Category: California

PRIMARY ELECTION NIGHT HQ UPDATE: Lincoln Defeats Halter in Arkansas Senate Democratic Runoff UPDATE: Nikki Haley Tops SC GOP Primary With 49%; Runoff vs. Barrett UPDATE: Angle Wins NV-Sen GOP UPDATE: Whitman, Fiorina Win California GOP Gov., Sen. Primaries UPDATE: Graves Wins GA-9 Runoff

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12:56 a.m. ET Wednesday: Congratulations are in order for Nevada Tea Party people:

Republicans nominated former Assemblywoman Sharron Angle as their candidate to take on Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada.
Angle, the favorite of tea party activists, was endorsed by the Tea Party Express. She dispatched her two main rivals, and the Associated Press declared her the winner in the race with 39% of the vote and 59% of precincts reporting.
She was not the choice of the Republican establishment, who believed that former state GOP Party Chairwoman Sue Lowden stood a better chance of defeating Reid this November. Lowden was running a distant second with 28% of the vote.

Tough luck, GOP establishment. Also, in case you didn’t notice: Republican women went 4-for-4 in major primaries Tuesday.

12:40 a.m. ET Wednesday: The progressive netroots community raving moonbats blew $3.6 million trying to beat Arkansas Sen. Blanche Lincoln in the Democratic primary. Dan Riehl has the DailyKos screen-cap.

12:27 a.m. ET: Maybe Dave Weigel thought no one would notice:

Matthew Berry, an openly gay FCC lawyer who’d attracted some national attention, went down to a narrow defeat at the hands of Iraq War veteran Patrick Murray . . .

Meanwhile, in the Nevada Republican Senate primary, Tea Party-backed candidate Sharron Angle defeats GOP establishment-backed Sue Lowden.

12:10 a.m. ET: OK, the double California bummers are compensated by an anonymous White House reaction to the defeat of union-backed Bill Halter in Arkansas:

“Organized labor just flushed
$10 million down the toilet”

Just imagine what Rahm Emanuel had to say about that. And listening to MSNBC talking heads singing the blues about the Arkansas results is pretty sweet, too.

Midnight ET: Billionaire beats billionaire in Republican primary in California:

After two former Silicon Valley executives pulled nearly $100 million out of their own pockets to carpet-bomb the state with TV ads, the venomous GOP battle between Meg Whitman and Steve Poizner was all over 15 minutes after the polls closed.
Results from mail-in ballots across the state showed Whitman, a billionaire who once ran eBay, beating state Insurance Commissioner Steve Poizner by 65 percent to 26 percent.

Also, Carly Fiorina has bought the GOP Senate nomination in California. Way to fight back against that “party of the rich” stereotype, y’all.

Meanwhile, we hear that birther czarina Orly Taitz is leading the GOP primary for California secretary of state.

Yeah. Big thumbs-up. Heck of a job, California.

11:26 p.m. p.m. ET: Blanche Lincoln survives! Moonbat hearts are crushed. I just watched Ed Schultz on MSNBC, spinning bizarre election-fraud conspiracy theories for Bill Halter’s defeat. Life is good!

11:15 p.m. ET (Smitty): Lincoln at 52% over Halter’s 48% with 89% of precincts in.

11:04 p.m. ET (Smitty): VA Update: It’s Fimian in VA-11 against Connolly, and Patrick Murray against Congresstool Extraordinaire Jim Moran. Northern Virginia owes the rest of the country an example of getting behind the GOP candidate and offering heavy support, as we try to eliminate the blue death creeping south across the Potomac.

10:51 p.m. ET: Nikki Haley’s percentage in the South Carolina GOP gubernatorial primary vote is 48.9% with 97% of precincts reporting, so there will be a June 22 runoff against Gresham Barrett. In the Democratic primary, Vincent Sheheen cruised to the nomination with 59%.

10:35 p.m. ET: With 60% of precincts reporting in the Arkansas Democratic runoff, Bill Halter has now edged ahead 51-49% over Sen. Blanche Lincoln.

10:20 p.m. ET: In addition to Haley’s shockingly strong performance, here’s another South Carolina shocker:

U.S. Rep. Bob Inglis (R., S.C.) is poised to become the latest incumbent to be ousted in a primary contest. He trails a distant second in the Republican primary in South Carolina’s fourth district.

9:57 p.m. ET: Now with 89% of precincts reporting in the South Carolina GOP gubernatorial primary, Nikki Haley is still just shy of the 50% needed to avoid a runoff. She’s the biggest winner tonight, while the big losers are Jake Knotts, Larry Marchant and — most especially — Will Folks.

9:48 p.m. ET: Well, kiss my grits!

South Carolina state Rep. Nikki Haley (R) edged close to 50 percent in the Palmetto State governor’s primary race, an indication that personal attacks aimed at her in the final week of the campaign had backfired.
With 74 percent of votes counted, Haley stood at 49 percent while Rep. Gresham Barrett took second with 21 percent.

9:35 p.m. ET: Cassy Fiano: “Nikki Haley is kicking ass in South Carolina.” Clyde Middleton is tracking the Arkansas runoff results at Liberty Pundits.

9:30 p.m. ET: In Arkansas, with 4% of precincts reporting, incumbent Sen. Blanche Lincoln leads challenger Bill Halter 53%-47% in Democratic primary runoff.

9:25 p.m. ET: Republican Tom Graves wins the special election runoff in Georgia’s 9th District. He will enter Congress immediately.

9:10 p.m. ET: Michael Barone on Fox just said that the GOP turnout in VA-8 (to challenge Democrat Jim Moran) is more than double previous years. In South Carolina, with 35% of precincts reporting in the GOP gubernatorial primary, it’s Nikki Haley 46%, Gresham Barrett 26%.

8:35 p.m. ET: Now, with about 14% of precincts reporting, Nikki Haley leads Gresham Barrett 39%-29%, while Vincent Sheheen looks like he’ll avoid a runoff on the Democratic side.

8:26 p.m. ET: In very preliminary South Carolina returns, Nikki Haley has 42% of the vote.

7:35 p.m. ET: From USA Today:

Polls have closed in South Carolina, Virginia and Georgia, where state election officials report low to moderate turnout today. The results of some of the most compelling races will come later tonight, after voting ends in Arkansas, Nevada and California.

Readers should feel free to contribute by linking/reporting the latest results in the comments.

7:50 p.m. ET: South Carolina results at WHNS-TV, the Fox affiliate in Greenville, S.C.

8:05 p.m. ET: As all decent patriotic Americans must despise Rep. Jim Moran, please follow the Virginia 8th District GOP primary results at Red NoVA8.

UPDATE 8:08 p.m. ET: Scott Rigell has been called the winner in Virginia’s 2nd District Republican primary.

EXPECT FURTHER UPDATES . . .

PREVIOUSLY (6:30 p.m. ET):
Republicans for Blanche Lincoln *
* – Offer expires June 9, 2010

Smitty will be online later to handle the major task of providing coverage of tonight’s primary elections in several states, while I toil on a non-blogatory project. When the indispensible (and inimitable) sidekick called to check in this afternoon, I mentioned the runoff in the Arkansas Democratic senatorial primary.

“So we hope that Blanche Lincoln will be reading her political obituary?” Smitty inquired.

“No, no, no, Admiral Smith!” I replied, and explained that it is the duty of all good Americans to hope that Senator Lincoln breaks the vicious little hearts of Bill Halter’s moonbat supporters, so that she’ll be a wounded prey come November. Writing in the Manchester (U.K.) Guardian — which explains the Brit-style spelling — Jim Antle summarizes Blanche’s predicament:

Senator Blanche Lincoln has irritated organised labour and other liberal activists by voting against them on card check legislation for union organising, a public option for healthcare, and various free trade agreements, among other deviations from party orthodoxy. So the unions and the progressive netroots are fuelling lieutenant governor Bill Halter’s primary challenger.

Quite so and, as with the May 18 Pennsylvania primary — where the weakened incumbent Arlen Specter faced the young challenger Joe Sestak — the upstart progressive insurgent represents the stronger political choice for Democrats in November. Just as Republicans fare better when the GOP nominee enjoys strong support from the conservative grassroots, Democrats are more likely to win if they nominate someone who inspires enthusiasm by their (misinformed, demented and/or evil) core constituencies.

This may seem counterintuitive to advocates of moderation and centrism, but in any reasonably competitive election, a nominee who doesn’t have the loyalty of his own party will seldom defeat a hard-core partisan of the opposite party. This is why John McCain was such a weak candidate against Barack Obama two years ago.

Human Events has a roundup of pertinent info on the Arkansas runoff, including this poll result:

Bill Halter . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 49%
Sen. Blanche Lincoln . . . . . 45%
Research 2000, survey of 600 Democratic voters, June 2-4. (Margin of error +/- 4 percentage points.)

So the wackos, zanies, union goons and other menaces to society who constitute the core of the Democratic Party are this close to bestowing their stooge Bill Halter with the nomination. She’s probably doomed beyond all hope of redemption, but if somehow Blanche Dubois Lincoln can pull off a miraculous victory tonight, the moonbats will be so demoralized they’ll contemplate suicide.

Which is why every patriotic soul must permit himself to hope that the worthless old hag wins.

In other key races tonight:

  • California Senate — Carly Fiorina  buys the GOP nomination, which means the only hope for Republican victory in November is that Sen. Barbara Boxer gets caught on video in a Helen Thomas-style gaffe, disparaging gays and/or Mexicans. Barring an eruption of sudden-onset Tourette’s Syndrome — the Senator denouncing her hairdresser Ramon as a “g–d– beaner faggot” in an accidental CNN live-mike situation — we can expect Kollyfornia to keep electing Democrats and continue slouching toward Zimbabwe.
  • California Governor — Meg Whitman buys the GOP nomination, but stands a reasonable chance against Jerry “Moonbeam” Brown in November. Frankly, Republicans could nominate Martin Bormann and stand a 50-50 shot against Jerry Brown, a fossilized remnant of a bygone political era for whom no intelligent person could be nostalgic. Notice I said “no intelligent person.” But this is, after all, Kollyfornia . . .
  • Nevada Senate — Sharron Angle will follow in Rand Paul’s footsteps to become the second Tea Party-backed candidate to win a GOP Senate primary. Democrats and some Republicans are trying to depict Angle as a wacko extremist who will lose in November. No, she’s a GOP Bill Halter, and is likely to win in November, even if she does start ranting about “beaner faggots.”
  • South Carolina Governor — Nikki Haley places first in the GOP gubernatorial primary, although it’s doubtful she’ll avoid a runoff. However, let’s hope Haley does win it outright tonight, delivering a well-deserved kick in the gonads to Will Folks, Larry Marchant and Jake Knotts.

Los Angeles Republican Party Wins Lawsuit Against Ron Paul Supporters

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Taking over a county-level Republican Party isn’t really that hard. In most places, if you’ve got a core group of five or six smart organizer/activists who really know what they’re doing, you can oust the incumbent party leadership within a year.

Since 2008, supporters of Ron Paul have done this in many counties, and there are a few states where Paul supporters (and their sympathizers) constitute a real threat to the GOP status quo. Paulistas were among the leaders of the Utah coup against Bob Bennett, for example — and good on ’em for that.

However, there are always those who seem to think that the ends justify the means, and in Los Angeles County, California, this resulted in some disgruntled Paulistas forming a “shadow party” and filing suit against the existing county GOP leadership, claiming that the leadership had been unlawfully elected. My friend Joe Fein at Valley of the Shadow had posted about this earlier, and today informed me that the “shadow party” lawsuit had been dismissed, as LA Republican Alex Burrola reports at the Flash Report:

Now, less than two weeks out from the California primary, we hope that all Republicans in Los Angeles County can unite and pull together for victory in November. Jane Barnett and her leadership are committed to welcoming all Republicans – including those who may have been led astray by the blandishments of the shadow RPLAC – into the fold to register voters, raise much-needed funds, and support our party’s nominees in the summer and fall in what promises to be a game-changing and exciting election cycle.
It is truly unfortunate that so much effort of the leadership of the largest county Republican organization in the United States was devoted to responding to the sour grapes behavior of Robert Vaughn’s group. Hopefully, Judge Solner’s unequivocal decision and his awarding of fees and costs to the duly elected party leadership will send the right message to malcontents in other county committees, and encourage them to consider working within the existing framework and engaging in productive conduct to grow the party, not selfish behavior that can only harm our chances at the polls. . . .

Please read the rest of that, which should be required reading for anyone else who thinks they can sue their way to power. More generally, while I am very much a critic of the GOP Establishment, I consider it better to be in a position to exercise some minor influence than to alienate everybody and marginalize myself by being a complete douchebag. Remember Rule 6.

Once more, thanks to Joe at Valley of the Shadow for the tip.

SBA List Will Back Fiorina in California

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The powerful pro-life group Susan B. Anthony List has just announced a $215,000 independent expenditure campaign “highlighting the strong pro-life stance of California Senate candidate Carly Fiorina.” The campaign leading up to the June 8 California primary will involve “aggressive online advertising and e-mail campaign, targeted calls to 600,000 registered voters and direct fundraising from its membership,” the organization said in a press release Tuesday, which quoted SBA List president Marjorie Dannenfelser:

“Carly Fiorina is the perfect pro-woman, pro-life contrast to Barbara Boxer. The Susan B. Anthony List is dedicating significant resources in the final two weeks of the primary to educate California voters about Fiorina’s strong pro-life position and ability to beat Boxer in November.
“California is burdened with two female Senators who claim to represent women by pushing their radical, pro-abortion agenda, yet polling clearly shows that more and more Americans are calling themselves pro-life. Carly Fiorina is uniquely poised to be a leader for the unborn and for women in the U.S. Senate, ushering in a new brand of ‘feminism’ that harkens back to its roots in the suffragettes and recognizes that the rights of one are not built on the broken rights of another.”

SBA List calls Boxer “the most aggressive champion of abortion rights in Congress.” According to SBA List communications director Kerry Brown, the $215,000 for Fiorina will include $5,000 in direct PAC contribution, $12,000 in bundled contributions (so far), $80,000 in Google ads, $39,000 for survey calls, and $60,000 in robo-calls.

Among the $6 million SBA list expects to spend nationwide for the 2010 mid-term election cycle, $1 million will go “to target ‘pro-life’ Democrats who voted for abortion funding in the health care bill.”

Learn more at SBA-List.org.

Fear and Fedora in Las Vegas
When In Doubt, Put It All on Red

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You may remember this video of Steve Foley and Eric Odom from my March expedition to Las Vegas:

Foley and Odom were playing the slots at the Orleans Hotel & Casino on West Tropicana. The Orleans is way off the Strip, far from the overpriced glitter that attracts rich tourists, celebrities and other high rollers. If you want to see showgirls, comedians or Cher, go to the Strip. If you want to do some serious gambling, go to the Orleans.

Slot machines aren’t serious gambling. Slot machines are electronic devices for reducing stupid people to poverty. That’s why I was so shocked a few years ago when it was revealed that Bill Bennett was a video-poker addict.

Dude. You’re the former Secretary of Education, a Ph.D. and a Harvard Law graduate, and you can’t figure out that video-poker is a chump’s game? As Steve Sailer pointed out at the time, playing the slots is also a loner’s game:

Playing modern electronic slot machines looks a lot like what I do for a living everyday: tapping away on a computer . . .
The news that Bennett, a man with a doctorate in philosophy, played the slots religiously aroused much derisive comment from my acquaintances, who saw slots as a low-class, strategy-free solitary vice.
A novelist wrote me, “What astonishes me is the stupidity of Bennett’s gambling. I used to be a drunk, but I didn’t get sozzled on cheap gin and moonshine. I drank good Scotch and Carlos Primera brandy. Similarly, I can imagine being addicted to gambling, but not to slot machines. . . .”
Slot machines and video poker, Bennett’s two favorites, are widely seen as old ladies’ games . .
A barber who has been playing poker three nights a week at the card rooms southeast of Los Angeles since he won $45,000 last winter, observed, “The slots are a no-brainer. You don’t have to know anything to play them, so you can’t mess up and be embarrassed.”

Playing the slots is an anti-social activity, a lonely habit like heroin or pornography — and, as Steve Sailer noted, journalism can be kind of a lonely habit, too. Covering the Tea Party Express gave me a once-in-a-lifetime chance to hit Vegas, so why would I want to spend my time sitting around “tapping away on a computer”?

No, I say. If you’re going to lose money, you might as well have some fun while you’re at it. So after I pried Odom and Foley away from the slots, and we were joined by New Media strategist Ali Akbar, I insisted on more sociable entertainment.

Odom just sent me that photo via Twitter. That’s Ali on the other side of the table. And notice those stacks of chips lined up in front of me? I sat down with only $20. As I said at the time:

[W]hen JSF of Valley of the Shadow blog heard I was coming to Vegas, he offered me this excellent advice: “Put it all on red.”
Dude. You’ve got no idea how well that advice paid off.

So clearly a hat-tip is owed, and I notice that JSF — California Republican activist Joe Fein — has some more excellent advice: A blogger-friendly fundraiser to boost the California GOP in 2010.

You should hit Joe’s tip-jar while you’re there. And if you’re ever in Vegas, take Joe’s advice: Put it all on red.

UPDATE: My libertarian friend Tom Knapp notes that he is author of the $3.99 booklet Roulette for the Leisure Gambler.

In his comment below, Tom explains what several of my friends have told me — roulette has the highest house “edge” of any table game — but on the other hand, the mathematical probabilities are easier to understand than poker or blackjack.

Any fool can walk past a row of roulette tables, looking at the electronic boards, and spot one that has, for example, hit black on seven of the last eight spins, with four consecutive even numbers.

The key here is not to say anything to your buddies. Your choice of tables should seem entirely random.

Plunk down $5 on red and $5 on odd, scatter five $1 bets inside (always cover 0/00) and spend the rest of the night being congratulated by your buddies on your amazing luck. 

When your buddies get bored or lose out, they’ll go to the ATM and hit the blackjack pit or craps tables, lose some more and come back, to find you still sitting there with a pile of chips in front of you, laughing and joking without a care in the world.

Vegas schadenfreude, baby! Cue the music:

Despite Re-Tweet by Alyssa Milano, Mickey Kaus Still Senate ‘Long Shot’

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Ever since Alyssa re-Tweeted him Oct. 28, Mickey Kaus has been the envy of bloggers everywhere (or at least, bloggers around here). However, that kind of New Media energy — dude, she’s got more than 830,000 followers — has not yet developed into an electoral tsunami:

In a year when Tea Party activists and the GOP are getting a lot of attention, self-described “common sense Democrat” Mickey Kaus is stirring up a little party of his own – challenging U.S. Sen. Barbara Boxer in the Democratic primary over illegal immigration and public employee unions’ pensions.
“It’s clear that the unions own the Democratic party – and it’s going to be a disaster unless that changes,” says Kaus, 58 . . .
“Do the vast majority of Californians want to do away with the secret ballot in union elections? No,” he said. “And the huge number of voters here don’t want immediate amnesty for undocumented immigrants – until the border is secure.”
Kaus’ campaign against Boxer, who has been called one of the Senate’s most liberal members, is a longshot in blue California. But his bid underscores challenges for California’s junior senator. . . .

If the Alyssa Milano re-Tweet wasn’t enough to catapult Kaus into front-runner status, perhaps he should ask Ladd Ehlinger Jr. to do him one of those super-cool campaign ads.

What If Arnold Schwarzenegger Had Been as Conservative as Chris Christie?

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The Wall Street Journal shares an anecdote about New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie standing up to his state’s teachers union, earning praise from Moe Lane.

Meanwhile, we’re watching California circle the drain — the state’s unemployment rate hit 12.6% in March — and I’m thinking of what a horrible disappointment Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has been. What Christie is accomplishing in New Jersey seems miraculous, but Schwarzenegger arguably could have done the same thing in California, if only he had had as much courage.

(Hat-tip: Memeorandum.)

Have Blog (And Fedora) Will Travel

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Pete Da Tech Guy has been inspired by the success of his CPAC trip:

Do you have an event anywhere in the country that you want covered? I’m willing to do it. My fee is very straightforward. 1 week: $1000 plus expenses. . . .
My total hits for Jan & Feb were over 80% of my total for the entire previous year. . . .
The continued success of the blog coupled with my continued failure to find work in my field puts me in a dilemma. Potentially the blog’s success could turn into something that might support me but I’m not sure that people are dying to pay me to write from Fitchburg, (fascinating though I find my home town). I’ve now managed some national and state attention. I’ve been a credentialed blogger both at the state (Brown Election) level and at the national level (CPAC). . . .
If I’m going to support my family the blog and I are going to have to do our part, to wit the offer; $1,000 a week plus expenses.

Read the rest. It’s a very ambitious goal, and some bloggers may say, “A thousand a week? That’s an awful lot to expect from the tip jar.” But as they say, aim for the stars and you might just make it to the moon.

Or Hollywood. In case you missed it yesterday, I’m planning to leave in late March on a transcontinental road-trip  — among other things, I want to check out the Senate campaigns in Arizona and Nevada — and figure since I’m going that far west, I might as well go all the way to L.A. So expect me to be furiously rattling the tip jar for the Shoe Leather Fund this month.

And why not send Da Tech Guy on that trip? Maybe not the whole trip (I’ve got some other stops to make along the way West and back), but if Da Tech Guy could book a flight into Phoenix with a return trip out of LAX, we could cover that together.

Today is March 6 and if we’re going to spend two days in Nevada and be in L.A. by April 1, I’d say we need to get to Phoenix by March 27.

So that’s three weeks for Pete to raise $1,000 plus expenses for the trip.

Union-Endorsed Politician Caught in Drunk Driving Scandal: Is This News?

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State Sen. Roy Ashburn’s contributions from California labor unions raised eyebrows last year, but now that he’s been busted for DUI all that anyone seems to care about is that Ashburn is a Republican:

The veteran Kern County lawmaker was spotted weaving at about 2 a.m. Wednesday and was pulled over, said Sgt. Rick Campbell of the CHP in Sacramento.
He had bloodshot, watery eyes and smelled of alcohol, Campbell said, and completed a field sobriety test at the scene, at 13th and L streets, Campbell said.
Campbell said the black Chevrolet Tahoe Ashburn was driving was a state car. He said an adult male was also in the vehicle but since he was not arrested, the CHP wouldn’t release much information about him. . . .

And the report that Ashburn was drunk-driving home from a gay nightclub in Sacramento? Maybe Ashburn is a California version of what Floridians call a “Charlie Crist Republican.” NTTAWWT.

Whatever the facts of the case, Ashburn is still one dead campaign aide short of a “Camelot legacy.” Mary Jo Kopechne could not be reached for comment.