Matt Ortega

Open seats heavily tilted towards one party’s favor tend to draw a wide range of candidates seeking to cash in. Lieutenant Governor John Garamendi (D) decided late last month to put his gubernatorial ambitions “on the back burner” in favor of a bid for the soon-to-be vacant seat of Congresswoman Ellen Tauscher (D-Alamo, Calif.) in the 10th Congressional District. The six-term Democrat was formally nominated this week to the post of Undersecretary of State for Arms Control at the State Department.

Though not officially a candidate as no vacancy technically exists at the moment, Garamendi quickly lined up labor support. (But not the locals in the district who endorsed State Senator Mark DeSaulnier.)

Garamendi released a poll last week that asserted he was the frontrunner for the seat. Sporting an 80 percent name recognition in the district and amassing support twice that of two Democratic challengers.

Internal polls typically favor the campaign that released them. Assemblywoman Joan Buchanan (D-Alamo), also a candidate for the open seat of her longtime friend, issued numbers in March that showed her — not surprisingly — in the lead.

Polling guru Stu Rothenberg wrote in Roll Call about Garamendi’s findings:

For some reason, campaign managers and press secretaries never tire of distributing press releases and campaign polls that they apparently assume will be taken at face value and regurgitated by political observers. [...]

The other poll and press release comes from the campaign of Congressional hopeful John Garamendi (D), who is running in the expected special election in California’s 10th district, assuming Rep. Ellen Tauscher (D) is confirmed to a State Department post.

As far as I can tell, there is nothing wrong with the survey of 400 likely special election voters conducted in early May by JMM Research for Garamendi, or with the polling memo written by Jim Moore. It’s the breathless press release that accompanied the polling memo and the implication that Garamendi has a huge advantage in the contest.

The reason that Garamendi, the state’s lieutenant governor, leads the race now is that he has been on the ballot frequently for the past 30 years. In fact, Garamendi was on the ballot in California in every even-numbered year between 1974 and 1994, with the exception of 1978 and 1992 (when his wife ran unsuccessfully for a seat in Congress).

He has run for state Assembly, state Senate, state insurance commissioner, state controller, lieutenant governor and governor. Shortly before he released his Congressional poll, he was running in a different race — for governor.

Of course, name ID is important, and Garamendi’s name identification advantage certainly is worth noting. But name ID at the end of a campaign is much more important than before the race has even begun.

And Garamendi’s 11-point advantage over the second-place finisher in the hypothetical ballot test isn’t all that substantial given his name identification advantage.

The sitting lieutenant governor has a name ID of 80 percent but is drawing only 24 percent on the hypothetical Congressional ballot. That means that a large chunk of voters who say they have heard of Garamendi aren’t automatically drawn to him.

The Garamendi folks might also take a moment to consider what happened to Jim Tedisco, a well-known New York Republican state legislator who had been in politics for years. He held an early special election lead over an unknown Democratic opponent — who got known quickly once he went on TV and who overtook the longtime legislator when all the votes were counted.

Garamendi certainly is a very serious contender for this seat. It’s fair to call him the frontrunner. He’s been in politics far longer than his opponents, and that has given him name ID and connections. But the early poll is of limited predictive value, and the lieutenant governor’s campaign staffers might want to note that political longevity isn’t what it was once cracked up to be. Just ask President Barack Obama. [emphasis added]

The Progressive Connection, an East Bay local blog, noted that the Garamendi poll completely misrepresented his challengers’ experience and was “riddled with errors.”

Given the tendency for Garamendi to run for various offices (even at the same time), there’s still hope that if his bid fails, he has plenty of time to secure the nomination for California’s 3rd Congressional District from Gary Davis. It is that northern California district many activists would prefer he seek.

Six days since confirmation by the U.S. Senate,  Director of the Office for National Drug Control Policy in the White House, Gil Kerlikowske, says that the U.S. should shift away from the “war on drugs” — a position that reflects the new administration’s preference for treatment over incarceration for non-violent drug offenders.

Wall Street Journal:

In his first interview since being confirmed to head the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy, Gil Kerlikowske said Wednesday the bellicose analogy was a barrier to dealing with the nation’s drug issues.

“Regardless of how you try to explain to people it’s a ‘war on drugs’ or a ‘war on a product,’ people see a war as a war on them,” he said. “We’re not at war with people in this country.” [...]

The Obama administration is likely to deal with drugs as a matter of public health rather than criminal justice alone, with treatment’s role growing relative to incarceration, Mr. Kerlikowske said.

Already, the administration has called for an end to the disparity in how crimes involving crack cocaine and powder cocaine are dealt with. Critics of the law say it unfairly targeted African-American communities, where crack is more prevalent.

The administration also said federal authorities would no longer raid medical-marijuana dispensaries in the 13 states where voters have made medical marijuana legal. Agents had previously done so under federal law, which doesn’t provide for any exceptions to its marijuana prohibition.

During the presidential campaign, President Barack Obama also talked about ending the federal ban on funding for needle-exchange programs, which are used to stem the spread of HIV among intravenous-drug users.

The drug czar doesn’t have the power to enforce any of these changes himself, but Mr. Kerlikowske plans to work with Congress and other agencies to alter current policies. He said he hasn’t yet focused on U.S. policy toward fighting drug-related crime in other countries.

Kerlikowske, a former Seattle police chief, is someone to watch in how the Obama administration enacts the kind of sweeping change volunteers and staff worked so hard for last year.

These days, the Late Show with David Letterman gets my attention over The Tonight Show with Jay Leno. Perhaps in no small part due to Leno’s “both sides are bad” centrism in his jokes and interviews that typically results in me rolling my eyes.

But Leno is ceding his late night desk on The Tonight Show over to Conan O’Brien at the end of the month as part of a deal five years in the making. However, Leno will move to 10pm five nights a week. How O’Brien fares at the 11:35pm time slot and in the Los Angeles sun remains to be seen but this trailer for The Jay Leno Show that spoofs the current trend of 10pm murder-dramas is really well done.

Additionally, and this may have been addressed in media availabilities since the announcement, but what happens to NBC programming currently running at the 10pm slot — like the popular series Law & Order: Special Victims Unit — once the show premieres? There was talk of moving such programming to earlier time slots. Those shows are more expensive to produce than the Leno variety show will, reports stated once the announcement was made.

Lawmakers in Maine passed marriage equality legislation and Democratic Governor John Baldacci signed the bill into law.

“I have followed closely the debate on this issue. I have listened to both sides, as they have presented their arguments during the public hearing and on the floor of the Maine Senate and the House of Representatives. I have read many of the notes and letters sent to my office, and I have weighed my decision carefully,” Governor Baldacci said. “I did not come to this decision lightly or in haste.”

“I appreciate the tone brought to this debate by both sides of the issue,” Governor Baldacci said. “This is an emotional issue that touches deeply many of our most important ideals and traditions. There are good, earnest and honest people on both sides of the question.”

“In the past, I opposed gay marriage while supporting the idea of civil unions,” Governor Baldacci said. “I have come to believe that this is a question of fairness and of equal protection under the law, and that a civil union is not equal to civil marriage.”

“Article I in the Maine Constitution states that ‘no person shall be deprived of life, liberty or property without due process of law, nor be denied the equal protection of the laws, nor be denied the enjoyment of that person’s civil rights or be discriminated against.’”

“This new law does not force any religion to recognize a marriage that falls outside of its beliefs. It does not require the church to perform any ceremony with which it disagrees. Instead, it reaffirms the separation of Church and State,” Governor Baldacci said.

“It guarantees that Maine citizens will be treated equally under Maine’s civil marriage laws, and that is the responsibility of government.”

Equality is on the march in America.

National Republican Senatorial Committee (NRSC) launched a radio advertisement tying Senator Arlen Specter (D-Pennsylvania) to President Bush after switching parties.

This would seem to aid whomever the progressive base attempts to challenge Senator Specter with in the Democratic primary since the Party aparatus, apparently, agreed to support the senator in 2010.