Today is the day of the California 50 special election.
The purpose of the special election, like that of the one that will occur in Delay’s district, is based on the premise that Republicans are more likely to vote when voter turnout is low. After all, what is the purpose in Governor Schwarzenegger wasting resources on an election after the last debacle with the midterms so close, especially after the last debacle?
It has some significance to me because even though most of PacBeach is not part of CA-50, the part I live in, the rich, conservative part, falls just within it. (By the way, special kudos to GovTrack for a creative use of GoogleMaps.)
I had a lot of fun needling my dad with e-mails because of this. My favorite fun was this gem of a link.
He’s now of the sort that he doesn’t want to be troubled by politics, and if he were to be troubled he’d vote Republican, so my purpose was definitely not a private GOTV effort. It’s just that I want to hammer home something that I’ve told him for the last few years now: “Dad, you know if Ken and I agree on politics, something is really, really wrong.†I know it is weird for most people to hear this now, but my brother once bought me a People’s Republic of Berkeley t-shirt because I was too conservative. (I love this shirt.)
Chris Bowers explains what the significance of the election is.
If you are wondering what the results will be here they are.
Personally, I’d be surprised if a Democrat wins this district. As Steven Colbert says, “CA 50 is now dead to me.â€
Swing State Project has an interesting post-mortem about CA-50 which points to an insightful article on the importance of absentee ballots.
I’m a bit miffed that so many think that the CA-50 results are a good thing for the Democratic party—I feel they have an overly stingy view of Republican political strategery.
If they are right and CA-50 goes Democrat, I’d be overjoyed. But I think it’s a bit much to expect, especially if you live in CA-50: it is far more religiously and socially conservative than other traditionally Republican districts.
CA-50 went to the Republicans by 4.5%, which I called in this entry. It’s interesting to read how Chris Bowers spins it, but the fact remains the Democrats lost and these people were betting otherwise.
If you ever lived there as I do, you’d understand why I wrote CA-50 off. Many people there are going to vote Republican and then rationalize it as “Democrats made us take down the cross on Mt. Soledad†or some similar bullshit.
John Cole finds the same irony in Chris Bowers’s article that I did.
Here was my reply:
Sorry to interrupt this “he’s a spoof†sidebar going on, but I thought I‘d expand on some minor points here.
CA-50 wasn’t gerrymandered to be a safe republican district until after the 2000 census. Before this, (as CA-44), it was the most Democratic district of San Diego. (I think there was scandal that brought down the Democratic incumbent and brought in the Dukester—a tad prescient.)
Back more to the topic, I also found the Chris Bowers spin just as ironic as John did. Coincidentally, I mentioned this.
It is hard to read very much into CA-50, but I feel that git was extremely well-played by the Republicans. I guess you have to have lived in CA-50 like I did to understand. (Note: I am not registered to vote there because I work and live elsewhere and only own a residence in CA-50.)
As for John’s Steelers comment. We have only look to all those years the Steelers got their asses handed to them by the Patriots in the playoffs (as a Pittsburgher, those hurt as much as the old Pirates/Braves ass-kicking). I wonder if John spun that as, “Well, Bill Bellichick has their number, but the Steelers are the better team and deserve to go.†Even if he did, so what? It’s sports: that‘s the definition of being a “fan.â€
it is a sad day when American politics has been reduced to the mindless cheerleading for one’s “team.†It seems that a lot of what is going on among many: (Yes, Chris at MyDD is one, but also so are some of the spoofs here). The founding fathers tried to protect against this, but we have grown too comfortable and complacent.