Poll of Congressional District Race

Heard on the Hill — Roll Call's Gossip Blog

California: Internal Poll Shows Close 2nd District Race

By Kyle Trygstad Posted at 6:46 p.m. on April 25

An internal poll commissioned for Democratic activist Norman Solomon in California’s open 2nd district found him in position to advance beyond the June 5 primary, with several other Democrats close behind.
The race to replace retiring Rep. Lynn Woolsey (D) will most likely be between two Democrats under California’s new top-two primary format, in which two candidates no matter their party may advance to the general election.
Assemblyman Jared Huffman (D) led with 18 percent in the poll of 500 likely primary voters in the strongly Democratic district, followed by Solomon with 10 percent, Marin County Supervisor Susan Adams (D) with 8 percent and small-businesswoman Stacey Lawson with 5 percent. The remaining candidates, including both Republicans, took 3 percent or less, and 47 percent remained undecided.
The poll was conducted by Democratic firm Lake Research Partners from April 17 to 19 and carried a 4.4-point margin of error.
“Voters are largely undecided about the primary race, but Solomon is in second place in a crowded race,” pollsters David Mermin and Shilpa Grover said in a memo.

Obama Vs. Goldfinger

The experts tell us that the Presidential race will be tight, because the average voter will have a tough time choosing between Obama and Goldfinger, two equally attractive candidates. Goldfinger has the best campaign song, and he has all the money in the world. Also he likes to smother young women with gold paint. This might hurt him with a few women voters, but it guarantees a massive turnout among Old Testament guys who find women uppity. That leaves Goldfinger with only one thing left to worry about--what was it? Oh yes, what happened last time, explosive decompression.  

Louis Lapham

In the May HARPER'S, Louis Lapham has an excellent essay on climate change and human nature. He employs the famous scorpion/frog tale. A scorpion, which can't swim, asks a frog to ferry him across a river. Halfway across the scorpion stings the frog. As the frog is dying and sinking in the water, he asks the scorpion, now about to drown, why he stung him. "It's what I do," the scorpion explains.

What humans do is eat all the sushi they can find (until the ocean is empty), use all the oil they can find (raising the sea level 8 feet in the last 140 years) and so on. It's what we do. But I don't mean to be hard on our species. It is the nature of animals to eat as much as possible and expand as much as possible. It's just that our technology has made us more destructive and more capable in ways that other animals are not. In fact, some few of us are capable of restraint. . . .

Stacy Lawson

In our local congressional primary, Stacy Lawson, a Democrat funded by some national women's organizations, is running unending expensive TV ads with a Republican message: that you, too, can become as rich as she is by pulling yourself up by your own bootstraps. She's running on Mitt Romney's coattails, flooding the primary with cash. It will be interesting to see if this approach works in an open primary where she faces two registered Republicans and several well-known progressive Democrats.

The Oligarchy

John Jay, a Founding Father and the first Chief Justice of the United States Supreme Court, did some fine things in politics. As Governor Jay, he freed the slaves of New York. He helped write the famous FEDERALIST PAPERS. He served as president of the Continental Congress. But we should remember him for one revolutionary comment, a frank statement that expressed what the American oligarchy has been about since Day One. Jay would fit right in today.

"Those who own the country ought to govern it."

A Tsunami of Filth

We are in for a an awful Presidential campaign, a tsunami of filth.

By now even obscure political panels on TV have worked out the Republican strategy. The Republicans have decided their best shot at winning the Presidency in 2012 is to suppress the minority vote. In a majority of states, the Republicans have passed laws to disenfranchise black people, poor people and Latinos. They claim that the laws protect us against voter fraud, but in fact the states in which these laws were passed have had no voter fraud.

The second step in the strategy is to ramp up voters who are white, male, racist, ignorant and old. This cohort is a minority, but a racist campaign will get every one of them to the polls, particularly if the Republicans throw in a denunciation of gays, unions and women's health and reproductive programs.

A strategy of attacking the majority is risky, but it might work in 2012. Obviously it won't work over the long run, because young people don't share all the hatreds and fears of the old. But by 2016 or 2020, the Republicans will find a new strategy. The Wall Street motto is: Whatever works.

Whose Seat Is It?

We have more than ten people running in the primary for Lynn Woolsey's congressional seat. Lynn Woolsey, a dedicated progressive, is retiring. Under our new system, Democrats and Republicans run in the same primary, and the top two vote getters run in the final election. At the moment it seems likely that both finalists will be Democrats. But which Democrats?

I always rooted for Woolsey, who was sometimes challenged in primaries by Clinton Democrats (and the local Corporate Democrat newspaper). I supported Woolsey because she was a good human being and had strong progressive views. Now two of the leading candidates are claiming they should win the nomination because it is "a woman's seat" and they are women. That doesn't sound progressive to me. Surely every congressional seat is a woman's seat and a man's seat. I agree that women are greatly underrepresented in the House of Representatives, but I support the most progressive candidate who has a chance to win. That is Norman Solomon, a nationally known critic of our media and a familiar speaker and film maker.

Saving Our Parks

California State Parks is planning to increase the price of annual park passes by $70. That's because we are in a financial crisis. "We always do this when short of money," a spokesman explained. "When people begin to feel the pinch of hard times, we close our financial gaps by taking things away from those who are worst off. We raise prices while scaling back services. That is our business model."

State Parks expects to sell about 25% less passes at the new price. The difference will be made up by the fact that park visitors will be whiter, richer and more handsome than usual by conventional standards. The percentage of visitors with blue eyes is expected to double under the new system.

Romney Addresses the Snake Handlers Convention

Good morning and God Bless America, my friends. We are here today to salute the Pentecostal Holiness movement. As Luke wrote, "Behold I give unto you power to tread on serpents," which is why I am standing on a garter snake. As you know, this gives me the ability to heal the sick by touching them with my fingers--we are a long way from ObamaCare, aren't we? Yes, I learned how to cure from a close evangelical companion, Moe Szyslak. And in response to your shouts, I read only the King James Version of the Bible. That's it, my friend. The Book of Mormon is demonic. Also, I am not lying, as far as you know.

He Wanted To Be Alone

Not everyone knows that Eugene O'Neill wrote The Iceman Cometh and Long Day's Journey Into Night in California, at a ranch he built with his third wife, Carlotta Monterey, about 30 miles east of San Francisco. This place, Tao House, is now a National Historic Site.

Lafayette, We Are Here

The school board has voted, by a narrow margin, to close a local elementary school in Santa Rosa used mostly by Latino students and reopen it as a French language charter school, which will be attended by the child of a swing-vote school board member. One of the purposes of this school is that it will aid in "the preservation of the French language" (according to a letter in the newspaper). A French school will attract students and money from outside the district.

We're lucky that the school board members did not want to educate their children in Esparanto or Romulan.

Two Scandals

The Republican Governor of Tennessee, site of the famous "monkey trial," is about to sign a bill attacking science, in this case the science of biology. Biology, probably the key sector of science in this century, has natural selection at its heart--except in Tennessee. But the attack is more general. The bill was written to encourage students and teachers to disparage science and treat science as mere controversy when it conflicts with ancient folk beliefs. This is part of the tea-party Republicans' war on science, which includes a denial of climate change and a more broad denial of reality. Unfortunately reality continues no matter what you say about it. Ludwig Wittgenstein once wrote that if someone told him that she did not believe in science, he would not know how to continue the conversation. Such a fundamental difference in belief is difficult to bridge. There might be no discussion possible with tea-party types. They live in a primitive toolless subculture.

Mittly RawMoney, in an attempt to divert the tea party from pondering his membership in the Church of the Latter Day Saints, invented by Joseph Smith in the early 1800s to justify sexual access to many young women, has taken to asserting that President Obama (a Protestant) is a secret secular humanist (atheist). This is a whopping Big Lie, but that is RawMoney for you. When he gets up in the morning he tells a few lies to loosen his jaw. Then he farts and tells his appalled wife that he stepped on a frog ( a lie). Next he begins to lie in earnest and lies all day long until his tongue grows too tired to continue. At that point he sits down at his desk and begins to write lies with a $7,500 fountain pen and writes until his hand cramps and he falls asleep and dreams falsehoods until dawn. I'm telling you, this man is unique.

The PD Kisses Both Cheeks

The Press Democrat is sometimes baffling in its inanity. Take Sunday's editorial (please). It set out criteria for political candidates to consider if they want the newspaper's endorsement (which is worth almost nothing). The first demand was that the candidate fight to end unemployment. The second demand was that the candidate support a balanced budget, which would, in today's circumstances, increase unemployment. That is something you learn in an into to economics class.

Having come out against and then for unemployment, the PD then went on but not with me. I bailed. I don't have much time for mental illness in print, although it has its entertaining moments.

I don't know why the PD runs illogical and lame editorials. It might be out of sheer staff ignorance. It might be an attempt to look fair to all sides, to both Hitler and the Jews, for instance. That way you sell the maximum number of papers, at least in theory. So the editorial board approaches the public buttocks and kisses the left cheek (the one that opposes unemployment) and then kisses the right cheek (the one that loves it when unemployment drives down the wages paid to workers).

Smacky smacky. Smack smack.