Tag Archives: Nick Liebham

The State of the Races in California

Howie Klein has a look at the state of congressional races in California as voters are heading to the polls in what should be a tsunami year for Democrats.

Over the flip…

The most likely district to go from Republican to Democrat this year is CA-04 where corrupt Republican incumbent John Doolittle– along with the equally corrupt Mrs. Doolittle– will soon be headed for prison and the GOP is trying to slip in an ideological doppelganger in the form of L.A. right wing extremist Tom McClintock. First McClintock, widely seen as an interloper and carpetbagger, will have to get by the Democrat who came close to beating Doolittle in 2006, local boy Charlie Brown, a retired Air Force Lt. Colonel known for standing up for working families.

There are two other Blue America candidates running strong races, Russ Warner in CA-26 and Debbie Cook in CA-46, both awakening red districts represented by entrenched rubber stamp Republicans David Dreier and Dana Rohrabacher. No one ever mentions the two most glaring anomalies about the two Republicans: Dreier is a hypocritical, self-loathing closet queen who takes his lover/overpaid chief of staff on exotic vacations all over the world at taxpayer expense; and Rohrabacher is out of his mind and the biggest– probably onlysupporter of Taliban terrorists in Congress. Instead, battles in both districts are being fought on familiar turf– both incumbents have taken massive amounts of “donations” from special interests like Big Oil and commercial banking and insurance and have always voted for their interests instead of the interests of the working families in their districts.

Three other California Democrats are making credible cases to displace out of touch incumbents. Up near Sacramento, far right extremist Dan Lungren is facing his stiffest challenge ever from Bill Durston. Meanwhile Mary Bono Mack, who doesn’t have any connect to her district any longer, is getting a run for her (big corporate contributors’) money from Julie Bornstein. The sixth challenger with a real shot at winning is Nick Liebham who’s taking on corrupt rubber stamp lobbyist Brian Bilbray in Northern San Diego County. This afternoon Nick talked with me about Bilbray’s shameful record concerning veterans. “Bibray’s voting record as it concerns veterans really speaks to his distorted priorities and values,” said Nick. “Irrespective of how you feel about the war, and I have called for a timeline to withdraw our troops, we as a nation have an obligation to provide for our heroes when they return home.  Brian Bilbray will send them to a war into perpetuity but wont send them to college.  He is a disgrace.” Nick’s campaign got a tremendous boost in the last couple of weeks when a local hero, former Marine Gen. Joe Hoar not only endorsed Nick, but started campaigning for him and cut a devastating TV commercial as well.

As Howie notes, the disgusting decision by Democrats to focus on an incumbent protection redistricting following the 2000 census means that we are in the second cycle in a row where it is unbelievably difficult for Democrats to take advantage of a nation that has realized Republicans are an awful choice. While it is important to talk to your parents about voting Republican, it is quite difficult to beat them in California. So if you live in a competitive district, please do all you can to help out. And since it is likely you don’t live in a competitive district, sending money is helpful. And hopefully, following the 2010 census, Democrats will follow a Burton redistricting model that is far more Phil than John.

CA-44th Campaign Update

Our campaign manager, Ryan Sandoval, wanted to update folks on this blog as to where California’s 44th Congressional District race currently stands, what sort of support we have in the district, what our chances of winning are, what we’ve been doing to ensure victory,  and what our opponent has been up to.

We encourage you to watch the video and then make up your own mind as to whether you think our race  is winnable.  If you agree with us that this is a completely winnable race (given the right support), we ask that you help us out by donating to the campaign or signing up as a volunteer to help in spreading the word about Bill.

This  has always been a grassroots campaign so we’re doing what we’ve done all along – reaching out and asking that the grassroots activists out there step up and help the good guy win in November!

To learn more about our campaign, visit our website at www.hedrickforcongress.com

Thanks,

Lori Vandermeir

Communications Director

Hedrick for Congress

Watch the video at: www.HedrickforCongress.com/CampaignManager

Tuesday Open Thread

Seems about time to have one of these open thread thingys.  Some interesting stuff I saw:

  • Swing State Project upgraded CA-50 (Bilbray-R vs. Liebham-D) from Safe Republican to Likely Republican.  Liebham’s fundraising was fairly good, and the district is only R+4.6, certainly not out of the realm of possibilities.
  • Check out a nice SacBee interview with Sen. Darrel Steinberg about revenue.
  • The FBI is continuing its focus on public corruption, its 4th highest priority. Once again, Oakland seems to be in the crosshairs. sigh…
  • What else is going on?

    DCCC Targeting Forty GOP-Held Seats

    DavidNYC on the Swing State Project found a listing of the 40 Repugnant-held Congressional seats targeted thus far by the DCCC.  The seats include those for John Doolittle-to-Nothing, CA-04, David Dreier, gay in Palm Springs gay resorts and straight in the CA-26, and Brian Bilbray, CA-50.

    Missing is the CA-45 where Mary Bono has been absentee-Congresswoman since dating Connie Mack, R-FL.  Bono Mack is now thought to be leaning towards moving to FL and eventually running for Mack’s seat when he runs against for Bill Nelson’s, D-FL, U.S. Senate seat.     This would allow the termed-out Bonnie Garcia, R-CA, Assemblywoman from the CA 80th Assembly District to run for U.S. Congress.

    Here is DavidNYC’s find:  

    Mon Dec 24, 2007 at 12:12 AM EST

    The subscription-only Roll Call bagged an interview with DCCC Chair Chris Van Hollen last week. Van Hollen explained that the D-Trip has plans (at least, as of now) to target forty Republican-held seats. Frustratingly, Roll Call didn’t reproduce the list online, but did include it in their print edition. Fortunately, were able to snag it from p. 15 of the PDF version on their website (note: this link will probably not point to the proper issue as of Jan. 7th, 2008):

    More below the flip…


    Dist  Incumbent              Leading Dem Candidate 2006 D %age 2004 Bush %age

    CA-04 John Doolittle     Charlie Brown*                       46                   61

    CA-26 David Dreier        Russ Warner                          38                   55

    CA-50 Brian Bilbray       Nick Leibham                          44                   55

    * Denotes repeat candidate