With Waxman Retiring, What Happens With One Of America's Foremost Liberal Congressional Districts?

This is how EMILY's List lost Wendy Greuel her last race. What garbage will they throw at Ted Lieu?

In 2008, Obama scored 64% against McCain in what is now CA-33. Last cycle he did pretty well too-- 61-37% against Romney. The PVI of the Los Angeles district is a solid D+11 and not even a DCCC led by Steve Israel could lose a district that blue, right? Well, that's what we're here to discuss today. Israel's bumbling won CA-31, southeast of here, for a radical right Republican from Arkansas who runs around dressed as a Confederate Civil War general, Gary Miller. But that's "just" a D+5 district, the bluest district anywhere in America with a Republican. Surely not even Steve Israel could lose a D+11.

Last cycle, while Israel was busy backing a loser in CA-31, Pete Aguilar, who couldn't connect with voters in his district, the venerable Henry Waxman, an incumbent of 4 decades nearly lost CA-33-- Santa Monica, Venice, Malibu, Marina Del Rey, Redondo Beach, El Segundo, Manhattan Beach, Rancho Palos Verdes, Westwood, Brentwood, Beverly Hills, Topanga, Calabasas and Agoura Hills-- to a Republican calling himself an independent. In the end Waxman beat him 171,860 (54%, about 40,000 fewer votes than Obama on the same day) to 127,421. It was Waxman's closest race ever-- and most expensive. He spent $2,663,179 to win his seat back. Bill Bloomfield, the Republican "independent" spent $7,982,215 ($7,567,080 of it from his personal fortune). In the past, Bloomfield has contributed hundreds of thousands of dollars to fellow Republicans like David Vitter, Jane Norton, John McCain, Kelly Ayotte, Mitt Romney, George Bush, Ken Calvert, Sam Brownback and dozens of GOP state committees and PACs. The only "Democrats" he's donated to are two reactionaries from the Republican wing if the Democratic Party, Joe Manchin and Jane Harman. He'll likely run again this year. And there's an excellent chance he'll do well enough in the jungle primary to make it into the general election.

So who will represent the left in the other slot? Political types think the best shots are a progressive and well-liked state senator, Ted Lieu, or a very much disliked ex-Republican from another part of the L.A. Basin, Wendy Greuel. EMILY's List is running her campaign and have already managed to force several other better-liked and more respected women candidates out of the race. EMILY's List, once a beloved part of the progressive movement, has, in recent years, come to be best known as an operation specializing in targeting progressive pro-Choice men on behalf of much more conservative women. Last year it was their scurrilous I.E. insinuating Eric Garcetti had a connection with prostitutes that lost Greuel the mayor's race. Earlier they financed a vicious, anti-Semitic campaign against progressive Congressman Steve Cohen in Memphis, in the hopes of electing a conservative sociopath, Nikki Tinker, and when the pressure got too intense, they withdrew their endorsement (on the day of the election). Their candidate lost to Cohen, who had been endorsed by National Organization for Women (NOW) and Planned Parenthood in a lopsided landslide, 79% for Cohen to 19% for the EMILY's List anti-Semite. It's the only way EMILY's List knows how to conduct politics and when they attack Ted Lieu, they'll be laughed out of California and damage all the much-loved women public officials they try to associate themselves with.

Meanwhile another, potentially transformative, candidate-- also a woman, but not the kind of robotic and conservative woman EMILY's List prefers-- is author Marianne Williamson. Williamson is one of the most loved and admired women in Los Angeles and she's isn't really running a campaign based on political careerism-- anything but. She's already raised nearly $400,000-- and is yet to hire a finance director and she has over 2,500 volunteers. Thursday night she had a volunteer night in Venice and over a hundred people showed up-- over 8 months before the election!

Greuel is generally disliked by people in L.A., including many of her biggest contributors. I've talked to several who have told me she's the most ungracious and unappreciative person they'd ever met in politics. She doesn't ever thank anyone because she believes "it's all for the cause," but everyone who knows her knows there is only one cause when it comes to Wendy Greuel: her career. Unlike Greuel, Marianne Williamson has a well-thought out and cohesive message-- and one a party Democrat would find it very hard to deliver: "The United States government has become a system of legalized corruption due to the excessive influence of money on our politics, and that the greatest moral challenge of our generation is to outlaw such corruption by passing a Constitutional amendment… A toxic brew of shrinking civil liberties, expanding corporate influence, and domestic surveillance threaten to put American democracy into a death spiral. Given that the political status quo created this situation, they are not the ones we should look to to heal it. Only a genuine alternative-- not traditional candidacies offered up by a stale status quo-- is worthy of the aspirations of the voters in District 33."

I can see Bernie Sanders saying something like that… but not Wendy Greuel. Ted Lieu? Well have to wait and see, right? As for CA-31… Steve Israel is backing Pete Aguilar again.