An exceedingly strange story out of the San Diego area.

The San Diego Union-Tribune reports that a fundraiser for Francine Busby, who previously ran for the deeply-Republican Fiftieth District (editor’s note: it’s not that deeply Republican, Obama won here 51-47) and came close to winning in the 2006 special election and subsequent regular election, was raided by sheriffs after an unnamed neighbor made a noise complaint. Busby now calls it a “phony” noise complaint, and the article says that multiple neighbors said there was no great noise at all.

Here’s the twist: The fundraiser was hosted by a lesbian couple, and shortly before the sheriffs came a particular neighbor had shouted anti-gay slurs at the assembled crowd. “It was a quiet home reception, disrupted by a vulgar person shouting obscenities from behind the bushes,” Busby says.

As one neighbor told the paper: “We didn’t hear anything until the sheriff came, with eight patrol cars and a helicopter.”

The sheriff’s department claims that somebody kicked an officer. By the time it was over, multiple people were pepper-sprayed, one of the hostesses was arrested, and the whole neighborhood got to see quite a scene.

One of the officers defended the department’s conduct — turning the blame on the candidate: “The place got out of hand. If Francine Busby was there, why not take a leadership role, step up, and nip this thing in the bud?”

There’s more detail at this Daily Kos diary from arodb, who was there.  I like the part where the police department blames Francine Busby for their own failure to recognize that no noise violation was taking place inside the fundraiser.

I’m trying to get some more information from the campaign, will bring it when I have it.

UPDATE: TPMDC interviews Francine Busby about this incident, and basically, she singles out the homophobic heckler for creating the noise that brought the cops to the scene:

“You could hear his voice very clearly, it was loud. But as far as the actual words, I didn’t hear them,” Busby explained. “I heard my name, and obviously derogatory words. Other people heard profanity, and somebody heard something about gays, as well.” It should be noted that the event was hosted by a lesbian couple.

“The deputies were telling people that they were taking statements from, that the call came in about noise from a Democratic rally, or Democratic demonstration,” said Busby. In fact, she said, she had last spoken at about 8:30 p.m., and the police arrived an hour later when most of the attendees had left. “It was a nuisance-noise call, because there was no noise, and the fact that it was described as a Democratic rally or demonstration indicates to me that this person was calling for his own political motives.”

The LA Times reports that the San Diego County Sheriff’s Department will open an investigation into the incident, particularly the use of pepper spray.

The Internet moves at, well, Internet speed, so parts of my House race roundup were already out of date or incomplete by the time I published it.  So here’s an update on a few races.

• CA-10: John Garamendi announced a significant series of national labor endorsements for the upcoming CA-10 race, despite Mark DeSaulnier having locked up the Contra Costa County Central Labor Committee endorsement and the local Building Trades (which cover almost 100 local unions) and chairing the Senate Labor Committee.  They include:

AFSCME: American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees

CNA: California Nurses Association

CFT: California Federation of Teachers

UFCW: United Food & Commercial Workers

CSEA: California School Employees Association

Laborers International Union of North America

International Union of Operating Engineers

CWA: Communication Workers of America

Many of those can provide PAC money, resources and support to Garamendi, leveling the playing field in a race where DeSaulnier captured all the early endorsements.

• CA-03: I passed on the rumor about Phil Angelides and CA-03 in my roundup, but local blogger Randy Bayne dismisses that report and notes that Elk Grove City Councilman Gary Davis will likely run, having met with the DCCC and begun the process of putting a team together.  I don’t agree with Bayne that a contested primary (Dr. Amerish Bera has also announced) would impact negatively on the race.  Especially when the candidates have low name ID, a primary can increase their public profile and show them to be a “winner” in front of the district, at the end.  Momentum can build.  Primaries don’t necessarily have to be nasty and debilitating, and I fail to understand why anyone would reject them out of hand.

Incidentally, I never took much stock in the rumor about Angelides, I simply thought it would be a decent line of inquiry, given his name ID, fundraising ability and progressive profile.

CA-47: One potential challenge to a Democratic incumbent I overlooked yesterday was Van Tran’s run against Loretta Sanchez, profiled in Politico.

On the heels of an election marked by a dismal performance among Asian voters, top Republicans are aggressively recruiting California Assemblyman Van Tran, a Vietnamese-American, to challenge Rep. Loretta Sanchez (D-Calif.) next year.

If elected, Tran would be the second Vietnamese-American in Congress, after Rep. Anh “Joseph” Cao (R-La.), who won his seat in a 2008 election.

Tran has already been feted at the National Republican Congressional Committee’s March fundraising dinner as a guest of the committee’s recruitment chairman, Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.), and he was encouraged to run by House Minority Leader John Boehner and Minority Whip Eric Cantor. He also made a trip to Washington after last November’s election to meet with officials from the NRCC.

Even Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) has assisted in the recruitment process, meeting with Tran and offering support for any potential candidacy. Tran was an outspoken backer of McCain’s 2008 presidential campaign and helped him carry Orange County over Mitt Romney in the Republican presidential primary.

What the story fails to mention is that, not only does Tran not have full support among the Vietnamese community in the district, not only does Loretta Sanchez have experience easily defeating Vietnamese challengers, but Tran didn’t even do that well in his own Assembly race last year, winning over 55% of the vote against Ken Arnold.  If Tran is one of the Republicans’ top recruits, they’re in even bigger trouble than I thought.  Incidentally, Sanchez’ voting record has greatly improved over the past couple years.

• CA-50: I should have cited Francine Busby’s Firedoglake chat from a couple weeks ago.  I don’t think I agree with her on this, though:

I’ve alway said that the Latino voters have to organize register and educate from within their own community. I see more activism and organizing going on than I did before. In fact, I will be attending a meeting on Monday of the reconstituted Latino American Democratic Club in Oceanside. We may have a strong Latina running for a state office who can rally the base. Also, Bilbray is their worst nightmare, so I expect that to motivate them to get out to vote. I reach out to leaders in the community as much as possible to maintain good communications and understanding.

Outreach consists of more than “hopefully they’ll self-organize.”  You need to actually engage the Latino community instead of hoping some other local candidate can do it for you.  Not a good sign.

A couple brief updates:

• CA-50: Francine Busby, who has competed in this district a couple times, in 2004 and 2006, never breaking 44%, will announce another run, challenging Rep. Brian Bilbray.  This is an “Obama Republican” district, where Bilbray only beat Nick Leibham by 50-46 in 2008.  And voter registration is trending in our favor.  And Busby is kicking things off by hitting Bilbray over his “Party of No” rejection of President Obama’s policies, which makes sense in a district he carried.

Busby says, “Voters called for change in 2008 when they elected Barack Obama. (Incumbent Congressman) Bilbray didn’t heed the message. He played a reckless, cruel game of politics with the lives of struggling San Diegans when he voted no on Recovery and Reimbursement Act that would bring millions of federal stimulus dollars into our economy.

My sense is that CA-50 is something of a tease of a district, with a Democratic ceiling around 46%, but I think Busby is taking the right line to win, and she does have some name ID, which could help.  Stay tuned.

• CA-10: I hate to even give space to the Adriel Hampton “boomlet,” but after calling for the legalization and taxation of marijuana, today the Congressional candidate is actually promoting and endorsing the right-wing, corporate-funded and Fox News-promoted “tea parties.”  No lie.  You know, this guy is more faddish than a junior-high Jonas Brothers fan.  Anything with a hashtag is good, I guess.  Even if it enables corporate-friendly drowning of government in the bathtub.  What a Web 2.0 genius!

So Francine Busby has been working the convention for the past two days passing out literature to announce her campaign for CDP Chair in 2009.  I don’t have a horse in this race, but that also of course means that the other rumored candidates haven’t exactly lit me on fire just yet.  Speaking to San Diego delegates earlier, there was notable support for the idea.  The candidacy at the very least would be a nice break from the traditional Bay/LA power structure.

We’ll try to catch up with her for a few minutes tomorrow and find out what she has to say.

Photos by Chris Rothwell – SEOwell.com

So last night I made my way up to Encinitas in the heart of CA-50 for the official launch of Nick Leibham's congressional campaign.  The event managed to fill the Bullpen Bar and Grill, and my best guess after huddling with several guests was that the number was at least 300.  One way or another, the group was bumping up against max capacity.  Among the assembled throng was CA-52 candidate Mike Lumpkin, San Diego City Council candidate Stephen Whitburn, San Diego Drinking Liberally chief Jesse Rubin, and Calitics’ CarlsbadDem.  And of course, Francine Busby to introduce Nick Leibham.

Against the backdrop of New Hampshire primary results running across screens throughout the bar, Leibham talked about the failures both big and small of Brian Bilbray‘s political career.  He pledged to actually live in the district, not in Imperial Beach, or in Virginia, or with his mother.  More seriously and most importantly though, he pledged to really represent the district.  Something that, as far as I and everyone else in the building are concerned, has been sorely lacking for a number of years.

He whipped up the crowd, hitting on many of the core issues that Democrats will rally around this year:  He blasted Bilbray for supporting Bush’s plan in Iraq, for supporting Bush’s destruction of the Constitution, for refusing to fund children’s health care through SCHIP.  He talked about the fundamental failure of the Republican party and the myriad ways in which Brian Bilbray has been complicit in that failure.  Most of all, he helped explain how those Republican failures hurt the 50th district.  And he led the crowd in chants of “Wrong Way Bilbray!” as he listed off just some of the seemingly countless ways Rep. Bilbray has failed to serve this district.

For me, the most exciting part of the evening was the size, diversity, and depth of the crowd.  I spoke with activists from all over the district and throughout San Diego.  We talked about Blackwater’s invasion of Potrero and other San Diego issues, but most of all, we talked about how desperate people are to get a government that better reflects their values.  And for so many of them, it starts in the 50th.  After watching the record Democratic turnout in Iowa and New Hampshire, the energy to seize on this election seems to be everywhere.

It is, of course, a tough district.  Francine Busby ran a spirited campaign last year with support from the DCCC and still ultimately came up short.  But as the Republican party has continued to fight against good policy at every turn and Brian Bilbray has revealed himself to be an extremist even within his own party, dynamics change.  These crowds and this energy really paints an encouraging picture as one more front is opened in the battle to reclaim this country.  Nick Leibham is the rallying point in the 50th, and it sure looks like he’s positioned to be the beneficiary of an incredible amount of support.  We’re in for a real race.

Crossposted to San Diego Politico

In the first couple centuries of European warfare following the introduction of gunpowder, giant medieval walls met cannons and explosives.  Eventually, the cannons and sappers would blow a gap in the wall.  Then a group of volunteers, called in the British Army “The Forlorn Hope“, would charge the gap.  Those men almost always died, but their sacrifice was necessary to draw the fire of the defenders and force them to expend their ammunition, so the second wave of attackers could get through the breach.  Survivors, if any, were promoted to officer.

The 50-state, 435-district strategy requires that many Democratic candidates serve as a forlorn hope.  These Democratic candidates ran in heavily Republican districts where they had little to no chance to win.  But they forced the Republicans to spend money and resources simply to retain their seats, were there to take advantage of mistakes or scandal, and helped to build and energize infrastructure in those districts. 

While we’re all celebrating the victory of last Tuesday, let us thank the Democrats’ forlorn hope — they probably won this for us.  In California, at least in the races I’ve been following, that means that I want to thank these candidates and all of their campaign staff and volunteers:

• Charlie Brown, running against John 15% Doolittle in CA-04.
• David Roth, running against Mary Bono in CA-45
• Francine Busby, running again in CA-50 against Brian Bilbray
• Bill Durston, running against Dan Lungren in CA-03
• Jill Martinez, running against Elton Gallegly in CA-24
• Roberto Rodriguez, running against Buck McKeon in CA-25

Thanks to all of you.  You made this victory possible.