Since I have posted my last diary, I mentioned the original results I reported two days after the November 6 elections in terms of the number of votes for Democratic candidate Jerry Tetalman vs. Rep. Darrell "Darth Vader" Issa in California's 49th Congressional District:
Below are the voting results per Huffington Post's election dashboard. Notice how many votes Jerry Tetalman received, considering the 49th Congressional District leans conservative.
100% reporting
Darrell Issa (R)
Votes: 118,554
Percentage of Votes: 58.9%
Jerry Tetalman (D)
Votes: 82,562
Percentage of Votes: 41.1%
Just this past Saturday, I reported on the total votes per Huffington Post's Election Dashboard:
http://elections.huffingtonpost.com/...
100% reporting
CANDIDATE VOTES PCT.
✓ Darrell Issa I 139,127 58.8%
Jerry Tetalman 97,454 41.2%
However, per a comment by a fellow Kossack, I failed to actually go into the CA Secretary of State website and find the actual, final vote tally. This I have done before on numerous occasions in the past but just not this election cycle until now. I've been swamped with work for my MBA program in San Francisco, business and networking meetings and other things.
Anyway, whereas Jerry Tetalman's votes on November 8th were 82,562, the final results according to Huffington Post showed Tetalman with a 14,892 vote increase to 97,454, not really changing the percentage gap of votes between Tetalman and Issa.
Here are the very final, accurate results for the Tetalman/Issa race per the CA Secretary of State's website (and thanks to our own very awesome Secretary of State, Debra Bowen):
http://vote.sos.ca.gov/...
County Results
Candidate: Jerry Tetalman
(Party Preference: DEM)
Votes: 109,580
Percent: 41.6%
Candidate: *Darrell Issa
(Party Preference: REP)
Votes: 154,043
Percent: 58.4%
* Incumbent
Now the important thing to note is that now Jerry Tetalman has a 0.04 percentage increase in the number of votes and a total number of 109,580 votes. This number of votes is larger than either the number of people living in the cities of Richmond or Walnut Creek. This is very telling as the 49th District of California "Leans Conservative."
Well, soon by at least 2016, the 49th District will become the same kind of California 3rd Congressional district that former Lt. Governor-now-Congressman John Garamendi occupies. This includes the fact that one of the largest army bases in the United States, Camp Pendleton, is located in Darrell Issa's own turf in the 49th Congressional District.
Look, if Jerry Tetalman, one of the most progressive Democratic candidates to run for Congress, can get 109,580 votes in a "Lean Conservative" district with no support from the DCCC, DNC, insider Democrats, Democracy for America or any real credible progressive organizations and with less than $200,000 in campaign donations, something is brewing.
Yes, indeed. A number of people who commented on my diaries are from across the U.S. and they have donated to Jerry Tetalman's campaign. This is the kind of momentum that Rob Zerban had in his unsuccessful race to unseat Paul Ryan (we will make sure he's unseated in 2014) except that Zerban got more attention nationally than Tetalman did. In fact, Tetalman's campaign barely got much in terms of news coverage until the last 2 1/2 weeks until the election.
Yet Tetalman still got 109,580 votes!
Folks, this just shows that grassroots campaigning will always beat any kind of information technology ever invented, even though IT in itself does help campaigns win elections. Just turn to Barack Obama's re-election campaign. It utilized online phone banking where anyone across the U.S. can have online access to phone lists and dial. That's how sophisticated that can be.
Now if online phone banking can apply to all Congressional Races across the country in 2014, OH MAN, we're going to give the Republicans a race they wish they never run. They'll be screaming so hard, they wish they knew the concept of having real "ideas."
Now one thing is true: Places in Oklahoma and Arkansas are dead red, I mean, painfully red.
Still, what are we afraid of? Get all of the red stains across the country out and put blue in. Seriously, shouldn't anyone in the country deserve blue? It's a more optimistic, chill kind of color. That's one reason why I'm a Democrat. ;)
Anyway, here's some further information if you want to know about Jerry Tetalman and his recent, unsuccessful campaign to unseat Rep. Darrell Issa:
Jerry Tetalman's Statement on Darrell Issa's Libya Press Release:
http://www.dailykos.com/...
My Interview with Jerry Tetalman:
http://www.dailykos.com/...
In the meantime, it may not be 2014 yet but we can still watch old videos of Darrell Issa that get ourselves worked up. Like this one: