(The second in an occasional series of articles highlighting California legislative districts and candidates that could provide Democrats with a vital 2/3 majority.)

On the drive out from Santa Monica to Simi Valley, there’s a moment when you know that you’ve left Los Angeles County and ventured into Ventura.  Suddenly, the greenery recedes away, the canyon walls rise, and the scene becomes positively dramatic.  If you let your mind wander, you could picture yourself in the middle of a John Ford movie backdrop or a national monument somewhere in Utah, despite being just 35 miles from downtown LA.

I was headed out to a fundraiser, driving along the 118 Freeway, which area transportation poohbahs see fit to remind you is named the “Ronald Reagan Freeway” about every 8/10th of a mile.  Astonishingly enough, this was a Democratic fundraiser.  For a candidate seeking a seat held by Tom McClintock, arguably the most rock-ribbed conservative in the entire state.  And it’s a seat Democrats can win.  Things are changing along the Ronald Reagan Freeway.

If you want to look at it statistically, there’s no better resource than ortcutt’s fantastic rundown.  The raw numbers are pretty clear.  Over the last 5 years, Senate District 19, serving Ventura and Santa Barbara Counties, along with a sliver of LA County at Santa Clarita, has gone from a 7-point Republican registration advantage to just over a 4-point one, one of the larger moves in the whole state.  The state’s districts were designed not to have any variability, and yet that’s what’s happening.  And this is not just about registration.  Feinstein and Boxer both carried this district, and in 2004 Bush carried it by a mere two points.  And that was before his disastrous second term.  For this and other reasons, the demographics are changing here.

SD-19 (here’s a map) covers major areas like Santa Clarita in LA County, Thousand Oaks, Simi Valley, Camarillo (hello outlet malls) and San Buenavento in Ventura, and large sections of Santa Barbara County like the city of Santa Barbara.  Far more of the district is located in Ventura County, however, and the area has seen a migration of sorts, as residents priced out of the wealthier Santa Barbara housing market have moved in.  And Ventura County Democrats have been relentless.  I have seen their work up close; my region as an AD delegate stretches up through this district, and I have seen presentations of the innovative efforts that were instrumental in closing the registration gap.  These shifts did not happen by accident.  Sure, the different socioeconomic shifts played a part, as well as the failed leadership of the President and an incumbent State Senator who values budget numbers in a ledger far more than constituent services.  But more than that, they were the work of aggressive new tactics.  One of these programs is Vote Blue Committee Central Coast, designed to register and bring to the polls 13,900 new Democrats in 2008.  The group is targeting new residents, building a reliable, locally-based voter file, and encouraging vote-by-mail.  This is the kind of new tactics we need to see replicated throughout California to realize the goals of a true 58-county strategy.

This is why I’m excited about SD-19, regardless of who ultimately runs in the general election.  On the Republican side, Tom McClintock is a termed-out incumbent who is already raising money for yet another statewide run, this time for the Board of Equalization.  I’d be absolutely shocked if this committed conservative would go back on core ideology and decide to run a third term, should the ballot initiative pass and allow him to do so.  Anyway, there’s already a candidate, last year’s State Controller nominee Tony Strickland.  He has the signed endorsement of every member of the Republican Caucus.  He’s looking to join his wife, an Assemblywoman, back in Sacramento.  But he’s really just looking for something to do until Elton Gallegly retires from the Congress.  There’s no burning desire to serve the public here, just a resume-builder until Strickland graduates to the seat he thinks he’s entitled to. 

Which is why I think it’s healthy to have two excellent candidates in a primary, raising the profile of Democratic values, fighting for the right to take down Strickland next November.  We all know about Hannah-Beth Jackson from her incredible work at Speak Out California and her tireless advocacy of progressive ideals.  Let me tell you a little bit about Jim Dantona, who’s been in the race about four months and who you may not know as much about.  First of all, Ventura County Democratic activists in the area pushed very hard for him to run.  I usually give latitude to the locals on the ground for determining who is their best candidate to serve their district.  In this case, Dantona has a resume that is undeniably impressive.  After a brief baseball career with the Chicago Cubs in 1969, he taught elementary school before spending 10 years as chief of staff to longtime Senate President Pro Tem David Roberti.  Later, he founded an organization called “Baseballers Against Drugs” to teach kids the importance of staying clean and addiction-free.  And he’s a single parent of three grown children.

I attended a fundraiser for Dantona last Thursday, featuring longtime friend and former Maryland Lt. Governor Kathleen Kennedy Townsend.  The blogger Mark Gage at Conejo Valley Democrat, who I met at the event, has an excellent writeup.  Dantona likes to style himself a “centrist,” and I have no illusions that he’ll be with the most progressive elements of the party on every issue.  But I will say this.  The three main points in his stump speech were jobs, health care for every Californian, and scrapping No Child Left Behind.  As centrism goes, I’d say he’s more Tip O’Neill than Joe Lieberman.  And he didn’t have a bad word to say about Hannah-Beth Jackson, which to me is crucial.

I’m agnostic about the primary, other than thinking it’s very good for the Democratic Party in this area to have two proud Democrats discussing important issues that people in this district haven’t heard about for 8 years.  The locals clearly see this as a terrific opportunity to change the seat and get halfway to that elusive 2/3 majority in the Senate.  And it would obviously set Republicans spinning in their McMansions to see a Democrat representing the towns along the Ronald Reagan Freeway.

Oh, boy, today's a cool news cycle. I mean, how can you not love the fact that every newspaper in the state is running some article about how the GOP is tearing itself apart. So, let's get right to it.  On Sunday, Tom McClintock, thrice a statewide loser, argues that in fact his vision (you know, the one that lost three times) is the way the GOP needs to go.  Well, I'm  sure the state is just lining up to ditch the minimum wage and all those pesky consumer protections in exchange for vague promises of the market making everybody's life utopian.  That's worked really well in the past, right? So, from the state's conservative leader:

“Today, I hear some say that we need to redefine who we are as Republicans,” McClintock told roughly 200 people who hung around Sunday to listen to the final speeches of the California Republican Party's three-day convention. “I've got news for them. We don't need to re-define our principles, we need to return to them.” (Oak  Trib 9/10/07)

Well, first, I love that the GOP convention ditches the resolutions too, and that nobody stuck around to listen to ol' Tom. But, what are those values that Tom wants to return too exactly? Wait, I know! Ronald Reagan:

Bono agreed. “President (Ronald) Reagan renewed the hope of our nation  shared his vision of America,”  she said during her address. (Desert Sun 9/10/07)

That would be Mary Bono, not the incredible lead singer of U2. Ronald Reagan was a person, flesh and blood, not a principle. During his tenure, the defecit balloned and we got involved in wars of choice. Is that the principle McClintock wants? Or is that Arnold's principle? I get confused, because everybody claims Reagan, because, “Me First” is a great principle to live by.  Flip it…

And then you have to love the bumper stickers that they sell at the GOP convention. The SacBee notices ones like “Republican Women like Men”. Wow, sanctimony, hypocrisy and homophobia play together like the best of friends in the GOP.  Holier than thou is a whole way of living!  But the Bee gets back to the back and forth between 2006's “ticket”:

In a Sunday address to about 250 delegates, McClintock mocked the governor's plan to reduce greenhouse gas emissions 25 percent by 2020 as a “so-called global warming bill” and said such reductions would be a tall order because “carbon dioxide is an integral part of all human activity, starting with exhaling.”

Replied Schwarzenegger communications director Adam Mendelsohn: “That is not a sentiment shared by the vast majority of California Republicans. The sooner we figure that out, the sooner we'll be back on the road to success.”

McClintock said the Republican problem in California is that GOP voters are staying home because they believe their party has lost its core values.

“We can win some short-term victories by compromising our philosophy for political expediency,” McClintock said. “I've actually watched some people do that. But a party that does that soon discovers it has ceased to be a party. First, it loses its soul. And then it loses its supporters.”  (SacBee 9/10/07)

At some point, the GOP will have to get its head out of the sand. While Arnold is far from perfect, at least he ackowledges some of the reasonable “facts on the ground”. There is no longer need to argue about whether we face a climate crisis, we must now do something about it. But the GOP and its base clings to last century's economy and last century's science (if they acknowledge science at all).

 I suppose I could go on with the coverage of the GOP tearing at its own wounds. (Maybe they need one of those dog cones –>) There are plenty of stories left around the news world (I highly recommend George Skelton's take), but I'll just sit back and smile and watch the GOP attempt to chase its tail. It couldn't happen to a more deserving party.

Tom McClintock is termed out in ’08 and the race to replace him is heating up.

Tony Strickland is a leading GOP candidate, with McClintock staffer Mike Stoker also in the running. Since the eastern portion of the district is seen as key to victory, other names mentioned include Simi Valley councilman Glen Becerra.  This promises to be a very ugly, expensive primary for the GOP.

Democrats are waking up to the possibility of  taking this seat away from the GOP and adding to their current majority in the State Senate.

GOP registration advantage has been slipping and is now just over 4%, including many liberal republicans in Santa Barbara. The problem area of the district is seen as the GOP strongholds of Simi Valley, Moorpark & Thousand Oaks.  We need a Democrat who can run strong in those areas.

Many Dems have been mentioned. Ventura Supervisor Steve Bennett, former Santa Barbara Assemblywoman Hannah-Beth Jackson and current Assemblyman Pedro Nava have said they’re not running or are leaning that way. They’re all from the Santa Barbara or the western part of the district.

My favorite possible candidate is Jim Dantona. We need to draft this guy to run! 

He ran for a Supervisor’s seat last year in the Simi Valley/Moorpark area, which only has 30% registered Democrats.  He is credited with unseating the longtime Republican incumbent in the June Primary, but unfortunately lost the  final in a bitter general election race to a well funded ultra-right candidate in November, by only 895 votes. In the end, Jim Dantona took 48.5% of the vote in a heavily gerrymandered GOP district. It’s clear that he received strong support from voters across the isle. 

Who is Jim Dantona?  Currently a legislative advocate and small business owner, Dantona was Senate Pro-Tem David Roberti’s Chief of Staff for 10 years in Sacramento.  A former major league baseball player and single father of 3, he taught & coached elementary school for 5 years, and has been involved in philanthropic projects in his community for over 20 years, including establishing the organization B.A.D. – Baseballers Against Drugs.

Strong on environmental issues, he’s been outspoken against Waste Management’s plan to triple the size of their landfill footprint in Simi Valley, and has consistently advocated for  stronger action against Boeing to protect families & the community from the Rocketdyne facility groundwater/site contamination. This area’s residents have been plagued by cancer clusters & a myriad of health problems for years. Dantona has been one of the few community leaders to consistently demand answers and action.

We need a strong candidate in this district who has proven he can appeal to voters across party lines, while maintaining Dem core values. 

We need to draft Jim Dantona.

Dantona 08: A home run for the 19th

I guess there’s no fun in being post-partisan.  According to the Sac Bee Tom McClintock will NOT ATTEND Gov. Schwarzenegger’s address to the California Republican Party tonight, because he “is so dismayed by the governor’s positions.”

“Many Republicans supported him in 2006 based on the simple, unequivocal campaign promise he made not to raise taxes,” McClintock said. “He broke that promise and proposed the second-largest tax increase in state history. I will never trust another word he says.”

OK, this is the man who ran as the Republican candidate for Lieutenant Governor, arguably the second-highest Constitutional office in the state.  It’s essentially Schwarzenegger’s running mate.  This is basically akin to Cheney just leaving the seat behind Bush empty at the State of the Union. (Dare to dream…)

more…

This is just an extension of the disillusionment Republicans have had with Arnold.  Not at the voting booth; the right held their nose and voted him back into office.  But all of his signature achievements last year passed with hardly any Republican support in the legislature.  Tonight he’ll be talking in front of a party which increasingly feels abandoned by him, particularly on taxes.  McClintock is in the dead center of Republican Party philosophy and he doesn’t waver.  He also has lost FOUR statewide races for various offices, and once for the US House.  His vision of the Republican Party is incommensurate with majority opinion in this state.  The CA Republican Party’s idea of a moderate is someone who calls all prison inmates animals.

That’s why there pretty much is no Republican Party in California, and in the post-post-partisan era, virtually nobody appears to be able to mount a statewide run (I mean, who?  Steve Poizner and his $30 million?).  The Democratic Party has its troubles as well, and the progressive movement is trying to fix that from the ground up.  I have always submitted that the increase in “Decline to State” voters here has everything to do with the fact that you have two weak parties, and the one that steps up and starts engaging voters and addressing real needs of the people will have a tremendous opportunity to forge ahead.

One more day folks.  Let’s make sure we don’t lose any races because our voters didn’t make it to the polls.  Call, walk, whatever. You know what to do.

Teasers: Another Datamar poll, Arnold has a restraining order against McClintock to keep him 100 miles away at all times,  some journalistic fawning over Arnold, Pelosi push back and more!

Ouch, that’s gotta hurt, especially when it comes from your “running mate”.  I missed this one when I did the Odds and Ends, but it’s probably worth a separate post and FP status.  Salladay has the info:

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, speaking to reporters in Oakland today, went after state Sen. Tom McClintock — the Republican candidate for lieutenant governor and his supposed running mate. Times reporter Peter Nicholas writes that the Republican governor today was asked about McClintock’s opposition to the infrastructure bonds on Tuesday’s ballot and the governor, who championed the bonds, replied:

  “Sen. McClintock, I appreciate his opinion, but he’s totally wrong on that one. Because if you go his way of thinking, then we will never rebuild California.”

See, the real problem is that we aren’t getting enough money to the source of the problem.  The root cause is Prop 13, the massive subsidy for property owners.  Especially grevious is the inclusion of commercial property, which changes hands far less often, and has increased in value very significantly since 1978.  You think Arnold really wants to answer the real questions?

Well, at least Arnold is right on this one: Tom McClintock is totally wrong for California.

It’s Friday, the election is Tuesday.  Jerry and Charlie need lots of volunteers, see Ethics in Congress’s diary.  If you are in SoCal, I’m sure Francine Busby could use some volunteers.  Also, Democratic Victory HQ’s will be needing volunteers. You can find locations near you here. You can sign up here.

Ok, teasers: Field Poll, McClintock is crazy, Laura Bush needs to communicate more with her husband, there aren’t enough absentee ballots in SD, and more!