Forget NY-23. Check out CA-10
California's 10th congressional district (Image from wrhammons.com)
Jay Ackroyd raises an interesting question: what’s with the media’s obsessive coverage of the NY-23 race? Sure, there’s the obvious “Look at what the crazy Conservative fringe is doing to Scozzafava!” appeal, but beyond that, NY-23 is no more impressive or provocative than another race on the opposite coast in California’s 10th congressional district, home to over half a million US residents.
Lt. Gov. John Garamendi, a fixture in state and national politics for 35 years, is expected to maintain the Democratic Party’s hold Tuesday on a congressional seat that stretches from the eastern San Francisco Bay area through the California delta.
The special election in California’s 10th Congressional District will fill the seat once held by former Rep. Ellen Tauscher, a Democrat who was named earlier this year to a State Department position.
As Steven Benen over at Political Animal points out, Garamendi is running on a Progressive platform. He supports single-payer health insurance, the federal stimulus package, a strong cap-and-trade system to help cut greenhouse gas emissions, the repeal of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell,” and gay marriage. Garamendi is facing Republican David Harmer, the son of former California Lt. Gov. John Harmer, who’s basing his campaign on an anti-spending agenda. Garamendi is considered the heavy favorite.
This would be a hefty victory for Progressives, but the media has pretty much ignored the story. Sure, it’s not as negatively entertaining as the Machiavellian drama unwinding in New York. Rather, this victory will mean a huge swathe of California is willing to grant a progressive mandate to a candidate, and that’s positively exciting.
Isn’t this west coast Progressive shift just as important as the east coast Conservative victory?
Post Your Comment
You must be logged in to post a comment
T/S Members
Log in with your True/Slant account.
1. There are a lot of California progressives in Congress now – from Pete Stark to Maxine Waters to Lynn Woolsey. The quip Steve quotes says it all: Garamendi is expected to hold the district, so there’s little drama there.
2. With Scozzafava out of the way, the choice faced by NY-23 is whether or not they want a congressman of the Bachmann brand or the kind that they had in John McHugh, a more moderate, northeast Republican. If a tea party ideologue can win in the northeast, it’s going to change the game headed into ‘10. Also, there are interesting arguments to be made about why NY-23 is almost a more important message for Democrats, as it shows that running a Blue Dog against a centrist Republican (or a Tea Party-style conservative) isn’t an assured route to victory.
So as a news editor, I feel very comfortable in saying that the media is making the right choice blowing up NY-23 and ignoring CA-10.
Apart from a cast of weird characters, there really wasn’t much drama in NY-23. Democrats haven’t won in New York’s 23rd since the mid-19th century. A Republican victory in 23 is about as shocking as New York or California going blue in a presidential election. If a single Conservative victory in one state is a “game changer,” then so too is a swing to the Progressive side even if it’s in an already blue state. There’s increasingly a big difference between Democrats and Progressives, so even though the district ostensibly “remains blue,” such Progressive victories may mean big policy changes down the road.
As I mentioned, Dems haven’t controlled 23 in a long, long time, so this doesn’t dramatically alter the political landscape in any way.
However, I do give the story points for being interesting purely on a “Look at the Conservative Party’s fierey trainwreck this week” level.
In response to another comment. See in context »I know some people like to bash Ellen Tauscher for being a ‘New Democrat,’ but at the end of the day, she was a pretty main line Democrat and not someone who was often found crossing the aisle to vote with Republicans in unexpected places; rather, she used her ‘centrist’ credentials to get Republicans on board for various Democratic causes more often. Unlike a lot of Blue Dogs. I haven’t seen a lot of doubts about Garamendi’s victory, so all it shows is that the Democrats don’t have to worry about running progressives in bright blue districts.
The drama of NY-23 has been the appearance that a GOP crack-up was going to send a Democrat to Congress from a traditionally red district; then, the GOP veers hard right and gets control back over a district it was about to lose in the race’s closing days. Also showing them that they can run dark red candidates in purplish districts and win. That’s the game changer.
In response to another comment. See in context »“Look at what the crazy Conservative fringe is doing to Scozzafava!”
That would be true if Scozzafava was a moderate but she’s not; she’s a liberal. Her endorsement of the Democrat should make it obvious that she was a DIABLO.
CA-10 isn’t a “hefty” victory for so-called Progressives because Garamendi is EXPECTED to win. It shouldn’t even be close. In the last election. Obama carried CA-10 64 – 33. Dems hold an 18-point advantage in voter registration in the district. So unless Garamendi wins by double digits, no such “statement” is being made.
All good fiction is based on conflict…a three way conflict is a good story especially when a republican supports the enemy.
There’s also a bit more to the story.
When Tauscher was first elected, the district was heavily Republican. That was the big story – that a centrist Democrat campaigning on family values was able to topple the incumbent Republican and hold the seat for two election cycles
In 2000, the district was gerrymandered removing the Republican areas of the district and replacing them with some very progressive areas including Oakland. Tauscher was never challenged by a more progressive Democrat and, given that she was the Democrat that they had, she has won every election since the re-districting easily.
It really is no great shock that a progressive would win there – particularly when the progressive in question is John Garamendi who has been a big name in California state politics for as long as I can remember. He is a beloved person in that part of the state.
The other way to look at this story is that what Garamendi is projected to win, his margin is looking to be much smaller than one might have expected. We’ll see how it turns out, but there is some question as to what might have happened if the GOP had poured money into the race, something they did not do until last week. Had they been supporting his opponent all along, this might have been a very big story – but not the one we would have liked to see.
[...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by joshua, allisonkilkenny, allisonkilkenny, Queerjohn PA, Tweets Tube and others. Tweets Tube said: Forget NY-23. Check out CA-10 http://bit.ly/3qZEn2 [...]