Northern San Diego County-- Will They Ever Have Good Representation In Congress?

Though many of the most salient questions about his corruption have never been addressed, Republican former-congressman/DWT star Duke Cunningham is out of prison. Apparently, we will never find out what happened to the $400,000 Thomas "Gus" Kontogiannis gave Cunningham to pay off George W. Bush for a pardon. (Be sure to read the comments at the link; some of these folks have very inside information they're sharing.) Anyway, now that the Dukester is out, the media isn't asking him about the bribes, especially not the big Bush bribe, just about what it was like to be in a Club Fed. Huff Po reports the 72 year old sleazy right-wing sociopath is now an advocate of sentencing reform and rolling back harsh mandatory minimums for drug crimes. "He's active in his church," they report, "he's volunteering with his local fire department, and he even says he's setting up meet-and-greets and fundraisers for Republican gubernatorial candidate Asa Hutchinson in Arkansas." He lives in Arkansas now-- in "the largest gated community in the U.S." Like Cunningham, Hutchinson is a far right extremist who a record that would be labeled "fascist" in any country that has ever experienced the tyranny of fascism.

"Unfortunately, some of my Democrat colleagues were right and I was wrong on some issues as far as criminal justice," Cunningham said, specifically regretting votes for mandatory minimums for drug crimes that take discretion away from federal judges and give federal prosecutors a tremendous amount of leverage over defendants.

"We have taken out of the judge's hands the ability to be merciful in some reasons or to do the right thing," Cunningham said. "I've heard case after case where the judges have said, 'I wish I could help you, but my hands are tied.' I want to untie the hands of our judges."

"I saw kids in there who are 19 to 30. They go into prison, they maybe got caught with cocaine or rock or something like that, and they give them 10 years minimum. What do they do when they get out?" Cunningham said. "There's a lot of very nice guys that got caught up."

…"I'm not going to give you their names, but I've already called some Republican and Democrat friends of mine and told them that I would make myself available to testify if they could protect me from you guys when I come back there," Cunningham told HuffPost, adding that he was worried "you paparazzi would eat me alive" if he ever came back to Capitol Hill.

"Eat me alive," I hope means someone would ask him questions about the Bush bribe and about the other Republicans on the House Appropriations Defense Subcommittee doing the exact same thing he was doing, particularly Jerry Lewis, Duncan Hunter, Virgil Goode, Darrell Issa and Ken Calvert.

Cunningham says he still hasn't forgiven himself for accepting millions in bribes from defense contractors, and again apologized to those whose trust he violated. But he said he wants to use any influence he can still muster to influence changes in what he refers to as the December of his life.

"I got a friend who told me that the only cure for politics is embalming fluid," Cunningham said. "I think that's true."

The infamous "menu" of what Cunningham was offering and for how much

The state of California wasn't waiting for the embalming fluid. At the first opportunity, they chopped up his R+5 district (which Bush won with 54% against Gore and with 55% against Kerry) to erase whatever was left of Cunninghamism from San Diego County. They gave many of the most die-hard Republican parts of the district-- Del Mar, Solana Beach, Encinitas and Carlsbad along the both coast and, inland to Rancho Santa Fe-- to Darrell Issa and other inland chunks like San Marcos to Duncan Hunter, Jr., making both of them safer in seats that were threatened demographically. Issa's district R+10 district was turing blue but the addition of the reddest parts of Cunningham's (plus Steve Israel's tenure at the DCCC) gave him a reprieve in a district that would be a D+2 but is now an R+4. When Duncan Hunter's slow-witted, alcoholic song, Jr., inherited daddy's seat, the district had a PVI of R+9 and was headed bluer. The spoils from the northeast of Cunningham's old district put the brakes on the slide and Hunter's district has a PVI of R+14-- reddest in the state and safe for a few more years, even for a dullard like him.

All that said, the core of Cunninghamland is now much friendlier for Democrats-- with a PVI of D+2. In 2012 the Democrats, tepid and unsure of themselves as always, ran a self-funding multimillionaire from the Republican wing of the Democratic Party, conservative New Dem Scott Peters and Peters managed to buy himself a seat (spending $2.8 million of his own dollars) by outspending corrupt Republican lobbyist/incumbent Brian Bilbray nearly two to one. Peters has done nothing to engage the Democratic base and, despite that D+2, he's considered one of the most vulnerable incumbents in Congress. His voting record sucks and Democratic base voters have no reason to come out and bolster his career in November other than the DCCC's mantra: "the Republican is worse."

The Republican is, no doubt, worse but he's also more interesting than Peters-- and not that much worse. The GOP is running openly gay Republican Carl DeMaio-- and he's ahead of Peters in the blue district. The latest polling shows DeMaio beating Peters 51-44%. How can that happen in a blue California district?

• DeMaio holds 82% of the Republican base, and gets 88% support from conservatives. Peters holds 85% of the Democratic base, holds 87% of the liberal vote, and edges DeMaio among moderates 54% to 43%.

• DeMaio leads by 17 points among men, trails by 2 points among women, a 19-point Gender Gap.

• DeMaio leads decisively among the less educated and less affluent voters. Peters draws even among the most educated and most affluent voters.

• Union voters break heavily for Peters, non-union voters break for DeMaio. Voters split when asked which of the 2 candidates is more trustworthy. 45% say DeMaio, 41% say Peters.

DeMaio and Peters emerge from a 06/03/14 "Top-2" primary in which DeMaio finished behind Peters, in large part because DeMaio and other Republicans split the Republican vote. Today, those voters who backed Republican Kirk Jorgensen in the primary break 5:1 for DeMaio. Those voters who in 2012 backed Republican Brian Bilbray in CA-52, today back DeMaio 11:1. Those voters who in 2012 backed Democrat Peters, stick today with Peters 11:1.