The Overlooked Good News of CA-50.

Although I am totally bummed out by yesterday's result, there is a factor that has gotten very little attention and is probably not well known nationally.

Until the 2004 election, there was virtually no active Democratic Party organization in San Diego County. Maybe some party activists may challenge me on this, but the fact is that I have lived in SD County since 1981; 2004 was the first time I saw the Democratic Party actually raise its head out of slumber. No one from the Party ever contacted me in all the prior years. Ever.

Part of the reason is that the local races here are "nonpartisan" -- which is weird but true. It's that way by law. I grew up in Philadelphia, which had a highly organized Party and precinct organization. I first landed in Los Angeles for 2 years, and the nonpartisan thing seemed odd to me then, and still feels a bit odd now. You would think that in a blue state like CA, the Democratic Party would have a strong, organized grassroots presence, but it's not there, at least in So. California.

The good news out of this election cycle is the amazing grassroots revitalization of the progressive/Democratic movement locally. (It bodes well for Dean's 50-state strategy.) Don't get me wrong; there's still a long way to go. But each Democrat in the CA-50th used to think he or she was the only Democrat here. That's not true, and it became apparent in the 2004 election cycle.

The Party recognized in 2004 that it had virtually no precinct or grassroots organization here, and that there was a lot of work to do. A good solid beginning has been made.

In this election cycle, the Busby grassroots effort was nothing short of amazing. There were Busby signs and bumperstickers everywhere. Until last weekend, I did not see a single Bilbray sign or bumpersticker.

As an aside, the 2004 experience showed that former Republicans are beginning to turn and many independents are also leaning our way now. When I first went to 2004 primary election Meet-ups here in North San Diego County, we would go around the room and introduce ourselves and talk about our political affiliations. There were as many self-described "recovering Republicans" and independents in the room as life-long Democrats. I went to primary Meet-ups for Wes Clark, and was encouraged by this broad spectrum of folks attending. After the primary, the Kerry campaign and the Kerry Meet-ups continued to attract a lot of former Republicans and independents who were fed up and had "seen the light."

The bottom line is that in the CA-50th, in just about 2 years, we have gone from almost no organization to the beginnings of a committed grassroots movement. Although disappointing, coming with 4 percentage points of winning this time was a very good result, considering the infancy of the organizational structure.

:toast: Thank you for getting involved and inspiring others.

this is now a contested district, period

This was a vote to whom would server out the remainder of the term. Bilbray will have to run again and I hope that Francine will run against him again. If we got this close perhaps we can win again in NOvember :D

that they neglect some of their other contests.

Every seat is up for grabs come November. That's a lot of fronts to be fighting on.

challenge your "hopeful" view against their "practical" view. Tell them to go suck an egg.

I also love how the repukes had to spend somewhere in the neighborhood of $11 million to win an ostensibly 'safe' seat by a little over 4 points. This bodes very well for the Democratic party this fall. Any idea how much will they have available to spend on that election?

back when he was first elected chair.

Yeah, because organizing strong grassroots groups NEVER works as well as dropping a handful of consultants into battleground states every four years when you're trying to run a national political party.

Call on us to help. I really liked it that moveon started working for Busby.

and others. We have 5 months until the midterm. Does anyone think Bushit is going improve his standing in the country. We came a long way yesterday. We will do much better in some other races that we never had a chance in before in November.

what are you talking about? Yesterday, Busby was running against someone who's in prison. In November, she'll be running against an incumbent Repub in a repub district. Who do you see voting against Bilbray who voted for him yesterday?

She wasn't running against Cunningham. YOU may think that his illegal behavior is translatable but most are not going to if you are a die hard * fan. There is a 15 % swing in republican districts that are more purple people than red. IF things continue to get bad for * they will come over to out side OR stay home.

I'm glad that we've gotten more than we have in the past, but I think there's still quite a bit of frustration amongst many of us that for all of the work we've done over the last year or so, we've still got little yet that is tangible to show for it. It's true we got rid of Cunningham now, but I think Bilbray is going to be a bastard too. I'm not giving up just yet, mind you. I still would like to think that that "big win" we've all been hoping for here that gives us something tangible back comes with Busby turning the tables and beating him in November. But there is some burnout, and some concern that perhaps there is still too many clueless Republicans in this area that vote party line instead of voting their self-interest. Until we can get that group of people reduced into a minority, we're always going to be in an up-hill struggle. And we can't continue to burn out like we have with all of these special elections, etc. that we've had over the last few years (governor's recall race, mayoral special election, Arnold's special election, Cunningham special election). I know my neighbors are probably tired of having non-stop signs in my yard all of the time since it seems these never end. I think I'll take mine down at least for a few months to give us some respite before the fall push.

I'd also really hoped to see Richard Barrera win against Ron Roberts here for the board of supervisors. Until that clan of Republicans that has kept out Democrats for a decade can be dented, we're going to continue to have problems here with infrastructure that works against us. Had Barrera won last night (though he was a lot farther from doing so), I would have taken the Busby defeat in stride and noted that we still had tangible reward for our efforts. It also hurt that the voter guides here locally that masquerade as Democratic voter guides were telling people to vote for Ron Roberts. I even had a phone call message from the Dem party to that effect warning me about this after I'd received this flyer. We have to find ways of competing with the last minute "scum campaigning" that seems to work with the a huge amount of the Republican base that relies on lies and deceit to get them votes.

I'm willing to still try and fight the good fight, but until housing prices go down and we get something tangible to work with, Oregon's looking like a possible place I might move to next instead of buying a house down here where I'd have to commit to living in a place that might be forever Republican.

I did talk to the guy who did the rebukeduke.org site last night and I think he and I both agreed that perhaps we need to go out on some pointed efforts to bring down Bilbray now before November. Anyone else want to join in? PM me.

One of the very little publicized things about yesterday is that there was actually a Dem and Repub primary for the CA-50 at the same time as the special election.

So Bilbray won the special election, but will have to contend again in November against Busby who won the Dem primary.

The funny thing is, although Bilbray was the Repub nominee in the special election, he only got 54% of the vote in the Republican primary.

Things should be interesting come November.

near misses are worth zilch. The $5M the GOP had to spend (wow!!) is nothing, unless they're close to running out of money, which I highly doubt. Is there ANY chance of turning this "great effort" into a pick-up in November? I didn't think so.

"Been down so long it feels like up"

We'll need the ammunition for November,

We felt the same way. Perhaps getting up another Billbray "hawk" site would be the answer where we could be the central point of getting information to shut Bilbray down there. We now know who the enemy is come November, and we'll be able to measure his actions in congress too. I think EVERY move he makes on immigration should be monitored. Could anyone track down these articles from the Union Tribune mentioned on this Republican anti-Bilbray site. The top one, which might be more useful is in 1996, which is before the 2000 date that is the earliest of their online archives. If we can track down perhaps some microfiche in the library and get this article (and perhaps we can find others with a little bit of research, it might be useful to point out how Bilbray of the past has been a sellout for what he's trying to sell now as his positions on immigration. If we can completely slam him on his immigration stances, that would go a long way to getting voters PO'd at him.

http://bilbraytheliberallobbyist.com/page1.htm#aliens

I still like this image from that web site, even if it was created by Republicans!