California Democratic Party Convention

In 2018 EMILY's List shill, Brooklyn hipster, Hillaryite and wealthy Qualcomm heiress Sara Jacobs tried buying the San Diego/Orange County congressional seat that other people-- not her-- had driven Darrell Issa out of. She failed spectacularly and didn't get through the primary-- after spending $2,125,798 of grandpa's money. (Her family laundered another $2,369,074 through EMILY's List to support her with outside efforts.) She won 28,778 votes (15.8%). That's $161.81 per vote-- a bad investment... except for EMILY's List which was able to, as always, rake substantial cuts for itself and it's affiliates off the top.

In early September out of touch New Dem Susan Davis announced she wouldn't be seeking another term in San Diego's 53rd district, which includes communities just north of Interstate 8 from Linda Vista to El Cajon, and areas south of the freeway including Mission Hills, areas surrounding Balboa Park, parts of Mid-City, La Mesa, Lemon Grove, Spring Valley, and parts of Chula Vista. CA-49 and CA-53 don't share a border. And the districts are very different. CA-49 is a rich (median income is $82,202) white (61%) mostly suburban district. CA-53 is a less well-off (median income is $68,799), less white (40.4%) mostly urban district. But with Jacobs, it's only about her own sense of entitlement, not about the people who live in whichever district she tries to buy.

But rich Sara and EMILY's List ran into a problem over the weekend: the Democratic Party. Oh, not the DNC or DCCC; no worries there; like EMILY's List, they always back the rich person. But the California grassroots Democratic Party. The state party was meeting in Long Beach over the weekend. Thousands of delegates and activists attended. The Times of San Diego reported that on Saturday San Diego City Council President Georgette Gómez "won the endorsement by the party’s grassroots delegates with 75% of the vote," a stunning defeat for Big Money in politics. (In her first two months running, Jacobs has already raised over $300,000. The Times noted that "Party delegates tend to endorse the most progressive of competing Democratic candidates... [and that] If elected in November, Gómez would be the first LGBTQ Latina member of Congress."

The Associated Press reported that Bernie was the star of the convention, especially because neither Elizabeth nor Status Quo Joe showed up. "Bernie Sanders was greeted with booming cheers at a gathering of California Democrats Saturday, underscoring his popularity with the party’s liberal base as he looks to capture the biggest prize in the presidential primary season next year... He earned cheers when fending off suggestions that his agenda was pulling the party too far to the political left. 'I don’t think so, I honestly don’t,' he said. As AOC, one of his most prominent supporters mentioned earlier in the month in Iowa, "We're not pulling the party left; we are bringing the party home." That grates on conservative, corporatist Democrats like Bloomberg, the Clintons, Biden-- the whole Republican wing the Democratic Party-- but the sentiment went over very well in Long Beach. Bernie was overwhelmingly endorsed by the California Young Democrats.

Sanders has made clear California is a key target for his campaign: He already hired 40 staff members in California, far more than any of his competitors, and is treating the state as comparable to early voting states like Iowa and New Hampshire.

Warren’s and Biden’s decisions to skip the party gathering drew a rare rebuke from Rusty Hicks, the chair of the state party.

“Your decision is a blatant disregard and disrespect to California’s grassroots leaders who make the phone calls, knock the doors, and give the money... in swing districts and swing states alike ... year after year after year,” he tweeted.

This will be the third major gathering of Democratic contenders Biden is skipping in California; he avoided the party’s summer convention as well as a Democratic National Committee gathering. Warren attended both.

Biden appeared in the state Thursday, attracting a few hundred people to an outdoor rally at the edge of downtown Los Angeles. He spent Friday raising money in Seattle before heading to Las Vegas for a town hall Saturday. Warren planned to spend Saturday in Iowa, the first state to vote.

Yet Biden remains among a cluster of rivals with no clear front-runner, state and national polls suggest.

Some California Democrats speculate Biden is avoiding the crowd because it’s made up of activists known to heckle more centrist candidates, particularly those who don’t support Medicare for All. And, indeed, the large group of Sanders supporters almost certainly would have had a different greeting for Biden.

Bloomberg also kept away, knowing full well he would have been boo-ed out of the convention center. The party refused to endorse Blue Dog Jim Costa, a reactionary Fresno congressman. And conservatives were generally poorly received. The level of interest in corporate whore Patrick Deval was zero and his speech went over badly. Among California politicians, Adam Schiff got the biggest cheers of anyone-- and a prolonged standing ovation for his work on impeaching Trump. The party also endorsed Berniecrat Liam O'Mara to run in CA-42 (a conservative-leaning Riverside district) to run against Republican Trumpist Ken Calvert.

The most recent California polling-- by Change Research for KQED-- shows Elizabeth (28%) and Bernie (24%) running ahead of the conservative wing candidates, Status Quo Joe (19%) and Mayo Pete (9%). Favorite daughter Kamala Harris didn't turn out that favored-- just 8% of the vote. She should drop out before she further sullies her own name.