages, but the advantage of a game-changing Democratic nominee at the top of the ticket (whether it’s Obama or Clinton) that will bring new Democratic voters to the process.  These three seats are prime opportunities, and there are other Assembly opportunities like Greg Aghazarian’s seat (he’s also termed out), and more in the Senate (Hannah Beth Jackson’s bid in SD-19, the possible Jeff Denham recall, Abel Maldonado’s SD-15).

However, I want to highlight this nugget about the way Assembly and Senate elections are managed in California.

If Democrats field strong candidates for these seats, we could be looking at a pickup of 2/3+ seats.

Each of the marquee races are expected to be $1 million+ contests. The new Assembly Speaker will be responsible for raising funds and overseeing the campaigns.

on the flip…

I’ve talked about this with party leaders several times, and nobody has given me an adequate explanation about this.  In a way, it’s a lot like the DCCC as the House-based campaign arm for national elections.  But I’m struggling to understand why the Speaker (and the President Pro Tem of the Senate) have the sole responsibility of overseeing these elections and creating advertising, GOTV, etc.  It seems to me that the California Democratic Party would be able to do a much better job in these districts, with their membership already on the ground and involved, and with a larger fundraising base to conduct the operations necessary.  Yet for some reason, there is this bifurcation: the CDP deals with statewide races and Congressional seats, and the Assembly and Senate leadership do the legislative races.  Is this just tradition?  Why can’t the CDP play in whatever race they wish?

This problem, or at least what I consider a problem, is compounded by the fact that we will have new leadership in the Assembly and Senate, leadership that may be unused to running multiple campaign operations out of their offices.  I think Darrell Steinberg is a fine man (so does George Skelton) who’s going to do a great job as the Senate leader, but I don’t know how he’s going to do facilitating Hannah Beth Jackson’s race in the Thousand Oaks area.  Furthermore, the new Assembly Speaker won’t be picked for a month, and we have to start on these races right now.  Obviously the Presidential race is going to take up all the oxygen in the fall, so ensuring that the Democratic candidates get their message out and the Republicans in these open seats are defined is crucial.  And right now, for the next month, there’s literally nobody to do that.

(Also, the proliferation of independent expenditure money in this state necessitates some organizational and financial help for legislative candidates that may otherwise just get swamped.)

I can hold judgment on the efficacy of this and bow to those wiser in the ways of California elections if I were given a satisfactory explanation for this structure.  But nobody has done so, and I’ve spoken to a lot of people inside the CDP about this.  I think 2008, in a favorable environment for Democrats, with no statewide races on the ballot at all, and with a badly broken Republican Party in California that is broke and rife with internal squabbling, would be an excellent time to shift this tradition, and for the CDP to exercise some muscle in these legislative districts, helping solid Democrats get elected and moving us ever closer to the desired 2/3 majority that we need to make the real changes necessary to move the state forward.

This is not an accusation, but a dialogue.  I’m looking for ways for my party to be more effective.