California Democrats bet big on an anti-Trump strategy. It didn't work

The GOP Really Defeated Themselves

• Republicans could have put the funding for Jerry Brown's corrupt High Speed Rail on the ballot to give their candidates a rallying point, but as usual the GOP caved and did jack shit.
• If the GOP actually stood for something they might, just maybe, attract voters.

(Los Angeles Times)  -  Although Donald Trump’s victory stunned true-blue California, Democratic strategists in the state are grappling with another reality: Relying on anti-Trump sentiment as a strategy to launch more Democrats into the state Legislature doesn’t appear to have delivered as they’d hoped.

In the final weeks before the election, Democratic party leaders and consultants doubled down on the effort to tie GOP candidates to Trump in campaigns up and down the state, placing his name and image on mailers, television ads and lawn signs.

So far, although it appears Democrats will pick up three seats in the Assembly, there were four races in which the anti-Trump strategy was used and didn’t work. And the Democratic victors appear to be winning by closer margins than pollsters had expected. 

“The overall impact was kind of a dud,” said Andrew Acosta, a consultant for Democrat Dawn Ortiz-Legg. In the race for the Assembly, Ortiz-Legg compared her Republican opponent, Jordan Cunningham, to Trump, emphasizing his stances on women’s reproductive issues.

Ortiz-Legg lost to Cunningham by nearly 10 points in the 35th Assembly District on the Central Coast, despite the fact that state Democrats vastly outspent Republicans to help her. 

“We rolled with the Trump hit, and it obviously didn’t have the impact we were hoping it would,” Acosta said.

Assemblywoman Catharine Baker (R-Dublin) survived a challenge from Democrat Cheryl Cook-Kallio, even after her rival took pains to compare the socially moderate Republican to Trump on gun policy and equal pay. Democrats ignored that Baker had said early on she would not vote for Trump. The Republican incumbent won by 12 points even though Democrats enjoy a 12-point advantage in voter registration in her Bay Area district.

The “Trump effect” also failed in Democratic attempts to flip U.S. House seats. The most vulnerable Republican, Rep. Steve Knight of Palmdale, who denounced Trump and said he couldn’t vote for his party’s nominee, coasted to reelection with an 8-point victory. The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee had spent big in an attempt to link Knight to Trump. The strategy also failed in two Central Valley districts. 

In Southern California, where the tactic was aggressively pursued, Republican Dante Acosta prevailed in his Assembly race despite his opponent’s frequent efforts to compare him to Trump. Assemblyman Marc Steinorth (R-Rancho Cucamonga) is ahead by 4 points and, if trends hold, will likely hold on to his seat against Democratic challenger Abigail Medina, who called Trump and Steinorth “two sides of the same coin.”

“Honestly, it was just a really lazy way of political consulting,” said Jessica Patterson, CEO of the California Trailblazers program, which grooms Republican candidates for office.

In Orange County, for example, Assemblywoman Young Kim (R-Fullerton) is losing to Democrat Sharon Quirk-Silva. With ballots still being counted, Kim trails by just 1,500 votes in a district that has added more than 14,000 registered Democrats since January alone and where the Democratic voter registration edge has grown to 9 percentage points from less than 2 in 2014. Quirk-Silva made Trump such a central part of her campaign that she filed papers with the FEC as an independent expenditure committee opposing him.

Democrat Al Muratsuchi defeated Assemblyman David Hadley after spending months tying the Republican to Trump through lawn signs and the hadleytrump.com website. Although unofficial results showed Muratsuchi winning the coastal L.A. County district by 6 points, voter registration favors Democrats 41% to 30%, a gap that’s widened by 3 points since two years ago.

Read More . . . .

Mike Antonovich did not lose because of Trump. He lost because GOP
registration in his Glendale-Pasadena area has been in free fall for years.

California's Pretend One-Party Elections

Welcome to Rigged Elections

• Big Fucking Wow.  A U.S. Senate "debate" was held between two open borders, big government loving, high taxes loving Democrats.  
• All other political parties and independents have been effectively banned from all future general election ballots by the corrupt "election reform" pushed through by the GOP and Democrats.
• Nothing to report on this staged, phony "debate". I refuse to even vote for that office.

(Mercury News)  -  The two candidates for California’s open U.S. Senate seat clashed in a series of pointed exchanges Wednesday over each other’s competence and ability to get things done, highlighting the stakes in their only televised debate.

State Attorney General Kamala Harris and Rep. Loretta Sanchez, both Democrats, dueled over issues from crime to terrorism, seeking to sway voters in a race that has been largely overshadowed by Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton.

The tone was often sharply critical. Harris used the hour-long matchup at California State University, Los Angeles, to repeatedly criticize Sanchez for her poor attendance record in Washington, saying the race is about “who shows up, and who gets things done.”

Read More . . . .

Sample of a Free Election

U.S. Senate elections are more of a bidding war between Cartels of Billionaire Special Interest Groups than true elections where the people select a representative.  

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Still in the past the voters had multiple political parties to choose from. Today in the corrupt People's Republic voters get a one-party only U.S. Senate "election".

1992 special United States Senate election, California

Party		Candidate	Votes	%
	Democratic	Dianne Feinstein	5,853,651	54.29
	Republican	John F. Seymour (incumbent)	4,093,501	37.96
	Peace and Freedom	Gerald Horne	305,697	2.84
	American Independent	Paul Meeuwenberg	281,973	2.62
	Libertarian	Richard Benjamin Boddie	247,799	2.30
	No party	Write-ins	122	0.00%
Invalid or blank votes			591,822	5.20
Total votes			11,374,565	100.00
Voter turnout			54.52%
	Democratic gain from Republican

One-Party Rule
Other countries where only one party is on the ballot include Communist North Korea, Communist China, Communist Vietnam and Communist Cuba.
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Now the People's Republic of California joins their overseas Brothers in holding mock, pretend elections.

California GOP in total collapse

Kamala Harris and Loretta Sanchez

The Death of Democracy

• Corruption  -  In November California voters will be given a "choice" for U.S. Senate between a Left-wing open borders Democrat and another Left-wing open borders Democrat.

By Gary;

Californians can say goodbye to Democracy, but I fear the mouth-breathing voters do not even have a clue.

Slack-jawed troglodyte Californians are much more interested in their newest phone app, tweets about trendy causes and what their friends ate for lunch than in freedom.

For the few of us who can still think the rotten fruits of the corrupt "top two" primary system have come home to roost. Voters will have a U.S. Senate "choice" between two Democrats:  Kamala Harris and Loretta Sanchez.

There will be no Republican at all on the ballot.  But that does not bother me too much since it was the GOP that created this corrupt "top two" system in a midnight back room deal with no public hearings.

But worse, the Dems and the GOP have prevented voters from voting for minor parties or independent candidates plus your write-in vote is illegal.

It will be Democrat vs Democrat.  Welcome to the true birth of the People's Republic.

From California Secretary of State

Californians gather to view the remains of
the nearly extinct Republican elephant.

A
California GOP Corruption
Under the corrupt leadership of GOP State Senator Abel Maldonado and GOP Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger (and backed by other Republicans) party primaries were abolished in California and only the top two vote getters were allowed on the general election ballots..
This was deliberately done to weaken the voting power of Conservatives.
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Four opposition parties from both the Left and the Right were effectively banned from the November ballot - The American Independent Party, the Green Party, the Peace and Freedom Party and the Libertarian Party.  Maldonado not only wanted opposition parties banned, but independent candidates also.  In addition all write-in votes were made illegal.
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Both Republican and Democrat leaders were happy to eliminate ballot opposition.  Other nations that ban opposition political parties are Communist China, Communist Vietnam and Communist Cuba.

34 candidates on California Senate ballot

"Corruptus in Extremis"

November could see two Democrats running against each other

• In a corrupt back room deal the Democrats and Republicans abolished the primary system allowing only the top two candidates to appear on general election ballots.
• Now as if by "magic" the voters are only allowed to vote for Democrats and Republicans in November.  The corrupt big parties have effectively banned all independent candidates and smaller opposition parties from all future general election ballots.
• Other countries who have banned opposition parties include Cuba, North Korea, Iran and China.

(Los Angeles Times)  -  If elections officials could send just one message to California's 17.2 million registered voters about the U.S. Senate primary in June, it would probably be this: Read the instructions carefully.

"It's not necessarily intuitive on how to properly mark this ballot," said Kammi Foote, registrar of voters for Inyo County. And a mistake could keep a ballot from counting.

On primary day, the race to replace retiring Sen. Barbara Boxer will feature 34 candidates. Only four of those candidates have received appreciable support in public polling so far, and five will appear at the first Senate debate Monday night.

But the full field is larger than any single roster of statewide contenders since the colossal list of 135 candidates who ran in the 2003 special election that recalled then-Gov. Gray Davis. (To make the ballot, candidates must pay about $3,500 or collect 10,000 signatures.)

A
Welcome to Authoritarianism
It's Democrat vs. Democrat.

In the 6th State Senate District the corrupt "top two" phony
election system gave the voters a "choice" of only one political party. 
There was no Republican on the ballot and all small opposition
parties and independent candidates are banned.  The corrupt Elites
have even made your write-in vote illegal. (More)

In some ways, the Senate election is so far beyond the capacity of the system that it’s requiring a unique set of solutions. "You're not just trying to fit a square peg in a round hole, you're trying to fit a skyscraper in a round hole," said Orange County Registrar of Voters Neal Kelley.

In most races, with a handful of candidates, names appear in a single column on one page of the voting booklet, a clear sign to voters that they should only pick one. But with 34 candidates, the geography of ballot templates tends to favor listing the names in two, side-by-side columns, on facing pages of the voting booklet.

That's where the trouble lies for the Senate race, as voters could mistake the two columns as two distinct races and choose one name from each list. That would result in an "overvote," a ballot cast for two or more candidates, which is thus disqualified.

Some counties have been able to fit all 34 names in a single column on the June ballot, making clear that those candidates are competing against one another. California holds a "top-two" primary that sends only the top two vote-getters, regardless of party, to the Nov. 8 general election ballot.

Los Angeles County's electronic voting machines will require two entire pages of Senate candidates. The first page will include a large red warning icon with instructions to vote for only one candidate.

Read More . . . .

.Sample of the old free elections in California

Voters had real choices on their ballots

California 48th congressional district special election, 2005
Party		Candidate	Votes	Percentage
	Republican	John Campbell	41,450	44.7%
	Democratic	Steve Young	25,926	28.0%
	American Independent	Jim Gilchrist	23,237	25.1%
	Green	Bea Tiritilli	1,242	1.3%
	Libertarian	Bruce Cohen	880	0.9%
Totals			93,138	100.0%
Voter turnout			%
	Republican hold

[

Kevin McCarthy Draws Opponent - Central Valley Congressional Races Heat Up

Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy met in secret with rich oligarchs and political Elites to defeat Donald Trump.

(Bakersfield Californian)  -  A Tea Party rabble-rouser will challenge the House majority leader. Two Democrats will fight for a shot at another congressman. 

At 5 p.m. Friday, Kern County’s 2016 election picture was locked in place as the final filing deadline passed.

Ken Mettler
takes on McCarthy

The re-election campaign of Rep. Kevin McCarthy, R-Bakersfield, went from sleepy to intriguing this week when local conservative Republican and businessman Ken Mettler leapt back into the political world to challenge the House majority leader for his 23rd Congressional District seat.

Mettler joins Gerald Morris of Rosamond and Wendy Reed of Quartz Hill in Los Angeles County as a McCarthy challenger.

But the former Kern High School District trustee, who has made headlines as a candidate for Assembly and Kern County leader of the Proposition 8 battle against same-sex marriage, has the potential to rally outsider Republican voters.

And, in a year where Republican outsiders Ted Cruz and Donald Trump are energizing opposition voters, that could make for an interesting and amusing contest.

In a release announcing his candidacy, Mettler criticized McCarthy for supporting the $1.1 trillion Omnibus spending bill.

“I promise to fight a reckless Washington agenda that is bankrupting our government and saddling our children with a mountain of debt,” Mettler wrote.

Kevin McCarthy's 23rd Congressional District

GOP Congressman Valadao faces multiple Democrats

And let us not forget the 21st Congressional District where a pair of Democrats will challenge two-term incumbent Rep. David Valadao, R-Hanford. They are Bakersfield attorney Emilio Huerta, son of labor leader and civil rights activist Dolores Huerta, and Fowler Mayor Pro-Tem Daniel Parra.

The two have already scuffled, squabbling for the California Democratic Party endorsement and the money that would have come with it.

Parra outmanuevered Huerta, who entered the race in January, and seized the pre-endorsement. Huerta successfully challenged the pre-endorsement, sending it to a caucus vote at the Democratic Party convention in late February.

Parra won the caucus vote, but not by enough to block Huerta from gathering the signatures to send the matter to the convention floor on the final day.

Huerta collected nearly twice the needed signatures and succeeded in overturning Parra’s endorsement. But he missed a shot to claim the endorsement himself, leaving both men without formal Democratic Party support.

The big question that will come out of the scrum is whether either Democrat can challenge Valadao, who has twice claimed strong wins in the 21st District despite a more than 15-point voter registration advantage for Democrats.

Former Republican state Sen. and Assemblyman Phil Wyman is running a Quixotic campaign for U.S. Senate. California Attorney General Kamala Harris and Rep. Loretta Sanchez, both Democrats, are the leading candidates for the post.

Read More . . . .

The 21st Congressional District of Rep. David Valadao, R-Hanford

Republican lawmaker folds US Senate campaign in California

Assemblyman Rocky Chavez
R-Oceanside

California GOP nears extinction

--- The GOP is so pathetic that even with an open U.S. Senate seat they cannot attract a candidate.

(Fresno Bee)  -  Republicans are hoping for a surprise this year in California's U.S. Senate race.

It won't be coming from Rocky Chavez.

The Republican legislator and retired Marine Corps colonel abruptly ended his campaign Monday, after piling up nearly $43,000 in debt and displaying scant evidence he was gaining ground in the race.

Chavez was one of several little-known Republicans hoping to upend conventional political thinking this year. Democrats are favored to hold the seat being vacated by retiring Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-California, in a state where the party holds every statewide office and controls both chambers of the Legislature.

However, Chavez's exit could bolster the chances of one of the remaining Republicans who face a difficult challenge: making it through a June primary in which only the top two vote-getters advance to the November ballot.

Democrats have two prominent candidates in the race: state Attorney General Kamala Harris and 10-term congresswoman Loretta Sanchez of Orange County.

Last year, the San Diego County lawmaker expressed confidence that he could win in a state that has sent Democrats to the Senate for a generation, and he contrasted his background in the military with the credentials of Harris, a former San Francisco district attorney.

But he struggled to find financial support and independent polls showed him stalled in the single digits.

He made the announcement at the start of a debate with other Republicans on KOGO-AM radio in San Diego. He says he's decided to seek re-election to the Assembly.

Republicans left in the race include two former state party chairmen, Silicon Valley attorney Duf Sundheim, who has positioned himself as a moderate, and Tom Del Beccaro, a lawyer aligned with the party's conservative base.

Read More . . . .

Curious Californians gather to view the rare
and nearly extinct Republican elephant.

Read more here: http://www.fresnobee.com/news/state/california/article59248033.html#storylink=cpy

Read more here: http://www.fresnobee.com/news/state/california/article59248033.html#storylink=cpy

Celebrity donors pour money into California congressional seat

Director James Cameron, from left, actor Christopher Lloyd and
director Ivan Reitman have all contributed to candidates in the wide-open
race to represent the 24th congressional district in the Central Coast.

Perhaps the #1 Targeted Seat

(Los Angeles Times)  -  What do Christopher Lloyd, the director of “Ghostbusters,” one of the nation’s largest coal companies, James Cameron and a political action committee representing the nation’s dentists have in common? They all have opened their wallets to influence what is shaping up to be the hottest open-seat congressional race in California.

Among the four open seats in California’s congressional delegation, the race to replace retiring Democratic Rep. Lois Capps (Santa Barbara) is attracting some of the most attention. As the crowded field of at least seven candidates prepared to debate Thursday, here is a look at the dollars flooding the district.

2014 General Election

The Central Coast’s 24th congressional district

Capps’ retirement, and her daughter’s decision not to seek the seat, prompted a mad scramble in a peculiar district where Democrats have a slight advantage in voter registration — 37% Democratic, 34% Republican and more than 23% of voters choosing no party preference. Though President Obama carried the district by 11 points in 2012, tea party favorite Chris Mitchum — actor Robert Mitchum’s son — came within four percentage points of ousting Capps in 2014. A last-minute influx of $170,000 worth of attack ads and phone banking from the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee may have saved the party an embarrassing upset.

This time around, Democratic Santa Barbara County Supervisor Salud Carbajal and 27-year-old Republican businessman Justin Fareed are building formidable war chests, hoping to make it out of the top-two primary on June 7.

It isn’t surprising that Carbajal leads the money race with just under $1.38 million raised over the course of the year and $970,309 in the bank. He has received Capps’ endorsement and a seal of approval from the party’s leadership — including House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-San Francisco). Over the weekend, he also won the support of 82% of local Democratic delegates giving him strong odds of winning the California Democratic Party’s backing at its convention later this month.

The lion’s share of his campaign’s money —$1.2 million — came from individual donors ranging from famous Santa Barbara County philanthropist Michael Armand Hammer to filmmaker Peter Douglas and hundreds of other donors. The most common profession listed on federal forms for Carbajal’s donors? Retired, attorney, president/CEO and owner.

Another sign of his strong establishment support: $134,096 of his campaign’s money has come from political action committees and leadership committees: $5,000 from House Minority Whip Steny H. Hoyer’s AmeriPac, $10,000 from the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers PAC and $10,000 from the Congressional Hispanic Caucus’ fundraising PAC, called the Committee for Hispanic Causes/Building our Leadership Diversity PAC, or CHC BOLD PAC.

Santa Barbara Mayor Helene Schneider, a Democrat, is lagging far behind in the money race, though her campaign touts her support from women’s rights groups and a summer poll she conducted showing her leading Carbajal.

Schneider raised $479,183 in 2015 and ended the year with almost $246,947 in the bank. That means Carbajal raised $900,774 more dollars than the next best Democrat in the race.

Schneider boasts financial support from environmental activist Suzy Amis Cameron and her husband, “Avatar” director James Cameron. “Back to the Future” actor Christopher Lloyd gave $5,400 to Carbajal while the original “Ghostbusters” director, Ivan Reitman, gave to both Fareed ($2,500) and Schneider ($2,700).

Achadjian (L) and Fareed

Republicans Katcho Achadjian and Justin Fareed

Republican State Assemblyman K.H. “Katcho” Achadjian of San Luis Obispo is the fourth-best fundraiser — though he enters the race with perhaps the best name recognition among local voters. The former San Luis Obispo County Supervisor led both the poll released by Schneider’s campaign last year and one released by his own campaign this week, showing him with 20% of voters while the two Democrats each got 12%. The rest of the field all had less than 7%.

He raised just under $386,915 in 2015 and has $257,084 in cash on hand. He received $2,000 from the American Dental PAC as well as a few thousand dollars from other members of the state assembly, the San Luis Obispo County Wine Community PAC and the San Luis Obispo Deputy Sheriff's Association PAC. Achadjian received $345,000 from individuals, including several Central Coast businessmen. Among that group was developer Gary Grossman and vineyard owners George and Daniel Daou.

Fareed — who works for his family’s business, Pro Band Sports Industries Inc. — raised more than any other candidate in the last quarter with $438,353 to cap off a year with $869,398 raised. He ended the year strong with $767,265 in cash on hand.

He also received most of his money from individual donors, including Santa Barbara County Supervisor Peter Adam and investor Stephen D. Bechtel Jr., the former chairman of the Bechtel Corp.

He also has received support from GOP Rep. Duncan D. Hunter (Alpine) as well as Kentucky Rep. Ed Whitfield’s leadership committee, Thoroughbred PAC, which contributed $5,000. Fareed once worked for Whitfield in Washington, D.C. Murray Energy Political Action Committee, the political wing of coal mining giant Murray Energy Corp., gave Fareed’s campaign $5,000.

Fareed, who came 615 votes short of beating Mitchum in the 2014 primary to face Capps, is making a strong run for the seat. He hired Kay­la Berube, who was Wis­con­sin Gov. Scott Walk­er’s state polit­ic­al dir­ect­or in New Hamp­shire, to be his cam­paign man­ager. He also has hired Gridiron Communications as consultants — a firm that counts presidential hopeful Florida Sen. Marco Rubio as a client — and Harris Media LLC, an online and digital strategy firm that has worked for Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul’s presidential campaign, Texas Sen. Ted Cruz and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and the Likud party.

Read More . . . .

House races in California: The thrill is gone

"Corruptus in Extremis"

• The media does not get it. They think real elections take place in California and are "shocked" when voter turnout continues to fall and voters abandon the two major parties to register as independents.
• With the monster size of California districts only millionaires, or candidates willing to be bought and paid for by millionaires, have any chance at winning office.
• The people are given a phony "choice" of which bought off stooge to vote for in November.

(Contra Costa Times)  -  When it comes to California congressional races, the thrill is gone. Again.

It's a far cry from 2012, when after years of mostly deadly dull contests for House seats, the newly redistricted Golden State suddenly had as many as a dozen districts that the Democratic and Republican parties believed to be in play. Excited that it could help decide Capitol Hill's balance of power, California welcomed its newfound clout -- and a chance to soak up some lavish campaign spending instead of just serving as the nation's political ATM.

But now the political landscape looks downright barren.

"There seem to be fewer competitive seats," said Kyle Kondik, a congressional elections expert at the University of Virginia Center for Politics, noting that 2016 will be the third cycle with those redrawn district lines. "People have a better idea of what the districts are like and, while some of them seem competitive on paper, the incumbent party in every seat in the state has a bit of an advantage right now."

In 2012, the widely respected Cook Political Report saw three California House races as toss-ups and five more as competitive. Now it lists no California House seats as toss-ups, and only four as currently competitive: the seats held by Ami Bera, D-Elk Grove, in the Seventh District; Jeff Denham, R-Atwater, in the 10th; David Valadao, R-Hanford, in the 21st; and Steve Knight, R-Lancaster, in the 25th. Five other Democratic seats are deemed not yet competitive, but with the potential to become so.

B-o-o-o-r-ing

Another reliable political prognosticator, the "Crystal Ball" maintained by Kondik's center, also sees no California toss-ups. It concurs that Bera's, Denham's and Valadao's districts are somewhat competitive, and adds the seats held by Rep. Scott Peters, D-San Diego, and the retiring Rep. Lois Capps, D-Santa Barbara.

So depending on who you ask, the nation's most populous state has only four or five districts in play -- not exactly an electoral bonanza. How did California go from being a pivotal battlefield for control of Congress back to a relative snooze?

"Demography and incumbency," said Bruce Cain, director of Stanford University's Bill Lane Center for the American West.

By demography, Cain means there is "clumping of different racial and income groups in California, and that creates large swaths of geography that are either blue or red" with little chance for an upset, even with a citizens commission -- created by voters with Proposition 11 in 2008 and expanded two years later to cover congressional districts with Proposition 20 -- drawing district lines instead of the partisan Legislature.

Congress General election
	Republican	Tom McClintock (incumbent)	126,784	60.0
	Republican	Art Moore	84,350	40.0
Total votes			211,134	100.0
	Republican hold

The phony election "reforms" in California many times gave the voters one party races. Voter choice is an illusion.

Congress General election
	Democratic	Mike Honda (incumbent)	69,561	51.8
	Democratic	Ro Khanna	64,847	48.2
Total votes			134,408	100.0
	Democratic hold

P

"There is no way in the world that you're going to make key parts of the Bay Area or key parts of downtown Los Angeles into competitive seats without drawing some horribly contorted districts," he said. "And when you get into office, independent voters can be swayed by projects you fund, mailings you send, familiarity, money -- all these things give incumbents a real advantage over challengers."

Although there might be scattered surprises or upsets, "on average the elections will get more boring as you get to the end of the decade ... because good challengers will wait on the sidelines" for the next redistricting, Cain said. "The best time for a really competitive election is one or two cycles after the redistricting deck has been shuffled."

That's how Lew Ferrin sees it.

The 61-year-old Sutter County resident supported Republican Kim Dolbow Vann in her 2012 race against Rep. John Garamendi, D-Walnut Grove. The contest was considered competitive. But despite financial backing from the National Republican Congressional Committee, Vann lost by 8 percentage points.

Now the Third Congressional District isn't even considered competitive.

Ferrin, a high school teacher and swimming coach, didn't even know that Republican N. Eugene Cleek, a trauma surgeon from Orland, has launched a campaign to unseat Garamendi.

"Garamendi has turned out to be not as awful as I feared, in that he seems to understand the need to preserve the agricultural base of this part of the state," Ferrin said. "He's not a terribly hate-able candidate."

Ferrin, a registered Republican who sees himself as a centrist "Reagan Democrat," wishes it could be a real race. But he believes the state's independent redistricting process favored the state's liberal majority, and many Republicans have yet to learn that "you're never going to get elected in this state if you come across as a knee-jerk social conservative in a general election... You can just pack it up, go home and let the Democrat win."

Kondik agreed that the GOP has a tough row to hoe in many California districts.

He said Republicans took their best shot in 2012 but, when the dust settled, five incumbents (three Democrats and two Republicans) had kept their seats while Democrats beat three GOP incumbents, won three more formerly GOP open seats, and held onto one open seat.

Republicans "have just fallen short so many times -- under the old maps and under the new maps -- that I don't know if they're focused on these seats like they were in the past," Kondik said.

"They already have a gigantic majority to defend across the nation, and they can even suffer losses in California and it wouldn't hurt their bottom line all that much," he added, noting that a high-turnout presidential election favors Democrats here. "If Republicans are going to go after California seats, they had a better shot during the midterms -- and even then they couldn't come through in any of those districts last time."

Read More . . . .

Free Elections in Scotland

Maybe we could try free elections in the U.S.

Scottish Parliament

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Phony Election "Reforms"
The political elites "reformed" California elections by effectively banning all small opposition parties and independent candidates from general election ballots.
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But in the rest of the world truly free elections exist.  The Scottish Parliament (above) uses a combination of district seats and members elected by proportional representation.  Bottom line - your vote matters in Scotland with five different political parties elected and three independent candidates.
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Scottish Parliament Election