Bilbray victory in CA-50: bellwether of a Republican landslide in 2006?

[jlauer95]

<p>Those who think that the dems could do a better job are the ones living in LaLa Land.</p>

[mini]

<p>Well, I think the voters made a wise decision in electing Bilbray. They had a guy go to prison for taking gifts from a lobbyist. Well, Bilbray is a lobbyist. So what they did was turn a giver into a taker, since they were short one.</p>

[Allmusic]

<p>We need snappier comebacks than that, Jlauer!</p>

[jlauer95]

<p>cgm: “Gee, she got almost half of the votes in a very republican district that Bush got 70%plus in…what does say, it says that many many many Republicans voted for a Democrat,”</p>

<p>NO!!! It isn’t true that “many many many Republicans voted for a democrat”. In this Congressional district (District 50), ONLY 44% are registered Republicans. That would indicate that “she” didn’t get ANY republican votes, much less “many, many, many”. It means that HE got some non GOP votes! </p>

<p>Don’t assume that just because 70% of this district voted for Bush that 70% are Republicans; it just means that many non Repubs voted for Bush.</p>

[jlauer95]

<p>all music: “We need snappier comebacks than that, Jlauer!”</p>

<p>Oh, I could give snappier comebacks… but they would be more insulting…</p>

[citygirlsmom]

<p>“San Diego and Riverside counties are predominantly Republican. In San Diego County, there are 550,740 registered Republicans to 474,325 registered Democrats, while in Riverside County, there are 361,505 registered Republicans to 267,605 registered Democrats.”</p>

<p>By voter registration, it would appear safely Republican territory. Only 30 percent of the voters are registered as Democrats, compared with 44 percent registered as Republicans.</p>

<p>But the 50th District has an independent streak that adds an element of unpredictability because nearly a quarter of the voters, 22 percent, are not affiliated with any political party.</p>

<p><a href=“http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/politics/50thdistrict/20060412-9999-7n12elect.html[/url]”>http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/politics/50thdistrict/20060412-9999-7n12elect.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

[citygirlsmom]

<p>The 50th District covers much of North County, stretching from Escondido south to Del Mar and into the northern beaches of San Diego. Registered Republicans outnumber Democrats in the district by a margin of 3-2.</p>

[TheDad]

<p>Here is part of what I wrote in rebuttal to a well-known Progressive of the blogosphere who says this is a sign that Democrats need to turn to the Left (in contrast to Busby’s moderate tack):</p>

<p>

Busby lost by less than 4 percent in a district that she previously lost by 22. The CA-50 Special coupled with the CA-50 Primary offers a rare window into voting stats: Bilbray garnered about 3K <em>fewer</em> votes than were cast in the Republican primary; Busby garnered about 7K <em>more</em> votes than were cast in the Democratic primary. It would be great to see discrete numbers but clearly Busby cleaned Bilbray’s clock among the Independent voters. If the same pattern holds across the country on November 7th, the headlines are going to look great on November 8th. Independent voters are roughly 1/3 of the electorate and younger voters are disproportionately Independent, eschewing partisan identification.</p>

<p>There is nothing in the turnout that’s significantly different from the turnout of any other mid-term primary election. Why should anyone expect it to be? Projecting our energy, our interest, our anger, our enthusiasm upon the vast majority of “occasional” voters is an exercise in futility. Bush, Iraq, corruption, etc. is no more motivating to “occasional” voters than the issues of the day of any other mid-term primary election. This is probably the biggest item that activists have to understand: changing the established pattern of voting behavior from what it’s been for the past six decades is more difficult than making an oil tanker do a 90-degree turn. Primary and special elections are always dominated by the most partisan activists; the balance flips in the general election.</p>

<p>If anything, Busby’s narrow 4-point loss encourages me that, with broader participation in November, we can pick up the seat then. (And I’m not sure that the Republicans can afford to outspend us 2-1 then, either.) </p>

<p>If Busby made a “mistake” beyond the last-minute sound-bite that was exploited by the Right Wing Noise Machine, it was in letting Bilbray frame himself in any way as a moderate based on environmental issues.

</p>

<p>The CA-50 has Republican index of +17 and of its 31 percent who are registered Independents et alia, many are so because they regard the GOP as too [liberal]. </p>

<p>I can come up with at least 40 House seats where the Dems have a better chance on paper a priori. </p>

<p>The NRCC dumped a minimum of $4.5 million into this race, almost one-fifth of their cash on hand, with total GOP spending outgunning the Democrats by better than 2-1. Whereas this district had been a “Safe Republican,” it’s now no better than “Leans Republican.” I’ll take it. Especially if I can drain the NRCC of almost $5 mil in cash at a pop.</p>

<p>But, please, Republicans, take solace in this victory, tell each other “False alarm!”, and go back to sleep.</p>

<p>Most of my candidates won yesterday: Angelides, Tester (in Montana), Harman over Winograd, Garamendi, Culver (in Iowa), my favored candidate in a five-way race for a safe-Democratic State Assembly seat, Debra Bowen for SOS, etc. Busby was the major annoyance that kept me up until 2am, Moonbeam getting the nod for state AG being the other.</p>

[browninfall]

<p>Moonbeam as AG of California. What a country. Just when the Repubs look like they’re going to blow it. Cynthia McKinney, Patrick Kennedy, William Jefferson et al…two more years of Republican control of Congress.</p>

[TheDad]

<p>Don’t bet the family farm on two more years of the Republican Congress.</p>

<p>From The Cook Report:

Pre-eminent congressional scholar Gary Jacobson of the University of California San Diego notes that Busby actually did better than simply win the Democratic vote. She also got a bigger share of independents. Busby got 55,587 votes in the special election, almost 10,000 more votes than were cast in the Democratic primary (45,868). The special election and the regular primary were held on the same day. Bilbray, meanwhile, took 60,319 votes in the run-off election, while 59,195 votes were cast in the Republican primary. “Without too great an inferential leap,” writes Jacobson, “we could conclude that Bilbray got the Republicans, Busby got the Democrats and a disproportionate share of the rest–just not enough to win.”</p>

<p>Furthermore, notes Jacobson, when looking at party registration figures, it is clear that Democrats were more energized than Republicans. Bilbray’s vote, he notes, was 38.6 percent of the number of Republican registrants, Busby’s was 52.7 percent of the number of Democratic registrants. Based on the primary election vote, he notes, Democratic turnout was 43.8 percent, while Republican turnout was 37.8 percent.

</p>

<p>There simply weren’t enough Dems to quite pull this off. But if these numbers are anywhere near reflective of the mood nationally, I’d rather have the Dem’s cards to play going into November any day.</p>

<p>Furthermore, one under-the-influence Congressman, one Congresswoman with an attitude problem interacting with a slow-on-the-uptake Capitol Hill policeman, and one freelance bribetaker–Jefferson should resign–don’t begin to compare with systematic pay-to-play corruption of DeLay/Abramoff/Cunnigham/Lewis/et alia. The legal process is just chomp/chomp/chomping away and the number of participants “turned” in the Abramoff facet of the machine are probably going to yield some very interesting results.</p>

<p>Less than five months to go…</p>