This is the last part of a series of posts analyzing competitive Senate elections in blue states. It is the second section of two posts focusing on the greatest state in the union (otherwise known as California). The first part of the series can be found here.
Suburban SoCal
Southern California (SoCal, in short) is where the battle for California will be won or lost. Ms. Fiorina must accomplish two tasks in the region.
First, she must clean the clock in the suburban counties outside Los Angeles.
This is the third part of a series of posts analyzing competitive Senate elections in blue states. It will focus on California. Because California is such a big and complicated state, it will have two sections - of which this is the first. The second part can be found here.
California, Section 1
In the greatest state of the union, a fierce senatorial battle is brewing. Former HP executive Carly Fiorina is mounting a tough challenge to incumbent Democrat Barbara Boxer. In an anti-Democratic national environment, polls show the race close and competitive. This post will examine the obstacles Ms. Fiorina will face as she seeks to overcome California's formidable Democratic geography.
As America's most populous state, California contains a number of distinct regions. This post, and the one following, will examine each.
At Calitics yesterday, Brian Leubitz took note of widening leads for Brown and Boxer (52-43 for both) as both have done well in debates with their GOP opponents, who've come off more like debating robots than credible human beings. Which is appropriate, I suppose. But not nearly as appropriate as Meg Whitman's maid problem with Nicky Diaz Santillan. It echoed a similar event that torpedoed former GOP governor (and Whitman advisor) Pete Wilson in his now-forgotten 1996 presidential run. Following his 1994 Prop 187 advocacy, when he lost the GOP the state's Latino vote, in 1996 he lost his voice and all credibility, as it was revealed that he'd had an undocumented maid in his employ for years. It's beginning to be as predictable as Larry Craig syndrome. From the SF Bay Guardian:
Whitman calls out SF and immigrants, and karma calls back
09.29.10 - 4:25 pm | Steven T. Jones |
The gubernatorial debate highlighted stark contrasts over immigration, taxes, independence, and qualification for public office.
During last night's gubernatorial debate, Republican nominee Meg Whitman bashed "illegal" immigrants and singled out San Francisco as the state's worst coddler of those without proper immigration papers. But today, it was revealed that Whitman employed an undocumented Mexican immigrant as her housekeeper and nanny from 2000 until last year. Ah, karma, the great leveler.
After being asked what California should do about immigration issues, Democratic nominee Jerry Brown gave a reasonable answer that should have appeal to people of all political stripes, calling for halting illegal immigration by securing the border with fences and modern technology that electronically verifies the status of visitors, but bringing the state's 2 million undocumented immigrants out of the shadows by creating a way for them to achieve legal residency status.
"We can't just round them up and deport them like they did in Eastern Europe," Brown said, an incendiary analogy that was nonetheless true, reminding voters of the police state implications of the right-wing approach to the immigration issue.
Yet Whitman then essentially called for doing just that with increased enforcement, albeit with a slightly more polished approach than most angry nativists, saying the presence of "illegal immigrants" was a serious threat to California. "We have got to eliminate sanctuary cities," Whitman said, naming San Francisco as the worst culprit, and saying, "We have to hold employers accountable for hiring undocumented workers."
So should Whitman be held accountable for employing Nicandra Diaz-Santillan for almost a decade? Maybe not to legal authorities, but certainly to voters who will now question her integrity and whether she has been hypocritically grandstanding on such a politically divisive issue.
Whitman's excuse is that she didn't know her housekeeper was undocumented because she was provided false paperwork, an excuse that most California employers could also offer, showing just how ridiculous Whitman is for pretending that being "tough" can solve this "problem."
That was one of many Whitman forays into fantasyland, such as equating with "independence" a campaign funded almost entirely with her Wall Street windfalls, one she is using to advocate for aggressively cutting taxes on big business and the rich. And then pretending that's somehow a plan to close the state's massive budget deficit. Pure nonsense.
That's it precisely. It's not that the revelation by itself would have doomed Whitman. Schwarzennegar's history of violence against women did nothing to prevent his election in 2003 because press-fueled adulatory coverage made it relatively easy for him to shape the coverage. Whitman, OTOH, has had to buy her adulatory coverage herself, $119 million worth, so far, and both she and Fiorina have come up noticeably short, adopting rightwing stances that are primed to explode on them, as has apparently just happened.
Robert Cruickshank has more detailed thoughts on what this episode signifies:
GOP Senate Candidates Oppose Climate Science And Policy
by Brad Johnson, ThinkProgress Wonk Room Climate Editor
Updated September 14. View the original version here.
A comprehensive Wonk Room survey of the Republican candidates for the U.S. Senate finds that nearly all dispute the scientific consensus that the United States must act to fight global warming pollution. In May, 2010, the National Academies of Science reported to Congress that "the U.S. should act now to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and develop a national strategy to adapt to the inevitable impacts of climate change" because global warming is "caused largely by human activities, and poses significant risks for - and in many cases is already affecting - a broad range of human and natural systems."
This finding is shared by scientific bodies around the world. However, in the alternate reality of the fossil-fueled right wing, climate science is confused or a conspiracy, and policies to limit pollution would destroy the economy.
Remarkably, of the dozens of Republicans vying for the 37 Senate seats in the 2010 election, no one supports climate action, after climate advocate Rep. Mike Castle (R-DE) lost his primary to Christine O'Donnell. Even former climate advocates Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) and Rep. Mark Kirk (R-IL) now toe the science-doubting party line.
Many of the Senate candidates are signatories of the Koch Industries' Americans For Prosperity No Climate Tax pledge and the FreedomWorks Contract From America. The second plank of the Contract From America is to "Reject Cap & Trade: Stop costly new regulations that would increase unemployment, raise consumer prices, and weaken the nation's global competitiveness with virtually no impact on global temperatures."
But being a Californian, I was particularly ticked off by the following:
"The courage to examine the science behind global warming?" WTF? You know what this sounds like to me? It sounds like Bell Curve racism, thart's what: "The courage to examine the science behind racial equality." Only in this case, there isn't even the pretense of any science that can actually be used.
This is a CEO who, in the words of another right-wing Republican in the form of a former GOP presidential candidate, was too ego-driven to successfully run a company. She was a great self-promoter, but not so much on the actually getting the job done at HP thing. The board hated her, after all she was spying on some of them. The employees hated her, she laid off thousands of them, so no surprise there. And, oh yeah, the stock value of HP halved while she was the CEO.
Certainly we can agree that the last thing California needs is somebody too concerned about their own ego to focus on the very real problems we have to deal with today.
And this ad by Senator Boxer does nothing other than turning a mirror on Carly Fiorina's career. She's running as the former CEO of HP, so she has to face those facts. She was fired as CEO, and as David W. Packard, a son of one of the founders of HP, said, nobody has hired her since.
Let's not let Carly Fiorina use the Senate as a rebound gig.
Carly Got Upset!
And, as follow-up, Robert Cruickshank from Calitics wrote:
It's Only Class Warfare When We Fight Back
by: Robert Cruickshank
Fri Sep 17, 2010 at 11:00:00 AM PDT
Barbara Boxer's newest ad is a damning attack on Carly Fiorina's record of destroying jobs in order to make herself richer - including enjoying her million-dollar yacht.
The ad is devastating because it shows that instead of being someone concerned about creating jobs for Californians, Fiorina is just out to make herself richer at everyone else's expense. The 30,000+ workers who lost their jobs during Fiorina's failed tenure as HP's CEO are testament to this, including those who saw their jobs sent overseas.
In short, Boxer is pointing out to Californians that Fiorina has been conducting class warfare against us for years - leading the charge of the wealthy against the jobs and basic economic security the rest of us are barely clinging to.
So how does Fiorina react? By claiming Boxer is engaged in "class warfare":
The Republican candidate, speaking to The Chronicle's editorial board, added: "Given that (Boxer) is choosing to play class warfare, I think it is wholly relevant that she is, in fact, a millionaire, and that she chooses to scapegoat."
In other words, it's perfectly normal and acceptable to destroy the middle class by laying them off and sending their jobs overseas so you can buy a yacht and run for the US Senate, but when someone like Boxer stands up for working people and fights to create good jobs here in California, well suddenly it's class warfare.
This is the typical reaction of the wealthy whenever anyone points out that their policies are little more than piracy, raiding our prosperity and economic security for their benefit: they react by saying we're engaging in "class warfare" merely by pointing out what is going on.
This is really all the complicated it is: An utterly failed, utter pirate (who only a clueless doofus like John McCain would choose to elevate to national political status) tries to run for high office, has the truth told about her & feels too upset for words.
She certainly has no idea what to say about Boxer. When a millionaire criticizes other millionaires for their cruel and callous behavior, she's not engaging in "class warfare". As FDR could tell you in a flash, she's being a "class traitor."
For civic ignorance alone, Fiorina ought to be disqualified from public office for life.
In fact, maybe, just like Meg Whitman, she shouldn't even be voting.
The 2010 Senate picture continues to get wilder this morning. Three updates:
Connecticut; Rob Simmons has dropped out of the Republican primary, leaving WWE magnnate Linda McMahon to face Richard Blumenthal. Yesterday, Blumenthal apologized for exaggerating his military record. He still has a lead in the polls, but nowhere near the commanding, 30-point leads he once held.
South Carolina: The first trial heat poll out of South Carolina shows Republican incumbent and conservative movement icon Jim DeMint leading Democrat Vic Rawl by only 50%-43%. The only other poll on this campaign had been a generic ballot test from early December, showing DeMint up by 9%, with a lot of voters thinking DeMint spent too much time endorsing conservative candidates nationwide rather than paying attention in South Carolina. So, the poll is believable, and DeMint likely is in some trouble (until Rasmussen shows him up by 27% next week).
This campaign goes up on the competitive seats chart. The current winning percentage for Rawl sstarts at 3%. That figure is if the election were held today, and is not a projection on the future trends of the campaign.
California: In a hard to believe poll, Survey USA shows Carly Fiorina ahead by 23% in the Republican primary in California (and Meg Whitman back ahead by 27% for Governor). This poll isn't like any of the others on the campaign so far, but combined with the others it actually gives Fiorina a 1.3% lead in the primary.. If Fiorina does win the Republican nomination,that is good news for Barbara Boxer. While Boxer only leads Tom Campbell by 4.7% (92% current win %), she leads Fiorina by 8.3% (98% current win %).
All told, these updates improve the Democratic position in the overall forecast by 0.09 seats, for a new total of 52.17 seats. This is another high, post-Evan Bayh's retirement, for Democrats in the Senate forecast.
In the most severe incidence of mockery of a political ad I have ever seen, #demonsheep is now trending worldwide on Twitter!
The mockery is entirely deserved, as it is directed at this ad by Carly Fiorina:
Man, I hope Fiornia wins the California Republican Senate primary. I want to see this kind of insanity for a full nine months, not just the next four.
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