You can feel it making phone calls, feel it walking the precincts. Something has shifted here in CA-36. Our
gerrymandered Caifornia district, where antiwar progressive
Marcy Winograd is challenging Jane Harman, is shaping up to be a real upset.
"Harman's own polls show [us] running neck and neck," Winograd said yesterday to a reporter. While that might sound like campaign swagger, there are similar noises coming from seasoned Democratic Party officials in Washington. They quietly admit CA-36 is now "too close to call" and "anybody's guess."
Needless to say this is a very exciting campaign. But despite hundreds of volunteers, the campaign still needs help. More on the flip....
For Jane Harman, whose
husband's electronics fortune financed her entry into electoral politics, things weren't supposed to end up like this. The district was redrawn a few years ago to make it
safe for Harman. Democratic-voting enclaves were added, while Republican-leaning areas were lopped off. So what if Harman still styled herself as "the best Republican in the Democratic Party"? She was
assured of her Democrat seat so long as she won the Democrat primary, and she had never before been challenged.
But here's what Harman didn't count on: in this "safe" district during a Democratic primary, only registered Dems (of which there are about 140,000, 27% of whom vote in primaries), as well as independents who checked the "decline to state" box, are permitted to vote. Not Republicans. So Harman is trying to win votes from Democrats who are in many cases very disaffected with her, and no matter how much she spends, no matter how loudly she contests Nancy Pelosi's kicking her off of her House Intelligence Committee, Democrats aren't buying her new line. They are unhappy about her lack of oversight into the NSA wiretaps, her continued support for the Iraq war, and her apparent inability to call for impeachment.
As the campaign sprints to the finish, with hundreds of volunteers making calls and precinct walking, the goal is simple: to identify every Winograd supporter in CA-36 and get them to vote on June 6th. The campaign would also like to make a final mailing, which will cost $20,000. Please donate here through Winograd's secure site, and don't forget to add the $.01 "tip" for having come from Kos. (There's also an ActBlue option.)
Marcy Winograd is our Ned Lamont, and she will make a great Member of Congress.