Judy Chu followed Gil Cedillo’s campaign kick-off with a kickoff of her own, and friend of Calitics Todd Beeton was there.

Judy Chu’s event was held in a smaller venue than Cedillo’s and had fewer attendees but had a few things going for it that Cedillo didn’t. First was the visibility. Chu had bands of young people out on the street with signs cheering on Chu urging cars to honk in support. Also, while there was no member of congress on hand to tout Chu as Xavier Becerra did for Cedillo, Chu had a larger and more diverse group of local leaders speak on her behalf ranging from State Contoller John Chiang to Assemblymen Ed Hernandez and Mike Eng (Judy’s husband) to Hilda Solis’s sister Irma. While Cedillo spoke to a room full of primarily hispanic supporters (I’d say 90+%), the mix of Asian, hispanic and white faces there to support Judy and speak on her behalf was notable. While Cedillo is trying to tap into the majority hispanic population in the district (60% hispanic vs. 20% Asian), Judy Chu, having served on the Monterey Park City Council, in the Assembly and now on the Board of Equalization, already has a voting base in the district that spans all ethnic groups. Cedillo on the other hand has never represented any part of this district before.

Pretty interesting that Hilda Solis’ sister not only showed up, but announced that “my whole family supports Judy Chu.”  The new Secretary of Labor isn’t going to make an endorsement in this race, but that’s about as close as it gets.  And it’s important, especially when combined with the Cal Labor Federation endorsement.

There’s kind of a competition between who is the candidate of exclusion versus inclusion in this race.  Chu says that she’s the only one in the race from the district (that’s not true; Emanuel Pleitez was born there, and Baldwin Park USD Board member Blanca Rubio lives there as well), and that a carpetbagger shouldn’t be allowed to come in from out of town; Cedillo clearly is using his ethnic identity to make the point that the candidate should be representative of “our community.”  Both are exclusionary messages.

Meanwhile, Chu levied the first attack of the campaign by highlighting a Roll Call story about Cedillo doing a Washington fundraiser at the offices of the C2 Group, a lobbying firm in DC.  Their clients include Fannie Mae, Amgen, Comcast Corp., the Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers and the American Beverage Association.  What’s more interesting about that fundraiser is that half a dozen Democratic Congressmembers are sponsoring it, including Rep. John Salazar (D-Colo.), chairman the Congressional Hispanic Caucus’ political action committee.  Will Cedillo get substantial CHC funds for this race?

It would be good to know where these candidates stand on the issues of the day, and a political campaign is a great way to make that known.  There’s a special election in the state on the same day as the primary – how do Chu and Cedillo stand on Prop. 1A?  What about the AIG bonuses?  At some point, it would be good to see the race turn to actual issues instead of sniping and exclusionary politics.

CapAlert reports that on December 5, Don Perata took ANOTHER $400,000 from his unused campaign account and moved it into his legal defense fund.

The latest transfer means the Oakland Democrat has now taken a total of $1.9 million raised in an account earmarked for ballot campaigns and used it to shore up the legal fund he created to fight an FBI corruption probe.

The transfers are legal, though California’s campaign watchdog agency is considering stricter regulations of ballot accounts like Perata’s […]

The FBI has been investigating Perata since 2004, inquiring about his business dealings and those of his family and close friends. Both Perata’s and his son’s homes were raided by FBI agents four years ago.

No charges have ever been filed, though Perata has tallied up more than $2.1 million in expenses fending off the investigation.

His defense fund was $250,000 in debt as of the end of September, as the former leader faced the unwelcome prospect of being out of office – and without leverage over potential donors.

So Perata has transferred $1.9 million (out of the $2.7 million he had amassed) from the ballot committee to ease his legal debt load.

Once the election ended, Perata had no use for that $1.9 million in his campaign account as a termed-out legislator.  However, there was plenty of use for it BEFORE the election, when Prop. 11 was being outspent 10 to 1 and losing by less than 2 percentage points.

Again, the alibi that he needs this money to fight off a “fishing expedition” from Bush partisans at the US Attorneys office doesn’t scan at all.  Those prosecutors are all resigning in a month.  If he’s done nothing wrong, what use could he possibly have for $1.9 million dollars over the next 30 days?  Or are the expected Obama US Attorneys going to continue this partisan witch hunt?

By the way, the rank and file in the CCPOA is pretty pissed off about what amounts to theft of their political donations.

On PacoVilla’s Corrections Blog, a Web site popular with state correctional officers, one user wrote: “Not only did we (CCPOA) back the wrong horse (No on 11) but now we’re paying for Perata’s corruption defense and from (CCPOA spokesman) Lance (Corcoran)’s comment … it sounds like we’re very happy to be privileged to do so.”

By the way, there’s still $600,000 or so left in that account.  So don’t be shocked when Perata drains that out too.

The LA Times has decided to expose, not before Election Day but a month after, the juicy little fact that 1/4 of all state lawmakers have outside jobs which can cause direct conflicts of interest with their lawmaking duties, as they often vote on legislation that directly impacts their private income.

There can be a case made, though not a compelling one, that the shortness of legislative terms requires lawmakers to have some backup income in place for the future beyond their $150,000 a year salary.  However, when termed-out legislators can grab highly sought and lucrative state board positions, that point becomes fairly moot.  Not to mention the fact that political donors can continue to fund termed-out politicians for “strategic purposes,” a perfectly legal enterprise.

Assemblywoman Nicole Parra may have found the perfect antidote to life in the Assembly doghouse – travel to political bashes in Maui, Las Vegas, Chicago and New Orleans, courtesy of political donors […]

Campaign disclosure statements show that Parra, a lame-duck lawmaker who did not seek election to another office, largely emptied her campaign coffers this year – in part by spending thousands of dollars on travel, meals, parties and conferences […] Parra spent more than $150,000 in campaign funds this year, including donations of $30,000 to WEAVE in Sacramento, $15,000 to the California Democratic Party, and $3,600 apiece to about a half-dozen legislative colleagues.

California law allows legislators to spend unlimited campaign sums for a political, legislative or governmental purpose.

My larger beef is with the 38 million who permit this activity through our collective silence, relatively speaking.  Without an independent media dedicated to exposing sunlight and ferreting out these ugly deals inside Sacramento, and then without significant follow-up from citizens and groups to force consequences, we basically get the government we deserve.   California’s media landscape shrinks almost by the day, as a nation-state of 38 million has a number of political reporters that you may not even have to go into double digits to count.  The “watchdog” groups are competent press release factories, but extract little in the way of consequences.  And everybody has so internalized the concept that state elections are essentially a formality, including both sides of the political aisle, that the public wastes its own opportunity to have a voice on these matters.  The perfect example is AD-30 this year, a hotly contested race with millions of dollars spent on both sides, which attracted an appalling 84,804 voters total at last count, less than half of the number for a similarly contested race in AD-10, and close to 1/3 of eligible voters, registered and unregistered, in the Bakersfield-area district.  And this was a Presidential election!  If I were elected from there I’d be embarrassed to serve.

This outright apathy allows corruption to slip through the cracks, as an unwatched Sacramento goes about its plunder.  The byzantine series of rules have made California ungovernable because so few people show a legitimate interest in changing them.  The future of California lies only in finding more people who care about the state than currently exist.  Otherwise, a narrow political class will continue to take profits, and nobody will even notice.

So Debbie Cook and Dana Rohrabacher debated yesterday afternoon.  I could write 1000 words about it, but I could also just provide you with this picture, which says it all:

As in, “I can’t believe I actually have to run for my seat.”

But if you want to know about the substance, Todd Beeton, who was there, has a writeup.

But even though crazy Dana is always likely to say some crazy shit, and he did, what I took away from the debate most of all was how unabashedly progressive Debbie Cook is and how lucky we would be to have her in Congress. This is a fairly red (albeit getting bluer every day) district, one where you might expect the Democratic challenger to moderate her views for the electorate. Nope, not Debbie. I’ll write about the debate more later, hopefully with video, but here are just three of the issues where Debbie shined today:

• On global warming, Cook, who is an energy expert, in response to Rohrabacher’s global warming denier nonsense, asserted “The debate is over. I can’t get into a discussion over climate change, to me it’s just a fact, we need to move on to solving our oil depletion problems.”

• On Proposition 8: “I strongly oppose Proposition 8, I am in favor of full marriage equality.”

• And on healthcare reform, Cook advocated for a single-payer Medicare for all model. “Health care is a right every American should enjoy.”

Yes, Crazy Dana denied global warming.  Again.  Not sure if he attributed it to dinosaur flatulence this time.  But here’s the actual discussion:

Rohrabacher went on to accuse those “who claim that humankind is changing the climate,” including Cook and his other opponents, of fear mongering.

“[They are] trying to stampede us into policies that will take us towards technologies that just deal with carbon dioxide and have nothing to do with personal health,” Rohrabacher said.

Cook, who led Huntington Beach in joining the U.S. Mayor’s Agreement on Global Warming, dismissed Rohrabacher’s claims, stating that the scientific debate over climate change had ended.

“Debating climate change is just a distraction from the real work that we all need to do,” Cook said. “Humans are overtaking the ability of the planet to sustain itself. Now, we need to move toward a green future because that’s the only thing that can save us.”

Apparently, Rohrabacher’s plan was to relate everything back to illegal immigration and the Wall Street bailout package, which he would have replaced with capital gains tax cuts and more deregulation, so I’m not seeing Mr. Populism in there.

Cook stayed on message and did not take the bait.  Here was her explanation.

After the debate, Cook explained why she refused to go after the incumbent.

“It’s not my style,” she said. “You don’t want to make the same mistake that the Republicans have made with McCain in going negative, negative, negative. I think it’s quite apparent that he’s done nothing for this district in 20 years. And if people don’t understand that, me telling them isn’t going to change anything.”

“He’s an a**,” Cook continued. “I can’t respond to him. He’s a liar.”

Meanwhile, I noticed something very interesting in Rohrabacher’s latest fundraising report:

Donald Segretti

self

09/27/2008

250.00

attorney

Yes, that Donald Segretti.  The head of the “dirty tricks” division of the Nixon campaign, the guy who stole stationery from Ed Muskie and wrote all kinds of lies about possible Nixon opponents in 1972, alleging Scoop Jackson had an illegitimate child and Hubert Humphrey was guilty of sexual misconduct and Muskie had insulted Franch-Canadians.  By the way, Segretti was a co-chair of John McCain’s Presidential campaign in 2000.  And he was Karl Rove’s mentor in ratfucking.

Donald Segretti offered J. Timothy Gratz $100.00 per month, plus expenses, to co-ordinate these projects. Gratz agreed to work on the project and he was given an advance payment of $50.00. Gratz later told Anthony Ulasewicz that “although the whole incident seemed strange” he agreed to help “as most of the ideas he suggested seemed like they were worth doing anyway”. However, Gratz claimed he told Karl Rove, Chairman of the College Republican National Committee, about this dirty tricks campaign. We now know that Rove himself was part of Segretti’s campaign. In fact, he probably played a leading role in this dirty tricks operation. Rove had become friends with CIA asset, Robert F. Bennett in 1968. According to one report, Bennett became a “mentor of Rove’s”.

In 1970, Karl Rove used a false identity to enter the campaign office of Democrat Alan J. Dixon, who was running for Illinois State Treasurer, and stole 1000 sheets of paper with campaign letterhead. Rove then printed fake campaign rally fliers promising “free beer, free food, girls and a good time for nothing,” and distributed them at rock concerts and homeless shelters, with the effect of disrupting Dixon’s rally.

Nice company that Rohrabacher attracts.

Donate to Debbie Cook: Having the money to get her message out is all that stands between her and victory.

Politico picks up the story of Tom McClintock’s fundraising woes, and the fact that he was in the red as of October 1.  I didn’t know this:

But according to his campaign finance reports, he heads into the home stretch without much campaign cash left. McClintock spent more money than he raised, ending September with just $94,000 in his campaign account.

He is not currently airing airing any television ads, and hasn’t been for the last two weeks.

If he’s off the air right now, it’s going to be next to impossible for him to get back on.  The NRCC doesn’t have a whole lot of money to play with, especially considering all the incumbents they have to defend.  And the GOTV efforts, radio, phone calls, mailers, etc., cost plenty of money.  If McClintock’s living from hand to mouth right now, he’s not going to get back on TV.  And needless to say, Charlie Brown has plenty of money to blanket TV in the final two weeks.  It’s incredible.

And what’s amazing is that this is how McClintock handled the primary as well.  He overspent early and wound up running on fumes the last couple weeks.  It wasn’t a big deal against Doug Ose, but against a formidable opponent like Brown it’ll matter.  The supposed fiscal conservative can’t even manage his own campaign stash.

Adding to Bill Durston in CA-03 and Debbie Cook in CA-46, now Nick Leibham has some poll numbers showing a virtual tie:

You can now add Rep. Brian Bilbray (R-CA 50) to the new heap of GOP incumbents who should be suddenly very worried. A new poll, conducted for atty/ex-San Diego City prosecutor Nick Leibham’s (D) camp, shows him trailing Bilbray by a miniscule 44-42% margin.

This may feel like deja vu for GOPers. In the ’06 special election to fill imprisoned-Rep. Duke Cunningham’s (R) term, Bilbray needed $4.5M from the NRCC to skate by a relatively lackluster Dem. What’s worrisome for Bilbray is that the cash-starved NRCC can’t afford to put anywhere near that amount in his CD to save it this year. And the DCCC has enough cash, if it chooses to enter the contest, to make a difference. The NRCC simply can’t afford to overwhelm Dem efforts here like they did in ’06.

This is particularly acute in CA-50.  Leibham beat Bilbray in fundraising in the third quarter, and they are almost even in cash on hand.  Which means that, barring a life raft from the national party, Bilbray is largely on his own.  And he doesn’t have much to run on.  Here he is whining about that powerful ad from Leibham supporter Joe Hoar, a retired Marine General, which ripped Bilbray for voting against the new GI Bill:

Bilbray said he was one of the GI Bill’s original co-sponsors, but voted against it after congressional Democrats loaded it up with extraneous goodies, including a “massive tax increase” and a foreign aid package for Africa and Mexico.

“That’s the kind of cynical tactics we said ‘no’ to,” the Carlsbad Republican said. “We forced it to come back as a clean bill and we were able to pass it and it was signed into law in June.”

Actually, it wasn’t a clean bill at all, it was folded into an Iraq appropriation.  And he objected to it initially because it was funded by a tax on millionaires.

Liebham supporters have put up an attack website called Wrong Way Bilbray highlighting his votes.  Now that the campaign has settled into attacking Bilbray on the issues, with the Democratic wind at their backs, they are gaining traction.

And more than CA-50, what we’re seeing is an across the board re-evaluation of Republican incumbents, with multiple GOPers in trouble.

(Updated with new information at the bottom… – promoted by David Dayen)

The FEC reports are starting to come in for our candidates.  I’ll update them here, but the preliminary numbers are very strong.

• CA-50: Wow.  Nick Leibham raised $413,000 in the third quarter, his best quarter of the cycle by a factor of four.  With $334,000 cash on hand, he’s going to be able to get his message out in the final weeks.  As much as anything, this is why Leibham is Red To Blue.  No word on Brian Bilbray’s take yet.  Leibham’s latest ad uses a local war hero to hammer Bilbray for his vote against the new GI Bill, and it’s very powerful, a great improvement over the attention-getting stunts from earlier in the year.  I’m starting to feel good about this race.

• CA-45: Julie Bornstein raised around $102,000 in Q3, while Mary Bono Mack raised $245,000.  The cash on hand situation shows Bono Mack with $462,548 in the bank compared to Bornstein’s $179,308.  That’s not terrible, especially if the DCCC steps in with some outside help – they just added Bornstein to their emerging races list (along with Bill Durston in CA-03).  Her latest ad, showing Bono Mack as a rubber-stamping bobblehead, is spot-on (“Do you think George Bush is right 92% of the time?”)

• CA-52: In our toughest winnable race, Mike Lumpkin raised $107,000 and has $125,000 CoH, and Duncan D. Hunter raised $290,000 with $321,000 CoH.  It’ll take a monumental effort to win this one, but I don’t consider it impossible.  Lumpkin just got put on the D-Trip’s Races To Watch page, along with Russ Warner (CA-26).

• CA-46: A nice writeup about canvassing for Debbie Cook from friend of the blog Andrew Davey (atdleft).

more money updates when they roll in…

UPDATE: Debbie Cook raised $114,000 and has $181,000 in the bank.  Nothing yet from Dana Rohrabacher.  Will she outraise him three quarters in a row?

UPDATE: More numbers:

CA-04:

Charlie Brown: raised $539K, $456K cash on hand.  GREAT numbers.

Tom McClintock: raised $978K, but spent a ton, and has only $94,000 left, with $110,000 in debts.  He is BROKE.  Brown has an infinite lead in CoH.

CA-03:

Bill Durston: raised $149K, $145K CoH.

Dan Lungren: raised $173K (wow, Durston almost outraised him), $680K CoH.  Dr. Bill is going to need some help.

CA-26:

Russ Warner: raised $289K, which is great, but he’s spent a lot early.  He has $119K CoH.

David Dreier: raised $255K.  Wow, Warner outraised Dreier.  He still has $1.7 million in the bank, and he doesn’t seem to be using the money.  He only spent $345K in Q3.  I don’t know if it’s for leadership purposes or what, but he has a hell of a war chest that he’s not using.

CA-11:

Jerry McNerney: raised $601K, $1.02 million CoH.

Dean Andal: raised $345K, with $850K CoH.  Some prize recruit.

CA-50:

Brian Bilbray: This was the number I was waiting for.  He raised $262K and has $382K CoH.  OK, Nick Leibham didn’t just beat Bilbray in Q2, he destroyed him.  And the cash on hand is virtually even.  Wow.

CA-46:

Dana Rohrabacher: Drum roll… raised $148K.  OK, he beat Debbie Cook for once.  The CoH is $497K, but much like Dreier, he’s spent next to nothing.  $35K in the quarter.

Overall, these are good numbers.  Lots of our candidates have the resources they need.  Keep up the pressure.

Some tidbits:

• Nancy Pelosi is going to ask for a second stimulus that includes aid for state and local governments, extending unemployment benefits and investment in infrastructure.  This is desperately needed and she needs to follow up and we have to pressure her.  It’s good for California and the nation.

• 538 did a “road to 270” feature on California a couple days back.  Nothing in there you wouldn’t expect, other than some good demographic information (our Starbucks/Wal-Mart ratio is second in the nation).

• I don’t know if we’ve featured this in a post or not, but this ad for the Yes on 4 campaign is completely despicable and everybody involved in it should be ashamed of themselves.  Apparently devoid of shame, the campaign, after saying they’d only run it once, has expanded it and aired it in selected markets last night after the Presidential debate.

• Here’s a fundraising breakdown for all 12 propositions.  No on 4 has quite an advantage and they need to use it.  Yes on 5 has a large advantage as well.  There is no committee for No on 1A.  Same with No on 10.  It’s an interesting set of numbers.

• This is a sad story about a family of six murdered by the head of household, who had an advanced degree in finance but couldn’t find a job.  I take no pleasure in saying this could be replicated around the state as we hit this downturn.

• You may remember Delecia Holt, the perennial Republican candidate in the San Diego area who suffered allegations of campaign fraud.  She’s now been arrested for writing bad checks and avoiding bill collectors.