The good news for progressives began last night with populist farmer Jon Tester’s surprisingly easy win in Montana’s heavily contested Democratic US Senate primary. It then continued when Marin County reported that progressive anti-war incumbent Congressmember Lynn Woolsey thrashed challenger Joe Nation. Progressive stalwart Ron Dellums has 50.2% of the vote with 100% counted, and, unless absentees change things, will win the Oakland mayor’s race without a runoff. His longtime protege, Sandre Swanson won the hotly contested Assembly race to replace Wilma Chan. While Francis Busby’s effort to take the seat of disgraced former Republican Congressmember Randy “Duke” Cunninghan fell short, she did force the GOP to invest nearly $5 million in one of California’s most Republican districts. And most important of all, California Democrats backed the consistently progressive campaign of Phil Angelides, who now offers voters a choice, not an echo, in the race against Arnold Schwarzenegger.
With Californians chief concerns—Iraq and high gas prices—- not capable of being directly addressed in yesterday’s election, voter turnout proved worse than projected. San Francisco’s progressive forces virtually sat out the election, but the overall news from last night was quite good.
Anyone who has ever read dailykos.com is familiar with the Montana Senate campaign of populist farmer Jon Tester. Tester came to symbolize the “crashing the gate” approach of the netroots, and faced a prominent Democratic primary opponent who was long favored to win.
But Tester won handily. And his November race against scandal-plagued Republican incumbent Conrad Burns promises to be the marquee Senate contest for progressives nationally. This represents a great pickup opportunity for the Democrats.
Progressive voters in Marin County stood by their anti-war Congressmember Lynn Woolsey against a well-funded challenge by moderate Joe Nation. Nation was forced out of his Assembly seat due to term limits, and was handily defeated in an ill-advised challenge to one of America’s best elected officials.
Francis Busby’s race to take Randy “Duke” Cunningham’s safe Republican seat was the highest profile Congressional race in America. Busby appeared to be leading a week before the election when the San Diego Union-Tribune newspaper and local right-wing talk radio shows launched a smear campaign claiming that Busby was urging undocumented immigrants to vote.
Republican Brian Bilbray defeated Busby 50% to 44%. The two face a rematch in November.
Progressives could not only cheer Ron Dellums stronger than expected performance in the Oakland mayor’s race (he has 50.2% with 100% of the vote counted ), but longtime Dellums staffer Sandre Swanson will become the first African-American Assemblymember from Northern California in over a decade
The most significant election result for progressives was Phil Angelides’ victory over Steve Westly. Rarely has a race been so misconstrued by people who should know better.
Phil Angelides ran a flat out progressive campaign the likes of which California has not seen since Pat Brown’s victory in 1962. In contrast, Steve Westly ran as a moderate whose bipartisan approach was better suited to defeat Schwarzenegger.
Despite the obvious differences between the candidates, many progressives claimed to see little distinction between them. Their status as rich white men seemed to eclipse their deep ideological and stylistic differences.
The conventional wisdom that a more moderate Democrat would have a better chance against Arnold has no basis in fact. A bland moderate like Westly or 1988 Democratic Presidential nominee Mike Dukakis does not appeal to swing voters, while an outspoken progressive like Wisconsin Senator Russ Feingold thrives in an increasingly conservative state.
Voters want a candidate who stands for something. Angelides does.
If Westly had won this race, Democrats would still have had a strong candidate against Arnold. But a candidate preaching bipartisanship with right-wing Republicans in the State Legislature was unlikely to advance the progressive cause. And Westly’s Republican-sounding attacks on Angelides’ call for raising taxes on the wealthy to fund schools should not have prevailed in a California Democratic primary.
The media unfairly attacked Phil Angelides during the primary contest, and the slander and mistruths waged against him in the general election will likely approach that waged by corporate California against the Democrats candidate for Governor in 1934, populist Upton Sinclair. Arnold Schwarzenegger still has negative popularity ratings, and can only win re-election by raising his opponent’s negatives.
Many of the state’s daily newspapers, particularly the San Francisco Chronicle, will do their best to help the Governor accomplish this.
For all those who believe that the nasty primary has irreparably harmed Angelides, the opposite is actually true. Steve Westly does not have thousands of passionate backers who, like Eugene McCarthyites in the 1968 Presidential election, will respond to a primary defeat by sitting out the general election. Westly announced while campaigning yesterday that he would support Angelides, and handled defeat graciously.
Westly’s attacks on Angelides have prevented Arnold from making news by highlighting the Democrat’s relationship with a wealthy developer, and the other charges against Angelides that filled mailboxes and television screens. Meanwhile, Arnold has not had to face negative ads since last October, and we know how effective those were against him (he lost every ballot measure in the special election).
Angelides must mount the type of grassroots campaign that defeated the Governor’s ballot measures last November. He is committed to doing so, but it is up to progressives to stop complaining from the sidelines and do the hard work necessary for victory.
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