There was a lot of excitement in the IAM (Int’l Assoc. of Machinists) union hall this morning in Huntington Beach, where DFA’s Jim Dean and a host of local officials testified to the worthiness and strength of Debbie Cook, the Democratic candidate in CA-46, seeking to retire certified nutjob Dana Rohrabacher in Congress.  But the best reaction was for the candidate herself, who gave a straight-shooting, no B.S. speech that made clear the stakes in this election.

“Do-Nothing Dana has been in Congress for 20 years and hasn’t done a thing,” Cook, the mayor of Huntington Beach, said to a pancake breakfast of around 120 volunteers who were ready to precinct walk for her.  Referring to a claim from the campaign’s latest ad, that Rohrabacher has sponsored a bill to protect the country from an asteroid, she said, “he needs to worry less about asteroids and more about planet Earth.”

Cook has really matured as a speaker.  She is great on her core issues – energy, the environment, and health care reform – but she’s also endorsed the Responsible Plan to End the War in Iraq, and really foregrounds smart growth and development issues.  State and local governments are so stressed by this financial crisis that it’s incumbent upon us to send lawmakers to Washington who understand local concerns.  I’ve heard again and again from local lawmakers in that district – and again today from Katrina Foley, running for re-election to City Council in Costa Mesa – that Rohrabacher is openly dismissive of any federal help for local governments, and refuses to work with his counterparts.  At this point that’s downright dangerous, creating choke points that will gut basic services and the smart policies we need – in mass transit, for example – to weather this economic downturn and create a 21st-century infrastructure.

You’ll notice that Foley, the Costa Mesa city councilwoman, is a Democrat.  Gus Ayer, the mayor of Fountain Valley, a Democrat.  Debbie Cook, the mayor of Huntington Beach, Democrat.  Orange County is changing, and those who ignore this reality and rest on their laurels, like Dana Rohrabacher, will live to regret it.  “This is the first time he’s had to get off his lazy a$% and campaign,” she said.  And he was slow to do it.  He only spent $38,000 in the third quarter, but once internal Republican polls have shown the race to be a dead heat, he has swamped the district with money.  He’s got 4 positive ads on the air and a bunch of negative mailers attacking Debbie as an “extreme liberal” on various issues.  If it’s liberal to advocate for quality and affordable health care for all, as she has done in earning the endorsement of the California Nurses Association, because to ignore the crisis welcomes a “fiscal nightmare” that risks blowing a hole in the federal budget for good, so be it.  If it’s liberal to recognize that  our current carbon-based economy is unsustainable, and that we must encourage policies and practices that move us off fossil fuels, there you are.  If it’s liberal to understand that smart density with mass transit can improve quality of life, the environment and the economy, well OK then.

The best part of the speech was when Cook talked about all the support she was getting throughout the district, and she mentioned that some people gave her their economic stimulus checks from the government.  “To stimulate what?  Buying more crap from China?”  While a new stimulus is needed, rather than handing out money as a band-aid we need to direct that spending into something useful, something that will create jobs and get the economy moving again.  We need to make things again in America.

After the speeches, the volunteers were sent out to walk precincts.  CA-46 is a very long and narrow district that hugs the coast from Long Beach and the Palos Verdes Peninsula in L.A. County down to Costa Mesa in Orange County.  Putting those blue areas up north into the district to neutralize their power is a big mistake in this wave election.  As the Cook campaign finds new voters everywhere, turning out folks in Long Beach is part of the strategy.  So I walked part of a precinct in Long Beach and got a very good response.  Rohrabacher simply does not have a good reputation among anyone but the wingnuts, and his record on Social Security (pro-privatization), the military (voted against improving veteran’s health care) and the environment (he’s a global warming denier) is quite extreme.  (There’s also the dressing up in drag to solve the RFK murder and about a thousand other lunatic stories)  I talked to people today who said “We’re Republicans, but we don’t like Dana.”  Very few people turned me away.

Cook’s volunteer base is the edge in this election.  But she also needs some financial help.  The campaign estimates that they need $75,000 to meet their budget and get the last few targeted mailers into the field.  Debbie is a Blue America candidate and a Better Democrat.  You can donate to her on ActBlue.  Please do – we have a real chance here.  I’m hoping to get Debbie on Calitics Radio next week.

And if you’re in the district, consider volunteering by visiting their website.

After having made an excellent tax revenue proposal to solve the budget, are Democrats setting themselves up for an epic FAIL on the budget? Unfortunately it seems that way as they seriously considering raiding transportation and local government funds to balance the budget:

Legislative leaders are drafting a complicated scheme to help close the state’s massive deficit by raiding funds voters have set aside for transportation and local government services, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger said Thursday, adding that it probably would force a state sales tax hike….

The legislative plan would balance the state budget with the help of $1.1 billion voters set aside for transportation projects and at least $1.4 billion earmarked for local governments under Proposition 1A, which was approved in 2004, Schwarzenegger said. State law requires that the money be paid back — at a steep interest rate — in three years.

To say this would be a bad idea is an understatement, and not only because it relies on a very bad form of borrowing to balance the budget. No, it is flawed because it would make the state’s economy much worse. This plan is being floated to stave off a cash crisis in August, but is that crisis worse than cutting buses and trains from mass transit? At a time when Californians are flocking to transit to avoid gas prices we need to be increasing service, not cutting it and thereby turning away from a crucial opportunity to shift our state in a more sustainable direction. And of course public transit cuts will worsen the strain on working families.

The impact on local government is even more damaging. By raiding their funds there will be mass layoffs in cities across the state – libraries, street maintenance, permit approvals. Firefighting would also be hit, as during the last budget crisis when many cities balanced their budgets by cutting back on fire department staffing. Surely the fires in our state right now would suggest the risk of this approach.

Dems might respond that they have little choice because of Republican obstinacy on taxes. But that is absurd. Democrats have done almost nothing to sell their budget plan, which was agreed to rather late in the process. They haven’t done the public work to explain why the budget cannot be closed via cuts. And make no mistake – raiding transit and local governments IS a budget that emphasizes cuts. It gives Republicans everything they want with little in return.

Republicans claim they don’t negotiate in public but we all know that’s untrue. Californians perfectly well understand what their stand is – no new taxes. What have Democrats responded with?

Democrats should not embrace this plan. All it will accomplish is increased distrust of the Legislature – if possible – and sour voters on Democrats due to their leadership failure. Dems will have difficulty generating the public support necessary for long-term fixes if they agree to a plan which will cause confidence in government to plummet. This will only hurt Democrats over the long-term and they would be smart to take a step back and consider what they’re doing.

[Update] I wrote this in a panel here at Netroots Nation on building progressive activism to help the “middle class” that includes our own Juls Rosen and David Sirota. The panelists are making brilliant points about how tax reform is the key to addressing the collapsing middle class – and how the right has effectively used taxes to pass themselves off as populist. People want tax fairness. Democrats need to be forced to take a stand on taxes. California Dems are once again looking to punt and are going to hurt working Californians in the process.