JOIN JERRY McNERNEY, CHARLIE BROWN, DWT, & THE CALIFORNIA BLOGGING COMMUNITY AT THE STATE DEM CONVENTION NEXT WEEKEND

Our pals over at Calitics are sponsoring a very special event at the California Democratic State Convention next weekend-- the Blue House at the Brew House Blograiser to benefit the campaigns of Representative Jerry McNerney (CA-11) and Lt. Col. Charlie Brown (CA-04). If you're in the neighborhood, stop by and meet Jerry and Charlie and the California blogging community in person. There's going to be great food, delicious San Diego microbrews, and you can help us take a big step towards making California even more Blue! This will be going down at the Karl Strauss Brewing Company downtown at 8:30pm, Friday, April 27. The address is: 1157 Columbia Street, San Diego, CA 92101.


Donate $20 to Jerry McNerney's campaign and $20 to Charlie Brown's campaign ($40 in total) via Blue America's ActBlue Page and your name will be at the door AND you'll be registered for a drawing for the 6 prizes. There are 5 autographed copies of The Bush Diaries by California author (and blogger) Peter Clothier, each paired with a rare, collectible CD, a promo-only copy of the Blue America campaign song from 2006, "Have You Had Enough," sung by Rickie Lee Jones and our two ex-Squirrel Nut Zippers Tom Maxwell and Ken Mosher. The grand prize is even rarer, an official Australian Record Industry Association platinum and gold award for two records by one of Congressman McNerney's best known constituents, Chris Isaak (a born and raised Stockton native). The double platinum award was for the album Forever Blue and the gold single award is for "Somebody's Crying." The unique award was given to the former president of Chris' label and he (errr... me) donated it for this event. Calitics will be picking the winner from a hat on Friday night. The good news is that you don't even have to be there to win. If you donate the $20 + $20 minimum online, your name gets thrown into the hat too and we'll mail you the book and CD or the platinum record award if you win.

DWT regulars already know who Jerry McNerney and Charlie Brown are and what they stand for. If you just stumbled across this post, please check out our most recent conversation with Jerry on March 31 and with Charlie on February 3. Keep in mind that Karl Rove has targeted Jerry for defeat and has helped to recruit a far right loon to campaign against him.

Charlie's best bet will be to face the severely corrupt incumbent, John Doolittle again-- and Doolittle claims to be running for re-election-- but it is very possible that Doolittle will be living out of the district-- in a federal penitentiary by November '08. As you probably know, his office was raided last week by the FBI and the House Republican leader John Boehner forced him to resign from his Appropriations Committee seat (since it was his membership on that committee, after all, facilitated his ability to take in so much money in bribes).

According to today's CongressDaily "Doolittle's northern California 4th District, which President Bush won in 2004 by a 61-37 percent margin, would ordinarily be among the safest seats in the House. But Doolittle barely won a ninth term last year by defeating Democratic nominee Charlie Brown 49-46 percent... National Republican Congressional Committee Chairman Tom Cole of Oklahoma said he has not had time to assess the political ramifications of the FBI investigation. 'Too soon to talk about it,' Cole said. 'It's all happening fast.' (But not too soon for some: In fact, there are plenty of right wing loons lining up to grab that Doolittle seat. Hopefully, they'll all be in a special election, 5 or 6 hard right Republican kooks against one upstanding, well-respected Democrat. He'd need 50% + one vote and he'd be the congressman to make CA-04 proud after the recent disgrace.) A Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee spokesman said the district has seen significant growth, including new residents from the generally Democratic San Francisco Bay area. 'A lot of these new people moving into the district don't know anything about John Doolittle other than he is under an ethical black cloud,' the DCCC spokesman said.

One more thing-- you know the little video area that comes up when you click the lifeguard station on the right? Right now all that you can see there is an interview with me. But we hope that this Friday we'll have a LIVE VLOG of the event in San Diego. It's an experimental new technology but we're going to try. So come back Friday and click the lifeguard station at 8:30pm (Pacific Times) and see if we have it together. Or, better yet, come join us in person down in San Diego.