With only $14,733 raised, and $2,558 cash on hand as of the last financial disclosure statement, congressional challenger Christopher Scott Riggs doesn’t pose much of a threat to Congressman Ken Calvert, the eight term incumbent.  But the Democrats know that offering a primary challenge is a good way to get Republican incumbents to waste money in the primary, and put a dent in their war-chest for the general election.

Take Riggs’ situation for example.  At the end of the 2009 filing period, he had only raised $2,000 for his congressional campaign against Calvert, and with the candidate filing deadline quickly approaching, he needed $8,758 to pay his filing fees and candidate statement fee.  According to my estimates, Riggs may have had $4,875 on hand at the time, and still needed $3,883.  So how did he do it?

In step Nancy Pelosi’s business partners, Warren and Nancie Mitchell, to save the campaign.

At the last minute (on 3/8/2010, just before Riggs drops a total of $7,018 on 3/8 and 3/9/2010 for filing fees), Warren and Nancie Mitchell each contributed $2,400, the maximum allowed contribution, to Riggs’ primary campaign.  The contributions make up 38% of Riggs’ total contributions.  Warren Mitchell is the Chairman of Clean Energy Fuels Corp, Which is funded in part by Paul and Nancy Pelosi.  Unrelated, Clean Energy Fuels corp was also awarded $34 Million of DOE stimulus money, or 11% of the total funding by the DOE.

Warren and Nancie have also contributed to:

Sen Diane Feinstein (D-CA) -  $1,000
Rep John B. Larson (D-Conn) – $500
Sen Harry Reid (D-Nev) – $1,000
Sen Chris Dodd (D-Conn) – $500

So the question I have, is what interest does Nancy and Paul Pelosi’s business partners have in this race?

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This just dropped in my In box from Tom Harman for Attorney General Campaign. If viewed widely this video should destroy any chance Cooley has at winning the Republican nomination for Attorney General.

From Tom Harman for Attorney General:

Sacramento, CA – In a new video posted on Vimeo this week by USC law professor Jody Armour, Los Angeles District Attorney Steve Cooley spends much of a 63-minute interview attacking California’s Three-Strikes law, as well as “Jessica’s Law.” The video of an interview at the Univeristy of Southern California’s Unruh Institute of Politics on October 23, 2009 captures Cooley railing against Jessica’s law, blaming on “Republican ideologues.” He then advises the audience if they want to pass a law in California to “name it after a female.”

The event was titled: Crime, Punishment & Rehabilitation: The Politics & Policy of California’s Prisons and featured Cooley, former Assemblyman Pat Nolan and Armour.

“Earlier this week a Cooley spokesperson tried to tell a leading news agency that he never took a position on Jessica’s Law. Well this certainly sounds like a clear position to me,” noted Harman campaign strategist Tim Rosales.

Steve Cooley has continually shown contempt for Republican voters and tough-on-crime laws like Jessica’s Law and Three Strikes. As this video makes abundantly clear, “his liberal positions on the issues put him far out of the mainstream, not only of Republican Primary voters, but of the 70% majority of all Californians who voted for Jessica’s Law,” said Rosales. Jessica’s Law protects Californians from violent sexual predators.

“Californians have a better choice for Attorney General,” concluded Rosales. Tom Harman brings over 40 years of legal experience to the job, supports Three Strikes and Jessica’s Law and is the author of legislation to streamline the death penalty.” In February, 2010 Harman was named Crime Victim United’s “Legislator of the Year.”

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Patrick Ruffini, noted and syndicated conservative blogger, had a quite entertaining tweet yesterday, it read:

“Carly Fiorina’s Facebook page is still defaulting to show “fan” posts. Not the best move, in her case. http://bit.ly/bvSOsG”

Apparently Carly doesn’t have as many “fans” as she would like.  On the page, if you subtract Carly’s own posts, the majority of the comments on her wall are calling her a RINO and are people disgusted with her.  It seems everyone is ready to put the failed presidential candidate, John McCain, and his cronies out to pasture and move forward with a real brand of conservatism.  Let’s see how long her wall on facebook is “public”….her overpaid media consultants are probably flipping coins on deciding whether to make her page private or not…either way, they will be hit.  In the spirit of baseball season, all I can say is.: “SWING and a miss Carly.”  Lets just hope she continues to vote after she’s defeated.  That is a tough task for her.

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With a heavy heart, I am sad to report the loss of a great defender of republican values.  We have lost Barry Nestande, one of California’s finest political minds, and part of the iconic Nestande political family.  He collapsed and died suddenly of a heart attack today, quotes a close political insider.

Please keep the Nestande family in your hearts and prayers.  Barry’s brother Brian Nestande currently represents much of Riverside County in the Assembly.  His father also served in the California Assembly in the late 70’s.

Barry Nestande’s blog on flashreport.org can be found here

Added after original post:

The Desert Sun is now reporting more details.  read it here

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For the past week I have been trying to think of a reasonable defense for a candidate for any office to refuse to appear in a debate or at least a campaign forum.  If you’ve frequented the Flash Report (www.flashreport.org) you may have read that by a 10-1 margin members of the California Republican Party want to see a debate for key statewide races at the convention next month.  It seems however, that two of the major candidates are responsible for holding these debates up.

The two candidates who are bending over backwards to avoid a debate and actively trying to shut down an effort to organize a debate?  Meg Whitman and Carly Fiorina.  Apparently the dynamic duo who have been MIA at the polls until recently apparently have no eager desire to join in another cherished part of the American democracy…discussing and comparing ideas with your opponents!

Steve Poizner responded to the “debate or not debate” question by offering t surrender his slated speaking appearance at the CRP Convention to make room for a debate with Whitman.  To up the ante a little more the Poizner Campaign sent out an email today uging voters to sign a petition to have a debate at the CRP Convention.   You can find the petition here:

http://stevepoizner.com/debate-petition/?tr=y&auid=5959384

From the looks of it Whitman has not offered much of an explanation other than she doesn’t want to debate.

Similarly the other diva making their political debut, Carly Fiorina is dancing around the same issue.  Fiorina however, is a multi-talented debate dodger.  Everyone’s favorite failed CEO is not only dodging the CRP debate, she is now refusing to attend a debate that was being organized by Chapman University.  Clearly the organizers of the Orange County debate aren’t too please with Ms. Fiorina either, this scuffle was chronicled in today’s OC Register Total Buzz Blog:

http://totalbuzz.freedomblogging.com/2010/02/18/is-fiorina-ducking-o-c-debate/30437/

If Whitman and Fiorina are serious about representing California they should not treat interest voters as subjects.  The spirit of representative democracy finds its soul in an open disscussion of ideas by those who hold and seek power.  Carly and Meg should repect this tradition. Their refusal to debate sadly is not surprising, but what should we expect from candidates who have just recently figured out how to vote, only to ask for ours a few years later?

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This is fresh from a caucus meeting this afternoon – and about two hours old.

Read here for more

Martin Garrick is in his first day as leader and he takes a faceplant right out of the gate. No wonder the Tea Party out polls the Republican Party…

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If you’re entertained by politics in California, then you should have your popcorn ready watching  a few statewide races on the GOP side this past week.  Gubernatorial hopeful Steve Poizner lopped the first grenade of the week by holding a press conference accusing Meg Whitman of unethical, and even illegal campaign tactics.   The accusation stems from an email that was sent by a Whitman campaign official Mike Murphy directly to the Poizner campaign.  In the email Whitman’s camp urges Poizner to drop out of the race to preserve political capital that would be better spent on the US Senate in 2012.  The email also pretty blatantly vows that Meg will drop $40 million in negative expenditures against Poizner in the primary should he stay in the race.  During the press conference Poizner indicated that he was filing a complaint with the FBI, US Attorney and California State Attorney General’s Office.  Of course the irony with this complaint being filed with the AG’s office brings the 3rd major candidate, Jerry Brown, into the mess as well.

Not to be outdone entertaining us political spectators, while the Poizner was conducting his press conference, mailmen around the state were delivering complimentary signed copies of Whitman’s new book “The Power of Many” to California Republican Party members.  The reason Meg’s campaign is trying to get in the good graces of the CA GOP faithful may be because of the news on Tuesday that she wouldn’t be participating in a debate with Poizner at the coming CA GOP State Convention in March.  For those CA GOP members who didn’t appreciate the gesture from Meg, there is now a Facebook group for them to consider should desire to cash in on Meg’s gift:

http://www.facebook.com/group.php?v=wall&gid=451343800471

And then there was the Demon Sheep…

This disturbing image that would make Freddie Krueger blush is brought to you by the Carly Fiorina campaign.  In her new ad she criticizes Tom Campbell for being a “F.C.I.N.O” (pronunciation still unknown).  The ad has generated a huge internet buzz, not for its substantive content, but for the ridiculous imagery.  In fact, late last night #DemonSheep became a trending topic on Twitter.  A conservative activist reportedly from North Carolina has started a twitter profile for the Demon Sheep (http://twitter.com/demonsheep) and had over 1,200 followers in under 24 hours.  The updates are actually quite hilarious.  In fact US Senate GOP rival Assemblyman Chuck DeVore’s campaign has already capitalized on this buzz by vowing to eradicate Demon Sheep from our political discourse and has set up http://www.demonsheep.org to advance that objective.

This ad is incredibly embarrassing for Carly’s campaign despite the what her campaign is proclaiming.   Fiorina campaign spokeswoman Julie Soderlund acknowledged the avalanche of attention the ad has received when the National Review quoted her today:  “It has taken on a life of its own. We produced it with the intent of breaking through the clutter, but it has exceeded our expectations. It seems to be everywhere online. Some people call it the best ad ever, some say it is the worst, but everyone is talking about it.”  Really Julie?  Some are saying the best ad ever?  Apparently denial isn’t just a river in Egypt in Fiorina world.   Successful political ads usually garner attention and drive a message home, all the attention surrounding this ad has been focused almost exclusively on the bizarre “Demon Sheep.”  Furthermore, the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee is urging the Fiorina Campaign to make more video “preferably featuring farm animals.”  At least the Fiorina creative team received a vote of confidence from the enemy.

For those who have not seen the now famous ad, here it is:  (Warning characters in this video may cause nightmares and is not suitable for children)

Demon Sheep

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This press release from Senator Harman’s campaign just hit my inbox.

It is interesting to note how far Steve Cooley’s numbers drop once the public is informed that he is opposed to California’s popular three strikes legislation.

Press Release below:

Harman Leads Cooley by 6 Points in Latest

Attorney General Poll

FIRST BALLOT

California Senator Tom Harman 21.3%

District Attorney Steve Cooley 15.1%

Republican Senator and Attorney General candidate Tom Harman leads Los Angeles District Attorney Steve Cooley 21.3% to 15.1% in a new statewide poll of Republican likely voters conducted last week.  “Basically, Steve Cooley is unknown outside of Los Angeles County, L.A. is only 19% of the Republican vote, and Mr. Cooley is by no means universally loved there,” said Harman strategist Wayne Johnson.

The poll results prompted Johnson to strongly re-affirm Harman’s commitment to win the Republican nomination for Attorney General. “I find it disingenuous that the rumor mill of an opponent who is trailing in fundraising, trailing in endorsements and trailing in the polls would suggest that the frontrunner should consider leaving the race,” said Johnson.  “These numbers should put to rest any notion that Tom Harman is not only the frontrunner, but that he is in this race to stay. He will be the nominee.”  In the same internal poll, Harman led Chapman law school dean John Eastman, another rumored candidate, by a margin of 27.9% to 11.7%.

FIRST BALLOT

California Senator Tom Harman 27.9%

Law School Dean John Eastman 11.7%

“We’re very confident that Tom Harman will be the Republican nominee and that he will be the best match-up, by far, against any of the potential Democrat nominees,” added Johnson.  “California Republicans, particularly primary voters, are looking for a candidate who will defend the Three-Strikes-and-You’re-Out initiative to keep repeat felons off the streets.  Tom Harman is that candidate.”

Harman has been endorsed by Three Strikes proponent Mike Reynolds.  Reynolds has recently criticized Los Angeles District Attorney Steve Cooley as “the most prominent opponent of California’s ‘Three Strikes and You’re Out’ law.”

“In 2006, Steve Cooley teamed up with pro-prisoner rights Democratic Senator Gloria Romero to promote legislation that would have devastated ‘Three Strikes,’” Reynolds reminded voters. “Serious violent criminals would be released and put back on the streets only to commit more crime.  In fact, under his [Cooley’s] plan over 2,400 convicted felons would have been put back into our neighborhoods.”

When voters are informed that Cooley has been a leading opponent of Three Strikes, Cooley loses to Harman by a margin of 57.6% to 17.1%.

SECOND BALLOT

California Senator Tom Harman 57.6%

District Attorney Steve Cooley 17.1%

The statewide survey of 500 likely California Republican voters was conducted by Val Smith, PhD.  Field dates were January 13-15. Margin of error +/- 4.4%.

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Before Jerry Brown has even officially announced his candidacy for Governor, his past is already catching up with him.

California Watch is reporting that, as Governor, Jerry Brown pardoned over 400 criminals.  With so many pardons, the odds are that someone pardoned by Jerry Brown committed a serious crime. 

With both of Brown’s potential Republican opponents having millions of dollars to spend on negative ads.  I am sure Brown’s soft on crime record will be well know to the public before election day. 

If you would like to see the entire list of criminals pardoned by Jerry Brown, click here.

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