Next Tuesday Is The Special Election To Replace Tauscher In Northern California-- We Stand Behind Anthony Woods

There's a special election a week from today up in Northern California. The objective is to replace fiscally conservative Ellen Tauscher who has been drafted into the Obama Administration by her staunch ally Rahm Emanuel. (Poor Hillary!) Early in June DWT endorsed Anthony Woods but we've been mostly sitting back and watching the race from afar since then. I watched the a credible batch of endorsements roll in for Anthony, not career pols but grassroots organizations that have first hand knowledge of his work-- like VoteVets.org, Human Rights Campaign, Victory Fund, as well as the Bay Area Reporter, a weekly I used to write for, and the Veterans Press. He's clearly the grassroots candidate, although he's up against a batch of very seasoned pols, one of whom, John Garamendi, is clearly the Establishment choice and has the biggest name recognition. But look at the ActBlue fundraising page for the election. Anthony has more donors than the other five candidates-- combined. Over 1,700 donors have given him more than $175,000. Garamendi goes to more traditional sources of income, which is, after all, the very bedrock of everything-- and I mean everything-- that is wrong with American politics.

If you wonder how it's possible that in a democracy off sorts, over 70% of the people want a public option in the new health care legislation being debated now and the entire (100%) Republican Party opposes it, look no further than the billions of dollars being spent in thinly-disguised bribes to members of Congress by the Insurance Industry and the Medical-Industrial Complex. These bribe-takers should all be in prison-- Republicans and Democrats and we certainly shouldn't be electing new ones of that ilk. So are any of the Democrats running in CA-10 taking dirty money to run their campaigns? Glad you asked. And you're not the only one who's asked. The very first question at an August 6th debate in Solano County was about who's taken money from the crooked insurance companies. Take a look.

Nice answer from Joan Buchanan... although before she gave it she took $5K from vicious health reform opponent Wellpoint, $1500 from the teabagger-financing American Insurance Association (AIA), and $5K from Anesthesia Service Medical Group. In the days since, she’s accepted another $5K from the AMA, $5K from the California Dental Association, and $1,000 from the Financial Services Roundtable. So she's not even in Congress and she's lying her ass off already. As for the claim she's gotten all her money from individual donors. That includes one really big donor-- herself, to the tune of $750,000 so far. She running, simultaneously, for the state Assembly and she's also been taking money from Merck and other bad players in the health care reform debate.

For all his show of how "the insurance companies don't like me," Garamendi has received PAC contributions from Pacific Life Insurance Company. Maybe he didn't notice the middle two words in the donation. That might not be Garamenddi's biggest weakness though. For one thing, he and the 2 other Sacramento career pols are running for 7 offices between them... simultaneously! That isn't just weird, it's unethical and very shady. The 3 of them "hold California public offices and continued to raise and spend money from their state campaign accounts after they declared themselves federal candidates."

While not illegal, the practice raises questions among watchdog organizations who say multiple campaign funds allow candidates to bolster their war chests while sidestepping the more stringent federal contribution limits.

Citizens may contribute up to $2,400 per election to a federal candidate compared with $3,600 to a state Senate or Assembly candidate or $6,000 to an individual seeking statewide office.

A Bay Area News Group analysis of the latest campaign finance reports of the three congressional candidates who had both state and federal accounts found that Lt. Gov. John Garamendi raised $20,140 for his gubernatorial and lieutenant governor's re-election bids following his April 22 entry into the congressional race.

The analysis fails to reveal, however, how much of Garamendi's combined expenses of $662,712 in his two state accounts in the first six months of 2009 were made after he became a congressional candidate.

The state does not require, and Garamendi's campaign did not report, the disclosure of the dates of expenditures. Reports of state Sen. Mark DeSaulnier, D-Concord, and Assemblywoman Joan Buchanan, D-Alamo, include the data.

But if Garamendi loses by one vote, it's because he wasn't able to vote for himself, since he doesn't live in the district. (He lives in Dan Lungren's district but was afraid to go up against him, even though Lungren is certifiably insane.)