With the California primaries only days away, I decided to make a list of races worth watching this coming Super Tuesday. Cross-posted at Swing State Project and Democracy for California.

U.S. Senate (R) – Fiorina seems to have consolidated the “outsider” vote, seeing as she is the only one of the three that has not held elected office and it seems that being an outsider will get one far in the Republican primary (though not so much in a California general election).

Governor (R) – Exactly as I predicted, this race has unfolded to be 2006 in reverse. Whoever wins the GOP primary here will be so radioactive that many Republican voters likely will cross over to vote for Jerry Brown, like many Democratic voters did for Arnold last time. If Jerry Brown pulls similar numbers among Republicans that Arnold did among Democrats, then Brown is likely gonna win big. And I’m unsure about how indies will go, so I just went with an estimate similar to the 2006 numbers.

DEM 42%-GOP 33%-OTHER 25%

Brown: 93%/22%/60% = 61%

GOP nominee: 7%/78%/40% = 39%

Lt. Governor (D) – This race will be very interesting: a classic NorCal/SoCal matchup, between Gavin Newsom and Janice Hahn.

Lt. Governor (R) – Newly-appointed incumbent Abel Maldonado will face a tough primary with more conservative State Senator Sam Aanestad. Given that moderates have fared pretty poorly in California elections of late, I give Aanestad the edge.

Sec. of State (R) – Any race with the Birther Queen just has to be a race to watch, more so for the comedy value, though I think most Republicans don’t buy her BS, so I see Dunn getting the nomination. No matter who wins, Debra Bowen is likely a cinch for a second term.

Attorney General (D) – Very crowded primary here, with 3 term-limited Assemblymen, Torrico, Nava, and Lieu; S.F. District Attorney Kamala Harris; Facebook attorney Chris Kelly; and disgraced ex-L.A. city attorney Delgadillo, though the race seems to have narrowed to just Harris and Kelly. From what I have heard of Kelly, I am rooting for Harris.

Controller (R) – Not much drama here, but I am hoping for Tony Strickland to win so he can lose to John Chiang even worse than in 2006. Unfortunately, he is not up for reelection to the State Senate until 2012, so if he wins the nomination but loses the general, he will still be in the senate (hopefully until 2012).

Insurance Commissioner (D) – Here we have two strong candidates in term-limited assemblymen Hector De La Torre and Dave Jones. I have no preference in this race, but since Jones has more money and establishment backing, I think he’ll win the nod.

CA-11 (R) – Will David Harmer, who lost by only 10% in the more Democratic CA-10 in the special election (albeit with lower turnout) be able to make it past the primary against Tony Amador and be more competitive in the general?

CA-19 (D) – I am pulling for Loraine Goodwin here. Any campaign based on health care reform is a big winner in Democratic primaries and in general elections in most parts of the state. Not sure what the HCR numbers are in this neck of the woods.

CA-19 (R) – I think I will root for Denham here, as he has won in more Democratic turf, so he is relatively saner. (And Denham is term-limited, so CA-19 run or no CA-19 run, we have a great shot at winning SD-12.) Pombo shouldn’t really be of much concern, as he has placed a distant third in the recent primary poll.

CA-26 (R) – My hometown district, where Dreier faces a primary challenge from businessman Mark Butler. While I consider Dreier to be the heavy favorite, this primary challenge could further drain his campaign coffers. If he wins the primary, Dreier has the advantage of incumbency and a year more favorable to his party (though anti-Obama sentiment is much weaker in California than elsewhere). A disadvantage Dreier has is depleted campaign coffers, from spending like crazy to win only 52% against Warner in 2008 and possibly from this primary challenge.

CA-33 (D) – Former Assembly speaker Karen Bass is likely the heavy favorite, and I hope she wins.

CA-36 (D) – Harman/Winograd redux, only with more fireworks this time around.

CA-42 (R) – Even though Gary Miller’s voting record is unabashedly conservative, he is still getting teabagged by three other Republicans. Count on yet another incumbent scoring a subpar primary performance.

CA-45 (R) – Mary Bono Mack has drawn teabag primary opposition from Clayton Thibodeau for her vote for cap-and-trade. She also voted against repealing DADT in spite of her district having the highest concentration of gays of any Republican-held district, possibly out of fear of getting teabagged. If Thibodeau upsets Bono Mack, this Obama-voting R+3 district could be put into play.

CA-47 (R) – Will Tan and Van split the Vietnamese vote, allowing Kathy Smith to sneak through?

CA-50 (D) – I like Busby, but I think her time has passed, if she couldn’t beat Bilbray in the far more Democratic-favored 2006. Attorney Tracy Emblem seems to have most of the grassroots support.

AD-05 (R) – In this open, evenly-divided suburban Sacramento seat, the Tea Party has gotten into another Republican primary, backing Craig DeLuz against party-backed Prop 8 backer Andy Pugno. I am rooting for DeLuz to win the primary so in one election we defeat a Prop H8er and increase our chances of winning this district too.

AD-30 (D) – The Parra/Florez feud continues, with Nicole’s dad Pete Parra facing off against Dean’s mom Fran Florez, who lost to Danny Gilmore, who didn’t like being an Assemblyman and that’s why he’s not running, which I at first found surprising.

AD-36 (D) – Linda Jones, who ran here in 2008, faces primary opposition from real estate broker Maggie Campbell and police officer Shawntrice Watkins. This time I am rooting for Watkins, because this Antelope Valley-centric district is very law-and-order, being the home of the Runners (Sharon and George, of “Jessica’s Law” fame), and incumbent Steve Knight also having been a police officer before being elected to the Assembly. Watkins could cut into Knight’s law-and-order advantage. Plus Watkins’ endorsement from Equality California can’t hurt either.

AD-68 (D) and (R) – I am really looking forward to an all-Vietnamese matchup here. Will be interesting to gauge the Vietnamese vote if it’s Phu Nguyen (D) vs. Long Pham (R).

And what is a California election without some ballot measures? Five are on the ballot this time.

Prop 13: Tax break to property owners for making seismic retrofits. I like seeing tax breaks used as incentives for good causes. Vote YES!

Prop 14: Top two votegetters in the primary would go on to the general election, limiting voter choices. Vote NO!

Prop 15: Repeals ban on public financing and raises fees on lobbyists to fund a public financing system for SecState election beginning in 2014. Vote YES!

Prop 16: PG&E power grab that requires a 2/3 vote to create public power districts or allow local governments to purchase their own renewable power. Vote NO!

Prop 17: Weakens consumer protections and allow car insurance companies to charge much more for late payments. Vote NO!

Today, Field released its poll on the GOP Governor’s race. And the numbers are looking good for Whitman’s Buy It Now campaign:

GOP gubernatorial candidate Meg Whitman is making inroads among Republicans of all stripes, from young voters to born-again Christians, according to the most recent Field  Poll released Thursday.

After seeing her lead dwindle in public opinion polls last month, Whitman has surged back to a 26 percentage-point advantage over rival Steve Poizner less than a week before the June 8 primary. …

“Meg Whitman has spent $90 million, and that’s four times more than I’m spending …” he said. “So people want to know why all the negative advertising? What’s the truth? What is Meg Whitman trying to cover up?”(SacBee

She said she plans on spending $150 Million, but let’s be honest here. If she’s already spent almost $100, it’s going to get to $200 by the time everything is said and done.

Buy It Now Indeed.

Remember 2006? When Steve Westly and his consultants spent the last few months of the campaign beating up on Phil Angelides? Well, turns out that we are getting the same thing this year from the Republicans. All that back and forth is doing us some good. In a new poll, public policy polling shows some better numbers for AG Jerry Brown:

The big winner from the Republican primary for Governor in California? It might be Jerry Brown. The likely Democratic nominee, benefiting from bad feelings between Meg Whitman and Steve Poizner, has commanding double digit leads over both of them.

Brown is up 48-36 on Whitman and 48-32 on Poizner. There are almost no races in the country this year where Democratic voters are more unified than the Republicans- in almost every case there are more Democrats voting for GOP candidates than vice versa. That’s not the case in California though where Brown takes 79% of the Democratic vote to Whitman’s 72% of the Republican vote and 78% of the Democratic vote to Poizner’s 67% of the Republican vote. Brown is bucking another overwhelming national trend by leading both of the GOP contenders with independents. (Public Policy Polling)

I’m looking for more of the Vulture ad from Poizner. I just can’t get enough of that mystery meat they are eating.

I spoke to a few friends at the California Democratic Party about their recent donation that we mentioned in the open thread yesterday. It was a pretty big deal:

Jerry Brown received $2.25 million in campaign cash from the state Democratic Party’s central committee, his gubernatorial campaign reported this weekend.

The donation by far is the largest single contribution given to Brown, a Democrat and former chairman of the state party. Brown, the state attorney general and former governor, faces no serious opposition in the June 8 Democratic primary. (CapWkly)

In the past, the fund raising prowess of the CDP was shall we say, less than we would have hoped.  But, things can change, and when they do, it can sneak up on you, even us here at Calitics.  Where as the CDP used to be primarily a conduit, it now has its own financial muscle.  This $2 million check comes from the fruits of the CDP’s own labor.

So, whatever there is to be said about the governor’s race and the CDP, there is now a different relationship between the party and the elected leaders.  There CDP can now stand up on its own two legs, and that’s a good thing for progressives, especially with the current structure of Democratic leadership.

(Worth a read. – promoted by Robert Cruickshank)

Friends, I’m ending my campaign for Governor of California today.

In a spirit of service, I stepped into this race in response to a widespread call for a stronger, more issues-based campaign than Jerry Brown was running at the time.  Since then, I’ve traveled up and down the state, talking with voters and making the case for strong leadership.

In that time, Jerry Brown has begun to do what it will take to win:

* He’s been speaking up on important issues, especially clean energy and green jobs.

* He’s reaching out more and more to regular voters, such as students at UCSB.

* He’s begun confronting the Republicans on their ties to Wall Street.

At the same time, the Republicans in this race are tearing each other apart.  They’re falling all over each other to attack immigrants in ways that will alienate latino voters, and help Democrats keep winning the votes of this crucial constituency.

On the policy front, there’s good news too, in the CA Senate’s move toward raising new revenues, as I’ve called for, along with recent polling showing that the voters support this move.

In short, things are now moving in the right direction.

In this new context, the best way I can be of service is by ending my campaign and endorsing Jerry Brown.  I’m doing that today.

It’s time for all of California’s Democrats to stand united behind our nominee.  Jerry brown will be our nominee, with my full support.  He’s an experienced Governor, and he’s been solidifying many of the key relationships that will help him win again in November.  Most importantly, he’s a Democrat, one who will work with, not against, our Democratic majorities in Sacramento and throughout the state.  The best thing we can do for California today is to support Jerry Brown for Governor.  Please join me in supporting him.

Thank you,

Peter Schurman  

Note from Robert Cruickshank – Calitics has a policy of promoting diaries from electeds and candidates to the front page when the diaries are topical, important, or provide valuable information to our readers, and this one certainly counts as all three. However, this should not be construed as an endorsement of Peter Schurman.

Cross-posted at Huffington Post and at Daily Kos.

On June 8th, Californians will choose our party nominees for Governor.  I’m running as a progressive challenger to Jerry Brown in the Democratic primary.

For nearly twenty years, I’ve been a bare-knuckled fighter for regular people and common-sense, progressive values. I was the Founding Executive Director at MoveOn.org, America’s strongest progressive advocacy organization. Although I’ve never run for elected office, I am qualified to be Governor and here’s why I’ll do a better job for California than Jerry Brown.

California needs a fighter right now.  Six-plus years of Republican rule have left our state in crisis.  We need a leader committed to aggressively confronting and cleaning up the mess the Republicans have made, not someone who wants to split the difference.

Here are three of the biggest challenges facing California.  As our party’s front-runner, Jerry Brown should be facing these issues head-on.  Instead, he’s running away from them.

* Money: California, the golden state, has a larger economy than all but 7 countries — yet our government is broke, and regular people are struggling to make ends meet.  Every day we hear another story of budget cuts to vital state programs.  The human costs of these cuts include schools cramming almost 40 of our children into single classrooms, domestic violence shelters closing, massive tuition hikes at our public colleges, and thousands of layoffs from our Healthy Families program.  Why are we letting this happen?  

We have a choice.  Instead of rolling over and accepting these cuts, we can raise the $19 billion we need to turn our beautiful state around.  We can do it mainly by making the oil companies, the big commercial property owners, the corporations, and the richest people pay their fair share — which none of them are doing today.  We can also legalize and tax marijuana, tax services like lawyers as we do physical goods, and end incentive programs that aren’t working.  On my website, I’ve laid out a specific plan to raise the $19 billion it will take to close our ongoing budget deficit and stop the cuts, so we can start taking care of our children instead of the oil companies and real-estate tycoons.

I will do this without raising the burden on struggling Californians.  In fact, I’ll make things easier for people in the lowest income bracket, because right now they’re paying a bigger share of their income than anyone else, and I’ll change that by making the big guys start pulling their weight.

Budget cuts and the $19 billion deficit driving them are arguably the most serious problems facing our state.  What’s Jerry Brown’s answer?  He has none.  He says only that he won’t raise taxes.  He may think that’s smart politics, but it’s not the kind of leadership we need.

* Democracy: You might think we have a democracy in Sacramento, where we settle our differences by majority vote.  In fact, we don’t.  Instead, Sacramento has a 2/3 rule that gives the Republican minority the power to hold our state’s finances hostage, even though we elect solid majorities of Democrats to represent us.  Republicans exploit this power ruthlessly, preventing us from raising the revenues we need, because their Wall Street backers don’t want to pay their fair share.  It’s one of the biggest reasons our state’s in such a deep hole.

We’ve got to end the 2/3 rule and get the Republican boot off our neck.  There’s just no way around it.

You’d think Jerry Brown would agree.  But, incredibly, he’s taken steps this spring to sabotage the campaign to end the 2/3 rule.  As Attorney General, he changed the wording of an important ballot initiative in a way that scares people away from standing up for our rights.

I support ending the 2/3 rule, and so do 70% of Californians.  But Jerry Brown is carrying water for the Republicans, not fighting for us.

* Health Care: Our health care system is a mess.  The problem is the health insurance companies.  They are parasites, sucking up massive sums of money, and giving us paperwork, rate hikes, and denials of coverage in return.  Although President Obama’s new health care law reins in some of their worst abuses, it also perpetuates the problem, by forcing us to buy their inadequate product, and offering no other option.

A better answer is “Medicare for All”, also known as single-payer health care, the most robust form of the “public option” that Californians asked for.  It’s simple and elegant: by getting the insurance companies out of the way, we get better care, and we save tons of money.  

With Medicare for All, the average California family will save more than $300.- per year.  Employers who insure their workers will save almost $800 per employee per year — freeing that money up to hire more people.  California as a whole will save $8 billion in the first year, and $343 billion over ten years.

The California Senate has passed our Medicare for All bill, SB 810 (sponsored by Senator Mark Leno).  The state assembly has passed similar legislation in recent years.  I’m committed to signing it if I’m elected Governor.  Sadly, Jerry Brown refuses to make the same commitment.

—–

California needs a leader we can count on: one whose values are clear, and who fights for us reliably.  I love this state, and I’m fighting for it with everything I’ve got.

But with all of Jerry Brown’s experience, if he’s not willing to stand up and fight for us, what makes me think I can?

Take a look at my track record:

   * Stopping President Bush: As MoveOn’s Executive Director, I ran the campaign that defeated President Bush for the very first time after 9-11, when the U.S. Senate rejected his choices for judges on America’s top courts.  

   * Stopping President Bush again: Working closely with Hill leaders including Rep. Henry Waxman, I led MoveOn’s campaign that defeated President Bush’s 2004 budget in the House, despite Republican control there.

   * Protecting our Climate: I organized most of the grassroots support to pass California’s car emissions law, AB 1493, which was the basis for President Obama’s excellent new nationwide clean-car rules.

   * Getting Corporate Money out of our Democracy: I also organized the bulk of the grassroots support to pass the McCain-Feingold law, banning corporate “soft money” from our political system.

   * Protecting People from Air Pollution: Working for the American Lung Association, I persuaded several states to release their air pollution data in real time, so people with asthma can plan their days in safety.

   * Protecting the California Desert: At the Sierra Club, I helped secure crucial final votes to pass the California Desert Protection Act, the only major pro-environment law passed in the Clinton Administration.

   * Helping Eliminate the U.S. Budget Deficit: I helped run a young people’s campaign in 1992 that put deficit reduction on the front of the national agenda, helping spur President Clinton to balance the budget.

These are just a few examples of the difference I’ve made fighting for progressive values since the early 1990s.  My background, defeating Republican power and moving a positive agenda in the face of an entrenched opposition, is exactly the kind of leadership experience we need in our next Governor.

Governing California will require management chops too.  I have an M.B.A. from Yale, and my management skill is reflected in the enduring strength of organizations I’ve built:

   * As MoveOn.org’s Founding Executive Director (2001-2005), I grew the organization from 350,000 to to 3 million members, and grew its budget from $81,000 to $6.5 million.  I built a solid team, paid them competitive salaries, kept the books in order, and led MoveOn’s millions of members in winning several game-changing victories over the Bush administration.

   * As the Sierra Club’s first National Student Organizer, in the mid-1990s, I secured permanent funding for the Sierra Student Coalition, recruited and trained a corps of skilled student campaign leaders, and created new ways to engage 30,000 students in campaigns like protecting millions of acres of the Mojave Desert as wilderness.

My values are clear and consistent, and I’ve fought for them reliably over nearly twenty years.

I don’t owe favors to anyone, because I’ve always fought for the public interest, against the corporations, and I’ve never taken big money from any industry.  Can Jerry Brown say the same thing?

Does Jerry Brown have what it takes to fight for us?

Let’s look at one more major example: California’s climate-change action plan, known as AB 32.  AB 32 is state law, democratically passed and signed by Governor Schwarzenegger.  But Meg Whitman is promising that if she’s elected, her first move will be to undo it.  She’s working for Texas oil companies, not California’s people.

What does Jerry Brown have to say about this?  He mounts a tepid defense of AB 32, saying he sees room for “adjustments.”

Here’s what I say about it:

Meg Whitman’s assault on AB 32 is utterly insane.  Undoing AB 32 not only threatens our survival, but it cuts the floorboards out from under our emerging clean-tech economy.  Building the new green economy will require investment, and investors need stability, not see-sawing.  Whitman is putting California at risk of blowing the greatest economic opportunity of this decade: green jobs.  Her attack on AB 32 is like going back 30 years and saying we shouldn’t develop the Internet.  Where would eBay be today?

This is the kind of vigorous fight against Meg Whitman and the Republicans that California needs.

With Whitman promising to spend at least $150 million from her Goldman Sachs bank account, Democrats need a candidate we can get excited about, one who can inspire the votes we’ll need to win in November.

Jerry Brown has a long record of service to our state.  But today, he’s not taking the leadership stands we need.  Is it any wonder that, according to a recent poll, 41 percent of people under 40 have no opinion of him?

We can do better.

I have the skills, the values, and the experience to lead our state successfully through the challenges we face today.  I’ve won major victories on behalf of regular people and common-sense values, and I’ve built powerful, enduring organizations.

Vote for progress on June 8th — or as early as next week, if you vote by mail.  Join my campaign for California’s future on Facebook, on Twitter, and at http://Peter4Gov.org.  Thank you.