I AM I SAID, TO NO ONE THERE

Mike Levin all by himself: Well, this is awkward

A Dem PAC called "Flip the 49th" organized a "Candidate Viability Forum" on Friday, March 2nd and invited all of the Dem candidates to come and make the case for why they have a path to win in the primary.

The PAC's rationale for the event? To narrow the Democratic field.

How'd that work out for them? Ho ho ho.

Two candidates showed up: Mike Levin and Christina Prejean.

All the other candidates were no-shows, bailing at the last possible minute, citing legal issues stemming from the specter of potential coordination with the PAC organizing the event. The internets were immediately en fuego, filled with dueling scans of official legal letters and FEC citations as surrogates spun like tops.

Back to the event, where (to her credit), Prejean promptly dropped out of the race in her opening statement. Seems like a victory for "Flip the 49th" in spite of all the no-shows, right? The forum worked, right? Well, Prejean was polling at 1%. The Dems really needed to knock Sara Jacobs out of the race.

Sara wasn't there. In fact, from what I hear, Sara was the one who convinced all the other candidates not to show up, brandishing her opinion letter from Perkins-Coie like a weapon (making the case that attending was a bad idea).

It's pretty obvious why Sara didn't want to go - she was going to be the focus of all that pressure to drop out (and rightly so). It's less obvious why Doug Applegate and Paul Kerr started taking legal advice from Sara's law firm. Point to Sara for scuttling the forum and getting others to go along with her.

Anyway, the debate went on as planned with lots of people coming up to the mic and asking questions to candidates who weren't there. It was a very weird moment.

To some extent the evening became the Mike Levin Show since he could hold forth as much as he wanted. But the moderators insisted on the original debate rules and held him to 90 second responses, at times cutting him off in the middle of his remarks. Which was again, profoundly weird.

This whole thing seemed like yet another symptom of the craziness and confusion among the Dems. Sara wiggled out of a potentially acutely embarrassing situation and lives to fight another day. The Democratic circular firing squad is still going strong (and may be picking up steam).

DIRTY DIANE GETS THE OCGOP ENDORSEMENT 

The Orange County GOP formally endorsed Dirty Diane Harkey for the 49th in spite of her Board of Equalization woes (corruption and misplaced funds led to a drastic "smallifying" of the agency's power) and the swirling controversies around her and hubby.

That's not a huge surprise.

Dirty Diane Harkey in Orange
(We assume OC Orange)

What is interesting is an SD Rostra post about why Kristin Gaspar had no chance: Because Gaspar "supported and passed" an "anti-Second Amendment City Council proclamation" during her time on the Encinitas City Council. Not just that, but she has donated money to Democrats in the past. Doh.

Gaspar Glamor Shot

During the regular February OC GOP Central Committee meeting (about a week before the endorsement vote), Michael Schwartz of the Orange County Gun Owners made an impassioned speech against Gaspar and distributed a bunch of nasty flyers. Ouch.

Is Gaspar a RINO according to the GOP hardcore? That could be trouble for her!

Here's a link with details:

SD Rostra Post on Why Kristin Gaspar Lost the OCGOP Endorsement

WAY TO SPIN, MR. LEVIN

The California Democratic Party convention is behind us. Dem candidate Mike Levin wasn't endorsed by the party for the 49th congressional district. This cat believes Levin's central strategy for winning the June primary (what I'd call the "party insider strategy") has resulted in a great big belly flop. 

However, oddly, soon after the convention, this graphic started making the rounds in various FB groups, on FB pages, in discussion forums, and in emails:



Way to spin a loss! Anything short of 60% of the votes meant "no endorsement". Which means "no pie for you". Winning the party endorsement would have unlocked party dollars and campaign machinery in addition to giving Levin the coveted label of "the only candidate endorsed by the California Democratic Party". Losing means... well... it really just means he got a few party insiders to vote for him. 

Like 25 insiders total. Yup, that's the 53%. 25 of of 47 total votes. Even better, from what I hear, Mike Levin and his wife were two of the 25 votes. If that's true, it's dishy. Yes, Levin and spouse were almost 10% of the endorsement vote total. Oh, snap!

So. Probably wise to refrain from the self-congratulatory graphics and posts emphasizing the 53% endorsement vote. When you know what actually happened, it's kind of embarrassing.

For a slightly more grounded take on what happened at the convention, take a read:

Orange Juice Blog: Colonel Applegate Holds the Hill

CIRCULAR FIRING SQUAD: RED EDITION



Darrell Issa's decision not to run again in the 49th district looks pretty good for the Republicans. Issa was a vulnerable incumbent (he won by less than a point in 2016). Democrats hated him with the passion of a thousand burning suns. He had a high net disapproval rating in the district. It was all bad.

Now, he's moved aside to make room for new fresh faces.

Rocky Chavez announced first to replace Issa and is the current Republican front-runner; he's also a close second to long suffering Dem Doug Applegate in both the recent SurveyUSA and FM3 polls. Rocky is an inspired choice. He's a retired Marine Colonel with a 28 year career in the Corps under his belt. He started a charter school (I mean, wow, he started a freaking SCHOOL). He served on the Oceanside City Council and then stepped up as Acting Secretary of the California Department of Veterans Affairs. Then he won the 76th district seat for State Assembly. The guy has a great resume.

If the Republicans can find one other good candidate to run alongside Chavez, they stand a chance of shutting out the Democrats in June (see CIRCULAR FIRING SQUAD: BLUE EDITION, the previous post in this blog).

Candidates for the big spoiler role include Diane Harkey and Kristin Gaspar.

The political blog Orange Juice calls Diane Harkey "Dirty Diane Harkey", a nickname I'm happy to adopt. Dirty Diane is running a decently close second to Rocky in the two recent real polls.

Dirty Diane has all sorts of problems.

Yes, she has government experience at the State Board of Equalization and the State Assembly before that. Yes, she has a long career in banking and financial services. Yes, Issa strongly endorsed her (what was he thinking?!).

But the Board of Equalization is pretty much a laughing stock. The Governor and state legislature stripped it of most of its power and responsibilities after multiple scandals including corruption and misplacing $350 million (how do you do that exactly?). Oh, and her husband has been in all kinds of trouble. Like criminal trouble. I'll let the Orange Juice political blog fill in the details:

A quick primer on Dirty Diane Harkey

Yuck - Something is rotten in Harkey-ville

As for the scandal that led the Governor to take action:

Governor Strips Powers From Corrupt Board of Equalization

State Board of Equalization is a Mess

Dirty Diane doesn't look like a great #2 to Chavez in the Great Race to Lock Out the Dems. She's running a smart digital campaign - whenever I type in a topic to Google for my own research, it seems like Google AdWords surfaces an ad for Harkey's campaign. So she's always on my mind (cue the music). But she's icky. I can't believe she's going to be the #2 that knocks out the hapless Dems. I wish she wasn't always on my mind.

So... who is riding to the rescue? Not TrumpBot Brian Maryott or "Mr. Smith Goes to Washington" patent attorney Joshua Schoonover (two of the five Republican candidates both polling in the low single digits).

The answer is Kristin Gaspar.

Ahhhh. Kristin Gaspar. A moderate Republican who won elected office as city councilwoman and then mayor in blue, blue Encinitas, showing she can attract cross-over voters. A politician with a career on rails, thanks to her election to the San Diego Board of Supervisors where she actually took out a Democratic incumbent in 2016 (Dave Roberts). A powerhouse centrist with a seriously high voltage campaign adviser (yes, looking at you Jason Roe).

It's like a golden god-ray from heaven broke through troubled storm clouds and lit up Kristin Gaspar with an exalted golden glow. Hallelujah.

Not so fast. Gaspar barely eked out a victory against Roberts in 2016 and he was plagued by a truly nasty scandal that brought him low. And Kristin has problems of her own. She and her husband created a sham charity ("We Love Encinitas") back in her city council days. She's taken hundreds of thousands of dollars from questionable donors. There is an endlessly circulating video loop of her proudly announcing her vote and support for Trump in the 2016 primary. And... she is very, very impressed with herself. She used to run her city council meetings like a kindergarten class where she could arrogantly boss around the other council members (inspiring the nickname "Mean Girl" because she's just so much like a... mean girl).

She's not perfect.

But she might be enough. Especially if the Dems all grievously wound each other in the primary.

The scenario that may haunt the Republicans is one where Dirty Diane and Mean Girl Kristin decide they are both in it to win it and beat each other bloody. Or even worse, Dirty Diane and the Mean Girl could team up and beat the snot out of Rocky. That could leave an opportunity even the fratricidal Democrats might be able to capitalize on.

So, the coast in't entirely clear, even in red country.

As much as we might all dream of a three way mud-wrestling match between Rocky, Dirty Diane, and the Mean Girl, that's probably wishful thinking. By my reckoning, the real stakes for the Republicans in the primary race are locking out the Democrats. It's hard to imagine a scenario where Rocky isn't on the ballot in November. The question is whether or not the Republicans can get Dirty Diane or the Mean Girl into the #2 spot.

All things considered, this is a pretty good dilemma to be worrying about for those with (R) next to their names. 

CIRCULAR FIRING SQUAD: BLUE EDITION



The primary election for the 49th congressional district is coming right up in June. Let's talk about how things are shaping up for Team Blue.

Doug Applegate came within 2,000 votes of beating Darrell Issa in 2016. So, of course the logical thing for the Democrats to do would be to double down on Doug in 2018, right?

Nope. There are five announced Dem candidates for the race in the 49th. Three of them have lots of money. All of them seem to be working hard to make sure that no Democrat is on the ballot in November. What we have here is a classic Democratic circular firing squad!

Mike Levin is the main challenger to Doug Applegate; Levin  announced a while back and is backed by the Democratic Party machine. He's very well connected because he raised boatloads of money for Hillary Clinton in 2016.

A Dem party insider justified the decision to bet on Levin instead of Applegate like this: "Those votes in 2016 were against Issa, not for Applegate". Or something to that effect. So, in other words, we can run our guy and it will be fine.

Now that Levin has been at it for several months, we see this strategic masterstroke paying off brilliantly in two relatively recent polls, one from SurveyUSA and one from FM3 (paid for by the Flip the 49th PAC).

Well, OK, the masterstroke is not paying off, actually. Turns out a bunch of people actually did vote for Doug Applegate in 2016 after all. Applegate is well ahead of Levin in both polls (and remains the front-runner overall). But Applegate's lead is not what it could be, in part because Levin has been pounding away at Applegate for months. Way to beat up your front runner, Democratic Party. Your big donors are pouring money into a systematic campaign to weaken the candidate with the best shot at winning the district.

So, you could argue that this is what came before the other candidates announced:


With all that said, Applegate has been slow off the mark this year. His fundraising has been anemic. His surrogates only recently began showing life on social media after passively getting hammered for months by Team Levin. And he isn't doing much in the way of paid digital, mailings, or TV. He needs to get out there. And he needs money to do that.

What about the other candidates? Let's start with two very rich people who have decided that money can buy them a nice district in Southern California. Well, we have one very, very, very rich person and a merely very rich person.

In the 1% of the 1% of the 1% category is Sara Jacobs, grand-daughter of Irwin Jacobs, the fellow who founded Qualcomm. Irwin has a net worth well over $1 billion. Yes, with a "B". Anyway, 29 year old Sara has recently moved into the 49th district for the purpose of spending a whole bunch of money to win the seat. She immediately gave her campaign a cool million bucks.

She's now busy throwing all that money into a rather robust media campaign (which means lots of TV ads). She's put a dent into both Applegate and Levin. Her numbers are almost as good as Levin's numbers, and he had a ridiculous head start and gigantic institutional support. I'll bet you a kibble that Levin is not at all happy with Sara!

Sara is truly a spoiler, a wrecking ball of total destruction for Democratic hopes in the 49th. She doesn't have much of a shot at winning a top slot in June but she can wreak utter havoc on the two Democratic front-runners. With the ill-considered brawl between Applegate and Levin early on in the campaign season (egged on by the party establishment), both front-runners are now weak enough that Sara can take support away from them and unintentionally ensure that no Democrat at all is getting on the ballot in November. She's very, very dangerous (if you're a Democrat). 

Our merely very rich person is Paul Kerr, who has made between $30 million and $40 million in real estate. Kerr seems like a good guy and he came on his fortune honestly, working hard to go from nothin' to somethin' over a long career. But let's be honest. Kerr is not a great politician. He polls in the low single digits. He's not getting traction. He has no prayer of doing anything except taking some votes away from a credible front runner.

The last Dem entrant is Christina Prejean, a military veteran and good person who speaks very earnestly and has no shot at all.

Add it all up and the Dems have labored mightily (and spent a whole bunch of money) to ingeniously set themselves to be shut out of the November general election. That's quite a feat in a swing district where the incumbent just bowed out and Trump has a significant negative approval rating. In California. In a blue wave year. 

If the Dem candidates all keep beating the crap out of each other between now and June, they are likely to split the Dem and Dem-leaning votes between them and give the two top slots to Republicans. 

It started with Applegate and Levin slugging it out for months. Backing Levin was a miscalculation by the Dem party insiders and the donor establishment. But now Sara Jacobs is the true harbinger of doom for Team Blue. 

If you lean blue and you're not gloomy enough yet, know that even Kerr and Prejean can do some serious damage with a couple of points in the primary if they don't bow out. 

With all the friendly fire between Dems leading up to the primary, it's not hard to see how two Republicans can coast to the general. The FM3 poll confirmed that if all the Dems stay in and one Republican bows out, they'll nail it.

The circular firing squad will have done its job.

Some of these Dem candidates need to get the hell out of the race.

And as long as this cat is dispensing free advice, might I suggest that a few big Dem donors give Doug Applegate some money. The old soldier is holding up pretty well with no resources. Back him for reals and the Dems might have a chance in June instead of the current mutual suicide pact!

KITTY WELCOMES YOU!

It's silly season in the 49th congressional district. With Darrell Issa out of the 2018 race, things have gone completely nuts. At least ten candidates have announced. There are circular firing squads forming on both the Democratic and Republican sides.

If you live in the district and you care at all what's happening in the race, then this is the place to get snarky, catty, uncensored updates on the crazy three ring circus that has put up its tent here. The show goes on until the June 5 primary election and perhaps beyond - to the general election in November. It'll be quite a ride!

What's the 49th district? Well, if you are on the 5 going south from Orange County to San Diego, then start paying attention at San Juan Capistrano. You're driving through the district all the way down to Del Mar in San Diego County. The district jogs inland for Ladera Ranch in the north and Vista in the south but mostly includes coastal cities in south Orange County and north San Diego County.

Darrell Issa is representing the district for now, but he's announced that he's not running again in 2018. That's when the crazy started. Enjoy.