This will be a relatively simple diary. I don't want Chris Kelly, former Chief Privacy Officer for Facebook (which is sort of like being the former Chief Deep Ocean Drilling Safety Officer for BP) to be the Democratic nominee for Attorney General of California.
I have not seen any recent published polling on this race, but especially after reading abut Kelly's ties to the Clinton Administration and seeing his ads seemingly everywhere on the Web from progressive sites to Lostpedia to some baby-name etymology site in recent weeks, I have formed some definite opinions. Of the six major Democratic candidates (no offense, Mike Schmier, but you don't really rank), Kelly seems to be the least progressive and has the least evident qualifications for the position. He also has the most money and perhaps the best chance of winning in a race where progressives are divided. So I think that perhaps progressives should become a bit less divided.
I was leaning to voting for Kamala Harris a while ago, although I also like Ted Lieu and Pedro Nava a lot. While I think I had something mildly bad about Alberto Torrico some time in the past I no longer recall what it is. (I missed out on the Degadillo years in LA and he had no presence at the convention.) I'd happily support any of them in November. Now, the question for me is: who can beat Chris Kelly?
I looked at Ballotpedia's page on the race, and it looks to me like Harris has the north end of the state sewn up, while the other non-Harris foes of Kelly are carving up the South. (Kelly's endorsements are few and an odd mix.) Harris has endorsements ranging from Diane Watson and Barbara Lee to William Bratton and Tyra Banks to Dianne Feinstein and Nancy Pelosi. She seems to be the only other one to have the funds to counter Kelly's Internet and TV-based advertising blitz (albeit with a much grainier photo that I would have chosen.) It seems to me that if anyone beats Chris Kelly on Tuesday, it's going to be her. That is, if -- if -- the vote isn't split.
Therefore, even though Nava and Lieu and Torrico deserve better than ignominious losses, the votes cast for them seem likely to have been wasted. They don't have a reasonable chance of knocking off Chris Kelly. If someone has links to polls that suggest otherwise, I'm happy to hear them, but that's my take. I don't begrudge them continuing to run, of course, but there comes a time -- that would be right about now -- when voters have to figure out the best way to get what we want: in this case, a better Democratic nominee than Chris Kelly.
So I think that there is a progressive choice to make tomorrow (for those who haven't already voted) in the AG race, and it's Kamala Harris. I don't think that she's any less progressive than Lieu or Nava (although the contrary arguments seem to rest on her having been a prosecutor, which is -- how does one best put this? -- a qualification for this office, much as Chief Privacy Officer is pretty much not.)
And so, breathing deeply because I know how hard many of this website may hold these endorsements, I'm asking supporters of Lieu and Nava and Torrico and Delgadillo to face apparent reality and coalesce tomorrow around Kamala Harris. She'll be a very good Attorney General; no less important, she is not and will never be Chris Kelly -- and she is the only one who seems capable of beating Kelly for this nomination who can say that.