Partly cloudy this evening followed by increasing clouds with showers developing after midnight. Low 49F. W winds at 10 to 20 mph, decreasing to less than 5 mph. Chance of rain 40%..
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Partly cloudy this evening followed by increasing clouds with showers developing after midnight. Low 49F. W winds at 10 to 20 mph, decreasing to less than 5 mph. Chance of rain 40%.
The California primary was not as exciting as some had anticipated. Despite the jungle — or top-two — primary, most races ended up with a Democrat and a Republican set to fight it out in November. But a closer look at the outcome may pose some problems for Democrats who are counting on picking up some formerly Republican congressional seats in California.
The biggest problem is that there is a Republican candidate for governor on the ballot. John Cox came in second even though he is a relative newcomer to California and most of his recent history is in Illinois where he unsuccessfully ran for the U.S. Senate. He was recruited by House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy, R-Bakersfield, who is looking forward to replacing Paul Ryan as speaker. Just getting Cox to the finals was an achievement because he will help turn out the Republican vote in November. If former Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, a Democrat, had come in second and locked Republicans out of the governor’s race, it would have been great news for the party and its hope of winning enough seats to take over the House of Representatives. Even though Lt. Gov. Gavin Newsom is expected to win, a Republican on the top of the ticket will encourage GOP turnout.
Meanwhile, Democrats are hoping for a bigger turnout in the general election than in the primary. They will need this turnout to take back the House of Representatives. In the seven California congressional seats targeted for a Democratic flip, Republicans led in each. Democrats were relieved that they had a candidate in second place in each of these but it will take work for those candidates to prevail in the general unless Democratic turnout is high and the Democrats who lost in the primary will actually work to support their party’s candidate. It will take more than lip service and an endorsement but convincing their supporters to vote for the winning candidate.
Politics can be intoxicating in a bad way. Candidates are so carried away by their own superiority that many may find it hard to support someone who beat them, even if it is in the best interests of the party and the country. Let’s hope that doesn’t happen.
***
The congressional districts to watch are the 10th where incumbent Jeff Denham is seeking a fourth term. The top Democrat, Josh Harder, beat out a fellow Democrat who almost beat Denham the last time. Still Denham had twice as many votes as Harder at last count. But if the several other Democratic candidates in the race help Harder and Democratic turnout is high, that could be a winner.
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In District 21, Democrat T. J. Cox finished second to incumbent Republican David Valadao. Cox moved from the 10th because he thought he had a better chance here. But again, Valadao was way ahead.
In District 25, Republican Steve Knight will face Democrat challenger Katie Hill. In District 39, in Orange County, a new Republican candidate Young Kim will face Democrat Gil Cisneros. Kim was asked to run to appeal to the growing Asian population in that part of the state. In District 45, two women will compete in November, the incumbent Republican Mimi Walters against the Democrat Katie Porter. Here again, Waters had more than twice as many votes as Porter.
In District 48, incumbent Republican Dana Rohrabacher led the ticket but two Democrats are battling for second place, Hans Keirstead and Harley Rouda. The combined votes of the two Democrats are more than the endangered Republicans. In district 49, the seat once held by Republican Darrell Issa is up for grabs. Republican Diane Harkey led a field of eight Republicans while Democrat Mike Levin rose to the top of the four plus Democrats running. Levin beat out the candidate who almost beat Issa the last time around. With the unpopular Issa off the ticket, it will be more difficult for the Democrats to win this seat.
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But this isn’t just about California. It’s about who will win the House in November. It is also about who will hold Donald Trump accountable for his misdeeds. To date, the only Republicans who are willing to do so are those who are retiring. Trump’s tweets and Rudy Giuliani’s bombasts are directed to Congress. The House and Senate are Trump’s firewall against an impeachment or any action following an indictment.
Sue Lempert is the former mayor of San Mateo. Her column runs every Monday. She can be reached at sue@smdailyjournal.com.
I think the American people are the firewall for Trump from getting impeached. Sue- for an experienced political operative, don't you need a crime in order to get impeached? Can someone on the left tell me what our president is guilty of?
Well, he admitted to obstruction of justice on national television. And he's obviously in violation of the Emoluments clause of the constitution, by virtue of not having divested his equity interest in various hotels that foreign dignitaries stay at.
For anything worse than those two (which are sufficient) you'll have to wait for the Mueller probe to conclude.
We really need to jettison the jungle primary; neither party wants to be locked out of the fall elections. How about we move to doing an open primary that advances FOUR candidates to the fall, and conduct both the primary and general election using a ranked or rated ballot. Ratings can be something like 0-10; you can score simply based on the average rating, treating no rating as a zero by default; or you can convert the ratings to rankings, allowing for equal placements. There are a wide variety of ways to score ranked ballots. One decent one uses bottom-up elimination; somewhat similar to Instant Runoff, but significantly more robust against some weird failures / strategic games that happen with IRV. Instead of just eliminating whoever has the least first-choice votes, you take the two candidates with the LEAST first choice votes, compare rankings for them across all ballots, and eliminate the loser; repeat until there's only one candidate remaining. (Or, in the case of the suggested improvement to our jungle primary, until there are four remaining.)
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(2) comments
I think the American people are the firewall for Trump from getting impeached. Sue- for an experienced political operative, don't you need a crime in order to get impeached? Can someone on the left tell me what our president is guilty of?
Well, he admitted to obstruction of justice on national television. And he's obviously in violation of the Emoluments clause of the constitution, by virtue of not having divested his equity interest in various hotels that foreign dignitaries stay at.
For anything worse than those two (which are sufficient) you'll have to wait for the Mueller probe to conclude.
We really need to jettison the jungle primary; neither party wants to be locked out of the fall elections. How about we move to doing an open primary that advances FOUR candidates to the fall, and conduct both the primary and general election using a ranked or rated ballot. Ratings can be something like 0-10; you can score simply based on the average rating, treating no rating as a zero by default; or you can convert the ratings to rankings, allowing for equal placements. There are a wide variety of ways to score ranked ballots. One decent one uses bottom-up elimination; somewhat similar to Instant Runoff, but significantly more robust against some weird failures / strategic games that happen with IRV. Instead of just eliminating whoever has the least first-choice votes, you take the two candidates with the LEAST first choice votes, compare rankings for them across all ballots, and eliminate the loser; repeat until there's only one candidate remaining. (Or, in the case of the suggested improvement to our jungle primary, until there are four remaining.)
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Keep the discussion civilized. Absolutely NO personal attacks or insults directed toward writers, nor others who make comments.
Keep it clean. Please avoid obscene, vulgar, lewd, racist or sexually-oriented language.
Don't threaten. Threats of harming another person will not be tolerated.
Be truthful. Don't knowingly lie about anyone or anything.
Be proactive. Use the 'Report' link on each comment to let us know of abusive posts.
PLEASE TURN OFF YOUR CAPS LOCK.
Anyone violating these rules will be issued a warning. After the warning, comment privileges can be revoked.