Huge news in the continued counting of Charlie Brown’s race against Tom McClintock.  The latest round of counting has Brown within 329 votes as the provisionals, which tend to favor Democrats, get counted in the larger counties in the district.

Charlie Brown (Dem)    170,168    49.9%

Tom McClintock (Rep)    170,497    50.1%

There are still tens of thousands of votes left to count, and there’s a virtual assurance of at least a partial recount.  Tom McClintock has been sending his list these smug reports of the day’s counting, telling them how everything’s looking great.  I haven’t seen an update from him in a couple days.  Probably because this is shaping up as a replay of the 2002 State Controller race, when the late provisionals put Steve Westly over the top in his race against… Tom McClintock.

Extended races like this cost money to maintain staff and pay lawyers.  You can help Charlie out at the Calitics ActBlue page.

…meanwhile, Hannah-Beth Jackson is moving closer in SD-19.  That race is down to 1,283 votes.

…I guess a slew of votes came in from Placer County and widened McClintock’s lead in a big way.

“We’re not claiming victory, but we just think it’s mathematically impossible for (Brown) to win,” said Bill George, spokesman for McClintock.

George said the thousands of Placer County votes tallied Friday stretched McClintock’s lead from barely 300 votes to 1,793, with only about 4,500 more votes to count in the nine-county district.

Brown spokesman Todd Stenhouse said Brown would not concede, noting that thousands more votes remain to be counted, most of which are provisional ballots that “have been breaking very, very strongly for Charlie.”

“We remain committed to the same goals that we’ve been committed to all along and that is that every vote is counted in this historic election,” Stenhouse said.

Earlier, I mentioned that the CA-04 race is not over.  This bit of news reinforces that fact:

Truckee Town Council is one race that hangs in the balance.

“Four years ago I got 3,700 votes, and Josh [Susman] got 3,300, and this year so far we both have about 2,200,” said current Mayor and candidate Barbara Green.

“Something is not quite right.”

She said she figures about 1,000 to 2,000 votes are still unaccounted for in Truckee.

The missing votes could have repercussions as far reaching as the tightly-contested 4th Congressional District race between Republican Tom McClintock and Democrat Charlie Brown, Green said.

The spokeswoman for a local ballot measure makes this sound more like a mystery of missing ballots rather than votes that are simply uncounted:

Proponents of the Tahoe Truckee Unified School District Measure U hoped the outstanding ballots may make the difference.

“Clearly there’s been a major administrative error. We are hopefully those

outstanding ballots will push Measure U over the top,” said Alison Elder, Measure U chair.

Administrative error?  What does that mean, exactly.

This could be especially important because Brown won Nevada County, the county in question, by a substantial margin (57-43).  If there are potentially 2,000 votes there, that would make up a lot of that difference if the margin holds.

…by the way, Bill Hedrick in CA-44 might be getting into recount territory, incredibly.  It’s down to a spread of just 2.8% between Hedrick and Rep. Ken Calvert, a difference of only 4,600 votes.  It’s the closest Congressional race outside of CA-04.  I am sorry I didn’t pay enough attention to it.  Go Bill!

993_3  McC Linc



Wednesday, October 29, 2008.  8pm.  Tom McClintock addresses a group of potential voters at the McBean Park Pavilion in Lincoln, CA

980  castle

Over four hundred people stood in line outside at a fundraiser put on by the Lincoln Police Auxiliary and Lions Club, to donate canned goods to enter this Halloween Haunted House, also at the Lincoln McBean Park Pavilion last night, Oct 29, 2008, adjacent to the building McClintock was in.

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“Vell- come to my House of Economic Horrors” .  That’s McClintock campaign spokesperson Bill George guarding the door making sure the Democrats and other Subversives, like Independents and other people with notepads, don’t get in.  It worked, George.  There were 18 people.  At least 5 of them were campaign staff.  

Note the Igor force field effect.  He’s not in the viewfinder but within a few yards so the picture blurred again.

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Another view of the Secret Republican Political Meet Tom McClintock in Lincoln event. Peering thru the camelia bushes outside the building

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This is Team McClintock’s sentry standing in front of the local Lincoln Massage Parlor 2.5 hours before the Lincoln McClintock event that evening. It is across the street from the McBean Pavilion.  He whipped out that cell phone when I pulled into the parking lot.  I think it’s time to mention that the former Lincoln Planning and Zoning commissioner during the time Lincoln was approving every single proposed commercial development (during the early 2000’s, when Kevin Ring, Doolittle’s ex legislative aide,  was a lobbyist for the city )  was eventually  busted on prostitution charges and owned another massage parlor in town.   While we’re at it,  McClintock voted against regulating massage parlors while in the State Senate.  

It just writes itself, sometimes.   I can’t make this stuff up.   More pics to come.

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977_2  Roseville McC

Roseville,  Maidu Community Center, 6:30 pm, Wednesday Oct 29 2008.  McClintock addressing potential Republican voters at his first event that evening. View from outside the room, looking  through the window.  McClintock is to the far left, light grey hair, suit, standing facing audience.  Doesn’t look too crowded in there, does it ?  Note door sentries.

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Roseville, Maidu Community Center, Wednesday Oct 29, 2008.  It is 7:10 pm.  They just had about 35 people total dribble out of the room, including the staff and others working as Republicans. The yoga class next door had more people.   McClintock is supposed to be in downtown Lincoln at 7:30 pm.   Is this going to happen ?  Not unless he teleports.  

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This is the fun part.  Meanwhile, back in Lincoln, at the main road into town from the south, there’s some serious Brown support going on !   A demonstration with at least 50 to 60 people is showing their public support for the local candidate.

McClintock is going to have to drive past this to get to his next event in Lincoln.  ( I was there very early and as it ended, but left to see what was going on in Roseville, so these are not my pictures )  

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Charlie Brown supporters waiting along the highway, Lincoln, evening of Oct 29,2008, during commuting hours, ready to give Travelin’ Tom McClintock that Big Lincoln Hospitality Welcome he deserves !

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This is one of the first people that was out there that evening. Veterans for Brown.  

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Young people for Brown.  

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Older people (“seasoned and sage” )  for Brown.

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Working people for Brown  

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Ladies and Gentlemen of Lincoln for Brown

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Jumpin’ for Joy for Brown !

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And once McClintock and his crew got past that, they still had to go thru this .

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The families waiting in line to donate food to the Lions Club, and visit the Haunted Castle House in Lincoln, next to the McBean Pavilion building, Oct 29, 2008.  

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Happy Halloween from Lincoln, CA.  The Great Pumpkin has Arrived, Charlie Brown.  

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McClintock’s bloggers are making bizarre claims about having 3 thousand donors making over $300,000 in donations over the last 10 days-  this is bloviating nonsense, his campaign is still in debt, but  getting big money from outside the district via independent expenditures.  And you should see where some of the dough is coming from, you’d be shocked.  Well, maybe not, after all, it’s McClintock, running the Doolittle playbook.  Remember one of those Indian tribes involved in the Abramoff scandal ?  Remember some companies that Doolittle did earmarks for, then they contributed to his legal defense fund?   Remember how McClintock makes this stupid dig all the time, about how we can’t send somebody to Congress who would implement the same policies as Herbert Hoover ? So what does he do?  He takes a big donation off of a old Reaganite who works for the Herbert Hoover Institute.   Link to McClintock’s FEC filings, the F6 ‘s are the larger last minute filings which have to be reported within 48 hours,  and the F3 ‘s are the quarterly, primary or general filings (covers a longer period of time)   http://query.nictusa.com/cgi-b…

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For just one example, on the latest McClintock F6 filing,

http://query.nictusa.com/cgi-b…    there is a 10/27/2008 donation to McClintock of $2000 from the HERGER PAC, which is Congressperson Wally Herger’s (R, CA- 02) slush fund.  A look at the latest filing of the HERGER PAC show that they just received money from the Credit Suisse Securities PAC,  a  Swiss Investment Bank. From Opensecrets:    http://www.opensecrets.org/pac…

Here’s a list of the individual large donors for Credit Suisse Securities. Note all the New York addresses.  http://www.opensecrets.org/pac…

and from Wellpoint WELLPAC in Indiana.  (Wellpoint was based in THOUSAND OAKS CA, which McClintock uses as his current legal residence for collecting per diems from the state of CA-  what a coincidence )

This is an HMO health insurance PAC. From Opensecrets:   http://www.opensecrets.org/pac…

Now they’re in Indiana. Same business. http://www.opensecrets.org/pac…

Check the donors to this PAC, they’re the executives of this HMO administrator.

http://www.opensecrets.org/pac…

Foreign investment banks based in NYC and HMO’s are giving money to McClintock via Bush enabling Republican Wally Herger.  You’ll never hear McClintock bragging on this while he’s busy playing the “family values” card. He attempts to go to DC not to change anything but to preserve the Republican status quo of NO regulations and more tax cuts.   And this is one of the more pedestrian donations.   Don’t forget Jeff Morris is running against Herger in CA- 02.  

So much for all of McClintock’s alleged “local support.”  Here’s the pictures. Here’s the FEC filings.  Undeniable.  The polls are the 3rd key.  Charlie Brown has the support of the voters.  McClintock just has a PR consultant.

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Now let’s not let all the outside the district forces like ex- Congressman Richard Pombo, sworn enemy of the Endangered Species Act,  and his PAC/West Communications, a lobbyist group dedicated to the Drill Baby Drill mantra in the Artic National Refuge, buy out our congressional district.   Let’s keep Charlie Brown on the airwaves for the last 5 days.  

Charlie Brown for Congress  site  http://www.charliebrownforcong…

Actblue donation link

http://www.actblue.com/page/or…

A few odds and ends:

• CA-04: Tom McClintock is bringing out the big guns to help his cash-strapped campaign – Ron Paul is all in!

Paul, the libertarian-Republican congressman from Texas who raised more than $34 million for his presidential race, sent out an e-mail last week urging his massive donor base to contribute to McClintock.

“Tom McClintock is one of the most promising warriors in the fight against big government we have seen in a long time, and the special interests and big bankers know it. … You have stood with me as….

…I campaigned for the Presidency to return our federal government to its proper role. Will you help me bring a reliable ally to Congress?”

This brings up some interesting questions.  Does Tom McClintock think we should withdraw from Iraq and dozens of other military bases around the world?  Does he believe in abolishing the Federal Reserve?  The coinage of free silver?  

They do have one thing in common, however – white supremacist supporters.

• CA-45: New voter registration statistics have not been released by the Secretary of State’s office, but I think they will show good news for Democrats across the state.  One statistic that is measurable is the early voting number, and in CA-45, it’s good news for Julie Bornstein.

Democrats have significantly narrowed the early voting gap in the 45th Congressional District, an encouraging sign for challenger Julie Bornstein in her battle to unseat Congresswoman Mary Bono Mack (R-Palm Springs), according to Bornstein campaign manager Walter Ludwig.

In both 2004 and 2006, registered Republicans accounted for about 54 percent of early voters, compared with just 34 percent for Democrats. Mack, now a four-term incumbent, cruised to re-election both years by more than 20 points.

This year, early voting is much more evenly split. The latest numbers from the Riverside County Registrar of Voters show that registered Republicans outnumber Democrats by just five percent among early voters.

It’s like the entire Republican machine all collapsed at once.  They used to be MASTERS at getting absentee votes out.  This year, there’s either no such effort, or it’s being matched by Democrats.  CA-45 is under the radar, but these numbers suggest that it shouldn’t be.

• CA-46: At the Great Orange Satan, Devilstower has a great piece that could start a new meme about Debbie Cook – the anti-Palin.

Suppose there was a candidate who was as bright and as capable as Sarah Palin is confused and incompetent.

Someone who had a record of working with environmental groups, and who had a real understanding of the threat posed by our dependence on fossil fuels. Someone with a degree in earth science and the long experience to make the claim of being a genuine energy expert.

Someone who not only knew science, but also had a law degree, and was a graduate of the leadership program at the Kennedy School of Government. Someone who has held positions of honor in state and national commissions. Someone who was well respected for both her intellect and her passion.

Suppose there was a candidate who had been mayor of, not a tiny town, but a medium-sized city. And suppose she took that position as a Democrat in the midst of a heavily Republican district.

Suppose there was someone who was everything that Sarah Palin is not.

Fortunately for us, there’s Debbie Cook.

Read the whole thing.  And help Debbie if you can.

• AD-78: Bill Cavala, who worked the last close race in this district, took a peek at some new registration numbers which show a real advantage for Marty Block:

This year the new registration ‘close’ figures show the Democrats with 101, 131 registrants, an increase of about 4100 from the last Presidential year. DTS registrations are 49,855, an increase of about 5800 from 2004. Most remarkably, however, Republican registration has fallen by almost 8000 – from 82,615 four years ago to 74,700 today.

This means the net change is Dems up 4100 and Reps down 8000 or 12,100 in favor of the Democrat over 2004.

Forget the increase in DTS registrations – which vote more Democratic than Republican in San Diego. Starting out down 12,000 in a seat where they won by 2000 with an incumbent – it’s open this year – puts the Republican candidate squarely behind the 8 ball.

Just one of the many Assembly races where this is so.

Charlie Cook, the favored Congressional tipster for insiders, is notoriously conservative in his selections.  And as such, he’s slow to recognize races that, based on outdated fundamentals, simply “can’t” be competitive.  It’s embarrassing that it’s taken him this long to move CA-04 to a toss-up.  Here’s his precis:

CA-04 OPEN (Doolittle) Lean Republican to Toss Up

All GOP state Sen. Tom McClintock needed to do to put this district away was to run ads noting Democratic nominee Charlie Brown’s attendance at anti-war rallies. The only problem? McClintock ran out of money too soon and has been inexplicably “dark” on broadcast television in the final phase of the campaign, allowing Brown and the DCCC to remain in strong contention by portraying McClintock as a carpetbagger and self-serving career politician.

Republicans in Washington fret that McClintock has run a second rate campaign and that even with an extensive statewide fundraising network, he has failed to put together a competent media strategy. The NRCC, too broke to come to McClintock’s rescue, is also off the air in the expensive Sacramento market. Some Republicans suggest that in the end, their biggest advantage in this district may be the presence of Proposition 8, a measure to eliminate same-sex marriage, on the California ballot. This race should be a slam dunk for the GOP, but right now it is a toss up.

First of all, there’s no way that misleading anti-war rally attack would have derailed the Brown campaign.  Most of the country is against the war.  But putting that aside, Cook shares my astonishment that Mr. Fiscal Conservative McClintock managed to run out of money weeks before the race was over.  That is some epic mismanagement.

Cook is wrong about another thing, the NRCC is trying to ride to the rescue, up with a new ad trying to paint Brown as a “liberal yes man.”  I just don’t think this is the year to throw around the “L” word like it’s some kind of boogeyman.  Anyway, don’t they know that these days, you’re supposed to call the Democrat a socialist or a Marxist?  Looking at the ad, it looks like the NRCC and McClintock went Dutch on it.

The point is that the GOP hasn’t totally given up on this race, and while I’m confident in Brown’s abilities he could definitely use some reinforcements in the final week.  You can give at the Calitics ActBlue page.

The biggest newspaper in the region, the Sacramento Bee, makes the case for Charlie Brown and a new direction in the district, particularly on the area of putting pragmatism above ideology.  Now, I don’t totally agree with all the conclusions of the editorial, but the last bit is unquestionably true:

Brown understands that the that the mortgage crisis, the collapse of the financial system, the credit crunch and the recession are real. He would have supported the rescue plan because doing nothing was worse than doing something, though he believes Congress has done a poor job of selling the package. And the final package assured taxpayers get any profits, required congressional oversight, banned golden parachutes.

This is telling. McClintock sticks to ideology; Brown pragmatically puts the nation first.

The nation and the 4th District need to find ways out of partisan and ideological gridlock. Elect Charlie Brown to Congress.

Now, if the final package wasn’t such a dog with fleas that the feds have basically scrapped it, and if the banks weren’t using it to collect free money instead of facilitating lending, this would be a stronger argument.  Whatever; the Bee’s endorsements have been profoundly odd, and have seemed to value bipartisan seriousness over everything.  But I think there’s a difference between rejecting partisanship and abandoning core principles.  I think that Charlie Brown will govern the way he has campaigned, by working through problems and using his best judgment based on his values and principles.  Tom McClintock is incapable of adapting to changing information whatsoever.

What he will do is try to play dirty to win the election, including sending nasty robocalls throughout the district because they’re cheap for his cash-strapped campaign.  The problem is that they haven’t done a good job of checking their call lists.  The Brown campaign, for example, got robocalled.

UPDATE: The latest poll shows Brown expanding his slim but measurable lead.

Research 2000 for Daily Kos. 10/20-22. Likely voters. MoE 5% (9/23-25 results)

McClintock (R) 42 (41)

Brown (D) 48 (46)

Among early voters (13 percent of respondents)

McClintock (R) 38

Brown (D) 56

Brown takes independents 51-34.  McClintock’s fav/unfav is at 44/42.  Brown is at 49/29.  And McClintock is out of the cash he’d need to push up Brown’s unfavorables.  

This is very good news.  Let’s get this seat.  Stay for Change.

Here’s some tidbits from the campaign trail with 12 days out:

• CA-03: Bill Durston and Dan Lungren debated last night, and it was a predictable affair, says Randy Bayne:

Nothing new, no fireworks, no knockout punch, no excitement of any kind was reported by either MyMotherLode.com or the Stockton Record. Just what we already know – Durston wants us out of Iraq, doesn’t like No Child Left Behind, and thinks the bailout is the wrong solution. Lungren supports the occupation, favors No Child Left Behind, and voted for the bailout.

If you’re looking for change from eight years of down the toilet policy, and you don’t want to continue flushing our future down the crapper – vote for Bill Durston.

If the registration stats cited by anecdotal reports are at all accurate, we’re going to be very close to registration parity in this seat by Election Day.  Lungren may be acting positive in public, but inside the campaign they must be terrified.  They probably didn’t expect Durston to run a credible campaign.

• CA-04: Tom McClintock has caught a bit of trouble for relating gay people to dogs in a roundabout way.

“Lincoln asked, ‘If you call a tail a leg, how many legs has a dog? The answer is four. Calling a tail a leg doesn’t make it one,'” McClintock said in a statement. “And calling a homosexual partnership a marriage doesn’t make it one.”

I’m pretty sure that means nothing at all, but California’s Alan Keyes has had to distance himself from the comment.  Meanwhile his much bigger problem is lacking the funds to run a proper campaign.  He’s now taken to relying on cheap robocalls, and Charlie Brown has immediately called on him to stop.  Dirty trick robocalls that appeared to be coming from the Brown campaign were a major factor in John Doolittle’s narrow re-election in 2006.

• CA-46: I didn’t get a chance to post Debbie Cook’s amazing closing statement at Tuesday’s debate.  Here it is.

The OC Register has a story on this race today.  These “Challenger hopes to upset incumbent” stories have a familiar feel to them – the pose of surprise that the race is competitive, the quote from the shallow CW fountain like Allen Hoffenblum explaining why the incumbent is probably still safe, and the overall sense of shock, which would be natural if you weren’t paying attention for the last 18 months, like, um, us.

• Assembly & Senate: Art Torres and Ron Nehring had a debate yesterday, and I think Torres needed to be prepped a little better.  He claimed that Democrats could grab a 2/3 majority in the legislature but then couldn’t come up with a simple list of what seats are in play.  He should be reading more Calitics.  Nehring replied with a lot of bunk and a little truth.

None of that adds up to 54 and 27, of course, and Nehring said Torres’ boast “just doesn’t pencil out.”

He noted that Democratic efforts to oust Sen. Jeff Denham via recall failed miserably this year and the party ended up with no opponent to challenge Sen. Abel Maldonado in Santa Maria, a district believed to be winnable by a Democrat.

On the Assembly side, Nehring said, Republicans “have a great shot at holding on to” the 15th and “have a number of strategic advantages in the 78th (because) the Democrats have nominated the most liberal candidate (Marty Block) they possibly could.”

In the 80th, the Democratic candidate (Manuel Perez) “is getting hammered on … social issues which are important to many people in the Latino community,” Nehring said.

“I don’t know how can you be serious about trying to have a two-thirds vote in the Legislature,” Nehring told Torres, “when you blow so many of these opportunities.”

I’ll go bottom to top on this.  Manuel Perez is going to CRUSH Gary Jeandron, and if anyone’s being hammered, it’s the Republicans.  The IE money is pretty one-sided in the state.  Between that and the registration gains, it’ll take more than just spin to dig your party out of its self-created hole, Mr. Nehring.

However, on one point I will agree with you.  The Denham recall and Maldonado disaster have indeed stopped the potential forward momentum in the Senate.  Of course, Torres couldn’t say the plain truth – that Don Perata is among the worst leaders in recent Democratic Party history, and has completely set back the state in major ways by his blunders.  He is an embarrassment.

The 4th District had a debate as well last night, the fifth and final of the campaign, and it was spirited.

Every scathing remark and harsh charge that’s gone back and forth in the congressional race between Republican Tom McClintock and Democrat Charlie Brown got one more airing Tuesday night.

Speaking at a forum sponsored by the South Nevada County Chamber of Commerce south of Grass Valley, McClintock was painted as a do-nothing career politician and Brown as a tax-loving big-government advocate.

And there was also some talk about issues, mixed in with the shots, though sometimes each answer was equal parts both.

It was the usual nonsense: McClintock wants to drill here and drill now.  McClintock wants no taxes and no government.  McClintock wants to privatize Social Security (yes, even now).  McClintock thinks Keebler elves can build the roads and bridges and a thimble-full of oil can power a Lexus.  He’s a magical thinker.  But I have to say that this was my favorite part, and not just because McClintock doesn’t know the meaning of the word “liquidity.”

McClintock also roundly criticized the recently passed Wall Street bailout package, saying the better route was to put liquidity into the market.

Brown countered that he supported the plan because something needed to be done, then made reference to recent Federal Election Commission reports that showed McClintock’s campaign in debt.

“You can’t even run your own campaign on a balanced budget, so I don’t trust you to run our nation’s budget,” Brown said.

Brown also hit McClintock over spending the past two years in Sacramento without getting one piece of legislation passed.

Brown took aim at McClintock’s record as a state legislator, making reference to a recent Sacramento Bee story that reported McClintock had a perfect record of getting no legislation passed in the last two years.

“This is about actual results, and not talking about what you want to do unless you propose something else you can get passed,” Brown said.

The debate is not going to have a major viewing audience.  But the airwaves will, and the DCCC has just dropped a long-awaited ad in the district.  It’s good.

That’s quite a lot for 30 seconds, but they pretty much cover California’s Alan Keyes and make him out to be the punchline that he is.

The question is whether or not McClintock has 10 cents to respond to this.