Since it referenced me, let me start by shouting out to fellow Calitician Lucas O’Connor, writing on the front page of MyDD:

Since approximately the morning after election day in November, Dave Dayen has been writing over at Calitics about the dramatic Congressional pick-up opportunities in California that were missed in the Obama wave. Specifically, Obama carried 42 of California’s 53 districts (I won’t even begin right now to get into the state leg breakdown which is also a debacle), including eight districts held by Republicans in Congress. Well all of a sudden this week, the whole world is waking up to the Dayen gospel.

Attention started building about two weeks ago when the DCCC announced it would target all eight of these Obama-Republican California districts. But an announcement of DCCC targeting hasn’t always meant a lot, so to really get going it took a new report from California Target Book finding in part:

Not only is the current statewide Republican registration of 31% a historic low, but for the first time there is not a single congressional, state senate or assembly district that has a majority Republican registration.

Apparently Bob Mulholland sent out a press release waking up to these facts last week.  Now, I’m not going to hate on Mulholland for finally getting with the program.  But let’s make ourselves clear – this was true in 2006 and 2008 as well, and yet the state party failed to capitalize, by their own admission.  So it’s going to take more than one press release to show a commitment.  Republicans have obviously become repellent to the broad majority of Californians, and they’re too busy trying to recall each other to notice.  It’s upsetting that we haven’t used this unpopularity in the past two election cycles, and I hope that the CDP can catch up with the curve.

They can start with effective recruitment.  John Garamendi, who spoke to Greg Lucas as if he’s still a gubernatorial candidate but who by all accounts will be running for Congress, ought to be pushed to run in the 3rd District, where he is the largest landowner and where there is currently no viable candidate to beat Dan Lungren in a district that is trending Democratic, instead of the 10th, where there are multiple viable candidates.  Recruitment is an often-unremarked-upon but crucial element to winning elections.

Speaking of which…

• CA-04: This CapAlert piece certainly makes it sound like Charlie Brown might challenge Tom McClintock once again.

At the Jefferson-Jackson dinner at the Blue Goose Fruit Shed in Loomis, Brown and his wife, Jan, were honored as photographs flashed of Brown and supporters during four years of campaigning. The production was accompanied by songs from Bruce Springsteen’s “No Surrender” to Neil Young’s “Long May You Run.”

And then Brown stirred huge cheers when he hinted he might have the stamina for one more try for Congress in 2010.

“We’ll see what happens over the next few months – and whether you’ll have the opportunity to get into any pictures again,” Brown said.

In an interview, Brown said he is still mulling his prospects. He said he expects to decide by this fall.

We’re big fans of Charlie here at Calitics, and should he run again we’ll stand with him.  McClintock would have the power of incumbency and a red-leaning district but the rumblings I’m hearing out of there signal that residents and local pols aren’t all that enthused by the new Congressman’s performance.

• CA-32: The LA Times weighs in with an overview of the 32nd race to replace Labor Secretary Hilda Solis set for May 19.  They list Judy Chu and Gil Cedillo as the front-runners (though Emanuel Pleitez is profiled) and suggest that the race is a harbinger of the changing, minority-majority face of Southern California politics.  They also mention the Betty Tom Chu controversy, as well as some allegations on the Cedillo side.

Judy Chu supporters suspect that Republican Betty Tom Chu, a Monterey Park councilwoman and a political opponent of Judy Chu, entered the race to confuse voters and harm the chances of her distant relative by marriage. Tom Chu said last week she did not have time to discuss her candidacy, but earlier told the San Gabriel Valley Tribune that she is running because she could not support any of the other candidates and wanted to offer voters an alternative.

Apparently motivated by concerns that the large number of Latino candidates in the race would split the vote in that group and give Judy Chu the edge, there also were signs of jockeying.

Democratic candidate Francisco Alonso, a former mayor of Monterey Park, and a campaign official for Democratic actor/filmmaker Stefan “Contreras” Lysenko each said Cedillo called them shortly before filing closed and urged them to drop out. A Cedillo spokesman said the state senator was merely inviting the others to “work together” with him and did not intend to discourage them from running.

Over the weekend, Cedillo won the endorsement of the LA County Young Democrats, while Chu garnered the endorsement of the state Democratic Party.

To: MountainDemocratEditor

Cc: MtDemocratChiefEdMikeRafferty

Subject: Letter to the Editor – McClintock Revealed worst  local legislator of all.

District 4 U.S. Representative Tom McClintock met with a group of local citizens Feb. 20 in Shingle Springs at the offices of Carlton Engineering to “talk and hear from constituents”. This stealth gathering deserves the headline: “Fake Republican holds Fake Town Hall meeting”.

McClintock may be aptly called a Fake Republican because he revealed himself as actually a radical Libertarian.

His gathering was a Fake Town Hall meeting because it was: 1) not widely publicized, 2) was a cozy gathering of invited real estate agents and Chamber of Commerce members, not a cross-section of the general public whom Mr. McClintock was sworn to serve, and 3) was held at a corporate office beholden to developers, not a public building.free of potential conflict-of-interest.

McClintock’s radical Libertarianism manifested itself by his postured positions that “government is the problem”, and El Dorado County “shouldn’t take any federal stimulus funds” because it’s “only our money we shouldn’t have sent to Washington in the first place.” Libertarian Tom turned a deaf ear to the roomful of people complaining and moaning about lost jobs, lost income, foreclosed homes, and hardly any real estate sales. He couldn’t be bothered with real people’s urgent real problems; he could only repeat his lift-yourself-up-by-your-own-bootstraps Libertarian mantras. McClintock gave no detectable signs of the compassionate conservatism that marks so many real Republicans.

When people tried to ask him questions about any issues other than tax money, his apparent sole specialty, McClintock quickly turned the subject back to his only knowledgeable subject.

Even McClintock’s sorry predecessor, John Doolittle, under FBI investigation, at least made sure that local people got benefit from their federal taxes. But not Travelin’ Tom, the newly-arrived politician from Southern California. If McClintock had his way, you’d never see a dime of your tax dollars returned to El Dorado County.

The past election a lot of people voted for Democrat Charlie Brown, a former Republican, for our Congressman. A few more voted for Tom McClintock thinking that they were voting for a Republican. Guess again.

Libertarians believe that the individual answers only to himself and does not concern himself with other people’s problems. They have a poster boy in Tom McClintock, the congressman masquerading as a Republican.

– Richard Boylan, Ph.D.

Diamond Springs

P.O. Box 1009, Diamond Springs, CA 956

When people tried to ask him questions about any issues other than tax money, his apparent sole specialty, McClintock quickly turned the subject back to his only knowledgeable subject.

Even McClintock’s sorry predecessor, John Doolittle, under FBI investigation, at least made sure that local people got benefit from their federal taxes. But not Travelin’ Tom, the newly-arrived politician from Southern California. If McClintock had his way, you’d never see a dime of your tax dollars returned to El Dorado County.

The past election a lot of people voted for Democrat Charlie Brown, a former Republican, for our Congressman. A few more voted for Tom McClintock thinking that they were voting for a Republican. Guess again.

Libertarians believe that the individual answers only to himself and does not concern himself with other people’s problems. They have a poster boy in Tom McClintock, the congressman masquerading as a Republican.

– Richard Boylan, Ph.D.

Diamond Springs

P.O. Box 1009, Diamond Springs, CA 956

After a long fight to count every vote, Charlie Brown has acknowledged that Tom McClintock will be the next Congressman representing CA-04.  Here’s part of his email to supporters:

Thanks to the extraordinary work of our local elections officials, I am pleased to report that the high standards of fairness, accuracy, and transparency have been met.  And with the counts and recounts across district four complete, and more than 370,000 votes tallied, the outcome of this election is no longer in question.  Unfortunately, we’ve come up less than one half of one percent—just under 1,800 votes—short of victory.  

So a short time ago, I called Senator Tom McClintock to congratulate him on a hard fought victory, and to wish him well in Congress.

To you, I can only offer my deepest gratitude-for your generosity of time and resources, and your unwavering energy and encouragement.  Together, we have transformed the 4 th District, and lifted this campaign higher and farther than anyone thought possible.

I am proud of the campaign we ran.

Charlie fought a very good fight, actually becoming a point person for veteran’s issues around the country and leading by example with his Promises Kept Challenge, donating 5% of his campaign contributions to organizations serving veterans and their families.  And he showed through two cycles that the supposedly hopeless 4th District is more than winnable to the right candidate.

Still, he came up just short.  But I don’t think he has anything to be ashamed of.

This closes the book on elections in California.  While the final numbers and vote totals will be released Dec. 13, we know that Democrats picked up a net 3 seats in the Assembly, no seats in the Senate, and no seats in the Congress.  That’s the performance despite a 24-point victory at the top of the ticket, the biggest in California since 1936.

We’ll have much to discuss about this in the weeks to come, looking back to what happened and looking forward to prospects in the years ahead.  For now, a sincere thanks to Charlie Brown, who made us proud.

…as a sort of postscript, the Auburn Dam project, which was the source of tremendous debate in the campaign, officially died today, as the state water board revoked the 40 year-old water rights.  It was BROWN’S position, that the cost of the porposal outweighed the benefits, that won out.

Well, this has been a tight race for a long time, but at this point I think there have been quite a few people that were writing this off. Well, as of 7:06 this evening, Alyson Huber holds a lead of 531 votes.  That’s about .3% for you folks looking to see if we’ll get to the .5% automatic recount. If this holds up, the Central Valley will have themselves a fine Assemblywoman next week.

You can find this info at the SoS’s “close election” page. On the disappointing side, Hannah-Beth Jackson remains 1717 votes behind and Charlie Brown is 1578 votes back.

UPDATE: AD-10, Meet your new Assemblywoman, Alyson Huber.  I’ve heard from somebody close to the Speaker that there are relatively few votes remaining.  Alyson Huber will be sworn into the Assembly next week.

Huge news in the continued counting of Charlie Brown’s race against Tom McClintock.  The latest round of counting has Brown within 329 votes as the provisionals, which tend to favor Democrats, get counted in the larger counties in the district.

Charlie Brown (Dem)    170,168    49.9%

Tom McClintock (Rep)    170,497    50.1%

There are still tens of thousands of votes left to count, and there’s a virtual assurance of at least a partial recount.  Tom McClintock has been sending his list these smug reports of the day’s counting, telling them how everything’s looking great.  I haven’t seen an update from him in a couple days.  Probably because this is shaping up as a replay of the 2002 State Controller race, when the late provisionals put Steve Westly over the top in his race against… Tom McClintock.

Extended races like this cost money to maintain staff and pay lawyers.  You can help Charlie out at the Calitics ActBlue page.

…meanwhile, Hannah-Beth Jackson is moving closer in SD-19.  That race is down to 1,283 votes.

…I guess a slew of votes came in from Placer County and widened McClintock’s lead in a big way.

“We’re not claiming victory, but we just think it’s mathematically impossible for (Brown) to win,” said Bill George, spokesman for McClintock.

George said the thousands of Placer County votes tallied Friday stretched McClintock’s lead from barely 300 votes to 1,793, with only about 4,500 more votes to count in the nine-county district.

Brown spokesman Todd Stenhouse said Brown would not concede, noting that thousands more votes remain to be counted, most of which are provisional ballots that “have been breaking very, very strongly for Charlie.”

“We remain committed to the same goals that we’ve been committed to all along and that is that every vote is counted in this historic election,” Stenhouse said.

As TINS posted yesterday, Hannah-Beth Jackson has now fallen behind in the latest count of her race in SD-19, and according to local reports the remaining votes to be counted are mainly in Strickland-friendly areas.  This one looks grim.  At this hour Strickland leads by 1,560 votes, and it’s actually outside of the 1/2 of 1% required for a partial recount.

Hannah-Beth Jackson (Dem)  186,071    49.7%

Tony Strickland (Rep)              187,631    50.3%

The other two races we’re monitoring are actually in better shape than Hannah-Beth’s.  In AD-10, the latest numbers from the Secretary of State show Jack Sieglock leading Alyson Huber by just 506 votes.

Alyson L. Huber (Dem)     80,507    46.4%

Jack Sieglock (Rep)           81,013    46.8%

This is currently inside recount territory.  According to Randy Bayne, the remaining ballots left to count are mainly in Sacramento and San Joaquin Counties.  The ballot count is done in Amador County and mostly done in El Dorado County.  With some luck, the Sacramento County ballots will swing for Huber; she beat Sieglock 52-41 there.  Sieglock won San Joaquin County 51-42.

In CA-04, Charlie Brown is within 569 votes of Tom McClintock.

Charlie Brown (Dem)     168,378    49.9%

Tom McClintock (Rep)  168,947    50.1%

The question is how many ballots are left in Nevada County, where Brown won big.  According to the unprocessed ballot report, there are still 10,000 left up there, but I think that’s outdated information.  It’s probably more like 5,000, if not less.  Still, we are well within the .5% required for a partial recount.  So that’s where that’s likely to be headed regardless of what happens with the final numbers.

Again, counts and recounts cost money, so if you can chip in a couple bucks for these Democrats at the Calitics ActBlue page, I’m sure they’d be grateful.

UPDATE: I just learned that Hannah-Beth Jackson had to evacuate her house today, owing to the Montecito fire.  Hopefully everything will work out OK.

Everyone should bookmark this site monitoring the close races that haven’t been called in California.  There are four such races within 2% at the moment.  There’s Prop. 11, which is trending toward passage with a 131,000 vote lead.  There’s SD-19, which has some breathing room now, as Hannah-Beth Jackson leads by 1,203 votes.

And then there are the two Sacramento-area races.  Alyson Huber’s race in AD-10 has really tightened up.  She now trails Jack Sieglock by just 319 votes out of 154,000 counted.  That is well within the 1/2 of 1% territory that would trigger an automatic recount.  Which brings up an interesting question which perhaps some election junkie could answer.  The Secretary of State certifies the count on December 2.  But the new legislature is sworn in on December 1.  If there’s a race with no clear winner at that point, what happens?

Finally, we have CA-04, the race between Charlie Brown and Tom McClintock.  This has bounced around a bit, but we’re now looking at an 889 vote lead for McClintock.  There are anywhere between 48,000 and 55,000 votes left to count, based on this chart (which you can also bookmark) of unprocessed ballots.  This race also appeared headed to a recount, and if you believe this Daily Kos diarist, Brown has a good shot at making up ground, because there are so many outstanding votes in Nevada County, where Brown did best.

We know these counts and recounts are expensive, and now two groups have stepped up with their support of Charlie while we sort this out.  Wes Clark sent an email to his list today:

Our friend Charlie Brown needs our help. The margin in California’s 4th Congressional District is razor thin, and they’re still counting votes. After more than 300,000 ballots were cast in CA-04, the race is tied. The current difference stands at less than half of 1% (less than 500 votes).

With 40,000 vote-by-mail and provisional ballots still to be counted, the race is way too close to call. That’s why it’s critical for us to make sure all the votes are counted in CA-04.

Please contribute to Charlie Brown’s Election Protection Fund today!

Charlie’s opponent, Tom McClintock, has hired an election attorney and brought in a team of lawyers to “watch” the locations where absentee and provisional ballots are being counted. McClintock’s team is doing everything they can to challenge the votes of thousands of people who faithfully cast their ballots.

Charlie needs our help to fight back.

And DFA has done the same:

In 2000, we lost the election when the Bush campaign beat us in the legal and media fight that followed.  In 2004, we had to force a recount in the Washington State Governor’s race and we won because you delivered the resources to make it happen.

We need to raise at least $40,000 by Monday to back up these races with the resources they need right now.

CONTRIBUTE $50 TO THE DFA COUNT EVERY VOTE FUND

In 2004, we raised over $250,000 for the Washington State recount. This year, we need $40,000 right now to keep the GOP dirty tricks at bay and make sure every vote is counted fairly.

DFA’s Grassroots All-Star Charlie Brown needs resources to fend off a team of Republican lawyers who, as I write this message, are challenging every Democratic ballot before the FIRST count has even been completed. Charlie is down by less than 500 votes with over 15,000 votes still to be counted. He needs our help to make sure every vote is counted.

(Note: it’s now 889 votes with over 48,000 votes left to be counted)

Earlier, I mentioned that the CA-04 race is not over.  This bit of news reinforces that fact:

Truckee Town Council is one race that hangs in the balance.

“Four years ago I got 3,700 votes, and Josh [Susman] got 3,300, and this year so far we both have about 2,200,” said current Mayor and candidate Barbara Green.

“Something is not quite right.”

She said she figures about 1,000 to 2,000 votes are still unaccounted for in Truckee.

The missing votes could have repercussions as far reaching as the tightly-contested 4th Congressional District race between Republican Tom McClintock and Democrat Charlie Brown, Green said.

The spokeswoman for a local ballot measure makes this sound more like a mystery of missing ballots rather than votes that are simply uncounted:

Proponents of the Tahoe Truckee Unified School District Measure U hoped the outstanding ballots may make the difference.

“Clearly there’s been a major administrative error. We are hopefully those

outstanding ballots will push Measure U over the top,” said Alison Elder, Measure U chair.

Administrative error?  What does that mean, exactly.

This could be especially important because Brown won Nevada County, the county in question, by a substantial margin (57-43).  If there are potentially 2,000 votes there, that would make up a lot of that difference if the margin holds.

…by the way, Bill Hedrick in CA-44 might be getting into recount territory, incredibly.  It’s down to a spread of just 2.8% between Hedrick and Rep. Ken Calvert, a difference of only 4,600 votes.  It’s the closest Congressional race outside of CA-04.  I am sorry I didn’t pay enough attention to it.  Go Bill!

I would really like to get to the post-mortem and the ritual hacking of limbs to answer for the disconnect between a resounding victory at the top of the ticket and barely a ripple below it, but that would be assuming that the votes are all in.  And they have not.  There are maybe 3 MILLION ballots, in the form of late absentees and provisionals, still outstanding throughout the state.  Now, this may not swing any of the statewide numbers with the exception of Prop. 11, but there are plenty of local races close enough that we have to make sure every vote is properly and accurately counted.

In particular, there’s the closest race of the night, the battle between Charlie Brown and Tom McClintock in CA-04.  Right now, the lead for McClintock on the Secretary of State’s website is 451 votes.  I’m told that lead is smaller, inside 400 votes.  And furthermore, there are FORTY THOUSAND VOTES yet to be counted.  These are the late-arriving permanent absentee votes, the ones that people bring to the polls on Election Day, which are always the last to be counted.  There are also provisional ballots out there.

This race is not over.  40,000 votes must be counted and they must be counted fairly.  Nobody should concede this race, least of all us.  Here’s a historical reminder – in 2002 Steve Westly was behind in his State Controller race by 10,000 votes once all the precincts returned.  But provisional ballots broke for him 60-40, and he was elected.

His opponent that year was Tom McClintock.

Charlie Brown can win this race, but he needs your help.  Hiring lawyers to ensure accurate counting is expensive.  Maintaining a staff beyond Election Day is expensive.  Going through to a recount, which is probable, is expensive.

If neither candidate emerges with a lead exceeding 1/2 of 1 percent of the vote, the race will automatically go to a partial manual recount, according to the secretary of state’s office. That was the outcome the Brown campaign anticipated as the upset Brown aimed for still seemed in reach.

Charlie Brown is still in this race.  You can support him at the Calitics ActBlue page.

UPDATE: Charlie Brown’s statement:

“I want to express my heartfelt appreciation to every single voter who participated in yesterday’s historic election. It appears we are headed for a record turnout. We understand that there are still more than 40,000 ballots remaining to be processed, and we will not know the outcome of this election until all of those votes are counted.

Our priority today is to support a fair and accurate count of every ballot. I want to thank the election department staffs and directors of all of the counties who are working so hard and so well to assure an accurate count.

I want to thank my wife Jan, my entire family and my entire campaign team for all of their tremendous work during these past many months.  I am proud of the campaign we ran-one focused on putting patriotism before partisanship and solving problems. While I remain very confident that we will prevail once all the ballots are counted, I know that this team has already won important battles for veterans, for families facing tough economic times and for so many other important priorities.”