Yesterday, carpetbaggers Doug Ose, Tom McClintock and Suzanne Jones held their debate for the Republican nomination in CA-04.  Naturally their carpetbaggery was topic #1 at the debate, which seemed to have pretty paltry attendance.  The Bee reported only a few dozen in the audience.

Rep. Doug Ose touted his long ties to the Sacramento region and the 4th Congressional District, even though he never lived there.

Ose wants the voters to believe that living in the area is just the same as living in the district. Riiiight.

State Sen. Tom McClintock, whose Thousand Oaks district is 400 miles away, declared that he is answering the call of local voters for conservative leadership.

McClintock tries to argue that his carpetbaggery is cool because he lived in the district even though he was supposed to be down in So Cal, living in the district he was ostensively supposed to be serving.  It makes you wonder if McClintock will just move his family to DC, like he moved them to Rocklin.  In which case, the voters in the 4th district will be just as SOL as his current constituents.

And upstart GOP candidate Suzanne Jones of Citrus Heights stressed that her community was once part of the 4th District “but the district moved away from me – not me away from the district.”

At least this one makes some sense.  It wasn’t her intention to live outside the district, even though it does make her a carpetbagger too.  More over the flip…

These two paragraphs are really just classic.

McClintock accused Ose of being a champion of pork-barrel “earmarks” during three terms in Congress representing Sacramento’s neighboring 3rd District. Ose depicted McClintock as a career politician helping himself to regular pay raises and legislative financial perks.

But the most critical arguments they appeared to be making to voters had to do with what they were even doing in this race – and congressional district – to begin with.

So what McClintock is saying is that I will represent you in Congress, pick up my salary, max out my benefits, but I won’t bring money back to the district.  Sounds like a good deal for the voters he is trying to woo.  The both of them are just opportunistic serial seat hoppers.  They could care less about the district.  They just want to be Congressmen and are trying to establish residency in the first place that has an open seat.

Charlie Brown does not have to spend time convincing voters why he is in the race.  He has been making his case to the voters for the past 3 years, not the past three weeks, not to mention living in the district with his family for the past 17 years.

The presence of the two highly touted GOP contenders seemed to amuse the spokesman for Democratic candidate Charlie Brown.

“Charlie will be here every day fighting for the people of this district as he has every day living, working and raising his family here for the past 17 years,” said Todd Stenhouse, who appeared at the forum on behalf of Brown, a Roseville resident. “… I also, of course, want to welcome our friends Doug and Tom to the 4th Congressional District.”

Good snark from Todd.  

The contrast between the questions Ose and McClintock are facing are pretty stark from Charlie.  Instead of talking about carpetbaggery, he has been making donations to local veterans charities.  These carpetbaggers had the nerve to question him giving back to his own community.  Pathetic really.

Art Torres attempted to kick off the afternoon general session.  Unfortunately the first speaker, Jerry McNerney was nowhere to be found.  Torres actually said “paging Jerry McNerney.  If you can hear me come up to the front of the room.”  Congressman McNerney must have been out earshot because he never made it up to the podium.

Art spoke for a bit and then introduced Gavin Newsom.  Mayor Newsom at his impromptu meet the bloggers session told us that he had only been given 8 minutes to speak.  He may have some leeway now that McNerney is a no-show.

Newsom is focusing most of his remarks on his health care proposal and global warming/green standards.  The general theme is that “they say it can’t be done, but we are proving it can be done.”  He has now switched to education, stating it is not good enough just to stave off the cuts, but that we need to increase funding.  Newsom closed by talking about poverty and in particular public housing.

Overall it was a well received speech and most of the audience was standing and clapping as he concluded.

Cong. McNerney seems to have found his way to the stage.  Torres is introducing him at the moment.

McNerney is speaking without a teleprompter and is now focusing on the need to elect more Democrats to office.  He is using his race as example of inspiration to Democrats across the country.  It was a very short speech.  Art Torres seemed to call him Jerry Mac-a-Nerney as he left the stage.  He then gave a shout-out to Charlie Brown.

There has been some speculation and perhaps wishful thinking that Hillary Clinton and/or Barack Obama might make a swing out here to California around the time of the CDP convention.  There will be a bunch of super delegates floating around that the candidates could make their pitch to in person.  Plus, there is always the California ATM to make a withdrawal from.  But this from Ben Smith makes me think it is unlikely that Hillary Clinton will make an appearance.

The votes have been counted in California, but the money’s still coming in.

Hillary’s got a pair of fundraisers scheduled there: April 2 in Menlo Park and April 3 in San Francisco.

If she were going to come for the convention she would have timed those fundraisers for the weekend, not the middle of the following week.

It would be great to have them there and perhaps Obama will make an appearance.  Heck, Clinton could still come, but it seems unlikely at this point.

How about we use this thread as a roll call of Caliticians heading to San Jose in a week for the CDP Convention.  I will be there as a blogger for this fine site.  Are you coming?

UPDATE by Brian: Bob reminded me in the comments that we should remind everybody of Calitics mobile, which you can read on your cell phone. The new version even allows you to sign in and comment on diaries.  There likely won’t be much in the way of other press coverage, so Calitics will be your best source for news on the convention. So whether you are at the convention or at home, make sure you keep an eye on Calitics. And hey, if anybody needs signatures, Calitics would be a great place to let other delegates know about that.

The turnout numbers for the presidential primary were absolutely insane.  The official numbers from Secretary Bowen state that 74.26% of registered Democrats in California cast ballots.  Now that isn’t totally accurate because that includes the DTS voters who pulled Democratic ballots.  The real number is expected to be closer to 65%.  But even that number is striking.  Tim Herdt has a great column today on how this is part of a shift to Democrats larger than just this one election.

Those numbers suggest that Republicans can no longer count on a voter-turnout advantage that in the past has helped GOP candidates overcome the party’s minority status in voter registration.

“Republicans have almost always done better because they have the people who always vote,” said Republican analyst Tony Quinn. “But this year you had the reverse.”

To some degree, the numbers reflect the unusual excitement arising from the contentious nomination battle between Sens. Hillary Rodham Clinton and Barack Obama, an unsettled battle that may linger until the Democratic convention in August. That historic contest helps explain – but does not fully account for – the enormous disparity between the 5.1 million votes cast for Democratic candidates in the state Feb. 5 and 2.8 million cast for Republicans.

Quinn, co-publisher of a data book that breaks down every political district in the state, says the Democrats’ February surge in turnout is the continuation of a trend.

It has been conventional wisdom in California that since Republicans outperform their voter registration, compared to Democrats that the voter registration gap is not as significant as it appears.  That appears to be changing.

Herdt points to the Lt. Gov. race in 2006 as being further evidence of a trend.  The last-minute polls had McClintock leading Garamendi.  But Garamendi won on election day by 4%.  The turnout model the pollsters were using was off.  Democrats turned out in greater numbers than expected.

Quinn, who’s been analyzing partisan races in California for decades, said it was once a truism of state politics that because of the partisan turnout advantage a Republican could win any district in which GOP registration reached 40 percent.

He doesn’t believe that applies any longer.

Although both parties have declined as a share of the electorate in recent years as the number of independents has soared, Quinn said the remaining Democrats are more loyal and more reliable than Democratic voters of the past.

“You’ve got a more pure Democratic electorate,” he said. “You no longer have the Reagan Democrats.”

(emphasis mine)

That means that there are a lot more seats in play than were earlier.  Dave is the man with the numbers, but as we look to challenge Republicans for their seats. the calculation of viability for Democrats in an individual district is changing.  That is a damn good thing considering our voter registration numbers are slipping, though admittedly the Republicans are dropping faster.

Naturally this has an impact on the presidential election.  Sen. McCain has been making noise about making a run here in California for our electoral votes.  The numbers last month should give him pause.  California is a blue state.  If anything we are trending more blue, not purple.

The latest set of numbers, Quinn believes, will make it more unlikely that Republicans will seriously compete in California in the fall presidential election.

“It makes it very hard for Sen. John McCain’s people to argue they will be able to put the state in play,” he said. “Those turnout figures are bad because, in order for this state to be in play, Republicans have to come out the way they did with Reagan.”

Ben Tulchin, a pollster at Greenland Quinland Rosner notes that there is currently a 21%  gap between Republican turnout numbers and Democrats.  That is nearly double what Al Gore and John Kerry carried California with.

Or should I ask: Do state employees have to assume that newspapers will put their name, title and salary into a searchable database.  Or what about a more specific question: what is the added public benefit from having names attached to salary and title information?

Why am I asking all of these questions?  Well, the SacBee decided to create a searchable database of state employees’ salaries on their website.  Needless to say state employees are upset.  Yesterday SEIU 1000 staged a protest in front of the newspaper’s offices.  The leadership presented 3,000 signatures demanding that the database be taken down.  SacBee:

Union President Jim Hard told the protesters that he was “disgusted” by what he described as the paper’s “crass commercialism” and “callous disregard” for his members’ safety.

“Our union is completely in favor of public access to information regarding the use of their tax money, the pay scales, the classifications, the number of state employees and comparisons in any reasonable fashion to counties, cities and the public sector,” Hard said. “But to post my name up there, I’d like The Bee to explain how that helps any public policy of public finance discussion or issue.”

There is no significant need or public sunshine benefit to attaching people’s names to salary/title information.

Some state workers are already feeling the repercussions of the Bee’s actions.

The paper’s explanations have not satisfied state workers. At Wednesday’s rally, Dana Meza, who has worked at the Department of Motor Vehicles for eight years, said that since the salaries were posted “some people actually were called by bill collectors.”

Aleta Prudhomme, an employee at the Department of Social Services, said her husband, a correctional officer, once had his identity stolen, and she fears it’s going to happen again. “I just don’t see how this is really helpful,” Prudhomme said of the database.

The paper is arguing that the data has always been available and that the paper is making sure that it is not just accessible by journalists and lawyers.  That may be true, but there is a big difference from people having to request the information through state sunshine law disclosure rules and have it be in a searchable database.  Just because you can do it that does not mean that you should.

(full disclosure: I work for Courage)

Score another big victory for the little guy.  The people of Potrero have beaten back Blackwater and kept them out of their community.  After the stunning recall of the local planning board members who supported Blackwater in December, Blackwater was facing clear local opposition to the plan.  Regional groups had been working hard to raise opposition in San Diego County.  Meanwhile, the Courage Campaign was teaming up with the locals to turn this into a broader fight.  There were significant questions about it’s environmental impact on the community and area.  The company was awaiting the official Environmental Impact Review.  Instead of continuing to fight against the town, Blackwater decided to pack its bags and leave tiny Potrero.

The letter from Brian Bonfliglio of Blackwater pulling the project is on the flip.

March 7, 2008

Mr. Jarrett Ramaiya

County of San Diego

Department of Planning and Land Use

5201 Ruffin Road, Suite B

San Diego, CA 92123

Re: Application for Major Use Permit (P06-069)

Dear Jarrett:

On behalf of Blackwater West, I am writing to inform the County of San Diego that, effective today, we are withdrawing Application P06-069 for a Major Use Permit for our proposed project in the community of Potrero.

After examining the capacity of our existing facilities and our business development goals, we have decided not to pursue plans for a training campus in Potrero.

Although our project would have brought a great benefit to San Diego County- providing local, state and federal law enforcement with access to low-cost superior training facilities while brining much-needed jobs to the area- the proposed site plan simply does not meet our business objectives at this time.

Please refund all funds on deposit and not expended for permit processing.  Thank you for your assistance.

Sincerely,

Brian Bonfiglio

Vice President

Blackwater West

You have to assume that Blackwater’s declining reputation in this country has had an impact on their “business objectives”.  They are toxic and any agency that hired them for training would have serious public relations problems.

While they have pulled out of Potrero, Bonfiglio is “not going home”.  They appear to have broken this story to the friendly SD Union-Tribune:

Bonfiglio said noise tests the company conducted at the site did not meet county standards, and the cost of reducing the noise was too expensive. He said Blackwater had spent well over $1 million in its effort to get government approval for the site.

Blackwater worked the county hard, at one point a former lawyer pushing for the approval actually went to work for the county.

But all of that is over now.  It is time to celebrate.

“It’s great news for the community of Potrero,” said Carl Meyer, the recently-elected chairman of the Potrero planning group. “I think Potrero will start to rejoice tonight. We’ll have a party.”

Speaking of Carl….here is the video the Courage Campaign put together about the community’s battle to keep Blackwater out.

It sure is nice to watch that again and know that Carl and all of the other local heros in Potrero get to go to bed tonight knowing that Blackwater will not be moving into their town.  Congratulations Potrero!