Harmer loss could galvanize East Bay Republicans in 2010

Contra Costa Times ^ | 11/7/9 | Lisa Vorderbrueggen

[SmithL]

In the strange world of politics, where up is down and down is up, Republicans tout as a victory David Harmer's 10-point loss to Democrat John Garamendi in Tuesday's special congressional race.

With an 18-point party registration advantage, off-the-charts name identification and double the cash of his opponent, Republicans say Garamendi should have won with a far bigger margin.

"Harmer winning 43 percent of the vote in an overwhelmingly Democratic district in the Bay Area does not speak well for the Democrats," California GOP Chairman Ron Nehring said the morning after Tuesday's election.

Yes, this is largely spin.

Harmer outperformed most of the previous Republican challengers in District 10 for several reasons unrelated to sour sentiment over Democratic policies.

For one, low-turnout special elections typically skew toward Republicans because they vote in higher percentages than Democrats. Political experts say such elections involve too few voters to serve as useful harbingers.

It was also an open seat. The presence of an incumbent usually discourages opposition.

The former District 10 representative, Ellen Tauscher, never had a serious primary challenge. And she had only nominal Republican opposition since 2002, when the new 10th District boundaries put the seat into safe Democratic territory.

Tauscher easily won re-election in the past four general elections with no less than two-thirds of the vote and margins of victory of at least 33 percentage points, a spread well in excess of the 18-point Democratic Party registration advantage.

But Harmer undeniably eclipsed the Republicans who ran against Tauscher.

[SmithL]

Harmer's campaign was practically invisible.

[Attention Surplus Disorder]

If you live here for any length of time (as I unfortunately do, it’s not my choice) you begin to understand what a Republican candidate faces in this area.

If you don’t live here, the only way you’ll understand is if you live (I assume) in Mass, Ithica NY, SanFran or any of the other top ten “enlightened, diverse” but otherwise absolutely brain dead one-track mind, cling to the 60’s man, liberalism enclaves around the country. I have to give the Dems credit, the reflex to vote Dem in spite of an avalanche of evidence showing them and their policies to be immensely destructive is indomitable. The people out here will vote for higher taxes on themselves without limit, will vote for people they have heard of vs people they haven’t without the *slightest* consideration of *anything* else, will vote for more and more enviro restrictions, more and more “open space” and NEVER, EVER approve a new road that would possibly relieve their 45-minute commute time, NEVER approve a 4th bore for the Caldecott tunnel (in planning and needed for 25+ years while the costs have octupled) NEVER approve a refinery, and on and on and on. It is absolutely uncanny how determined they are to impose more and more government on themselves. It is the perpetual solution to every problem which has never been shown to work. But see, they are the enlightened ones and we are the neanderthals.

And so, a plain-spoken and commonsense Conservative with plenty of business experience comes along and he cannot get any traction. Now in this case, the election district was massively, massively gerrymandered and so Harmer’s showing was pretty impressive. But obviously, it wasn’t winning, and so we get this career dullard hack Garamendi, already promoted at least 2 levels above his competence as Lt. Gov, and he becomes Pelosi’s lap poodle on healthcare. Nice job, CA, you did it again.