Republicans hold CA 50th seat, barely Posted by: McQ
on Wednesday, June 07, 2006
In yesterday's special election, Republicans managed a narrow win sending Brian Bilbray to Congress to finish the 6 months remaining in former Congressman Randy "Duke" Cunninghams current term.
I've mentioned more than once that this race could be an indicator of what November holds. Of course that was before the Democratic nominee managed to shoot herself in the foot on live TV:
Late last week, Busby found herself doing damage control for a verbal blunder – telling a Spanish-speaker at a meeting of mostly Latinos that “You don't need papers for voting.” Republicans seized on her comments, and she later said she flubbed her words and did not mean to advocate illegal immigrants voting, but that she wanted to say people not registered to vote could help her campaign.
But, what shouldn't be lost is how big a role the issue of immigration played in the contest. Just as important should be what didn't work for the loser:
Busby focused her campaign on ethics and the “culture of corruption” in Washington – a popular theme among Democratic congressional candidates this year.
But immigration become the defining issue, reflecting its standing atop public opinion surveys in California.
Busby supports the U.S. Senate's immigration bill, which calls for a comprehensive approach to immigration, including a path to citizenship for illegal immigrants along with enforcement measures.
That bill is pushed by Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., which led to an awkward situation for Bilbray, who has said the bill would lead to “amnesty.” McCain and others dispute that characterization and McCain canceled a scheduled appearance at a Bilbray fundraiser last week, though he said he continued to support the Republican candidate.
Bilbray supports the harder-line House immigration bill, focused exclusively on enforcement, and has said he favors building a fence from the Pacific Ocean to the Gulf of Mexico.
Bilbray is convinced his focus on immigration was the key to his win:
Bilbray said earlier in an interview that he believed his long focus on illegal immigration would pay off in the race against Busby, a Cardiff school board member.
“It's been ignored for too long,” said Bilbray, a former congressman-turned-lobbyist. “It's been a simmering problem that's come to a head.”
And, as mentioned, his focus on the issue was the hard-line of House Republicans. It apparently resonated. Couple that with Busby's support for the Senate version of the bill, her political faux pas about "no papers", and her concentration on the "culture of corruption" clap-trap, mix well and you have someone who manages to snatch defeat from the jaws of a possible victory.
Given that Busby apparently had an even chance to win no more than a week ago, one has to assume, or should assume, that Democrats will take the obvious lessons from this defeat. The culture of corruption isn't going to work as a campaign issue, the mood concerning immigration is much more hard-line among Republican voters than reflected in the Senate version of the bill and, probably most important, Democrats still seem to have the capacity to be even more inept than Republicans.
But I'm sure we'll see a "moral victory" declared by many of the leftist blogs today, much like we saw when Paul Hackett went down in flames in Ohio. Free clue for Democrats: "moral victories" don't put rear-ends in Congressional seats. If your '06 Congressional candidates end up being as politically inept as Busby turned out to be, you'll be celebrating a boat load of moral victories later this year.
Laurie, what you’re looking at seems to be Primary results divided by party. It’s not clear, I grant you, because the California Secretary of State’s site does not ever state "Primary results", but if you’ll notice, it also reports such things as 100%s for both Paul King and Miriam Clark.
Unofficial results. Updated at 07:02:03 on 06-07-06.
U.S. REPRESENTATIVE 50TH DISTRICT - (RUN-OFF)
Counted: 500 of 500 precincts – 100.0 percent BRIAN BILBRAY - REP 60319 49.33% FRANCINE BUSBY - DEM 55587 45.46% W. GRIFFITH - IND 4492 3.67% PAUL KING - LIB 1875 1.53%
U.S. REPRESENTATIVE 50TH DISTRICT - REPUBLICAN
Counted: 500 of 500 precincts – 100.0 percent BRIAN P. BILBRAY - REP 32117 54.26% ERIC ROACH - REP 8217 13.88% BILL HAUF - REP 7499 12.67% BILL MORROW - REP 3647 6.16% HOWARD KALOOGIAN - REP 2856 4.82% ALAN UKE - REP 1472 2.49% VICTOR E. RAMIREZ - REP 1088 1.84% RICHARD LEE EARNEST - REP 830 1.40% SCOTT ORREN - REP 746 1.26% SCOTT TURNER - REP 723 1.22%
U.S. REPRESENTATIVE 50TH DISTRICT - DEMOCRATIC
Counted: 500 of 500 precincts – 100.0 percent FRANCINE BUSBY - DEM 41165 89.75% CHRIS YOUNG - DEM 4703 10.25%
Therefore Busby won her primary by a huge margin and large majority, Bilbray won his with a large margin and small majority, and (probably because neither gathered over a certain percentage of the -total votes cast that day-), the RUN-OFF was won by Bilbray with about 5000 votes difference.
I’ve mentioned more than once that this race could be an indicator of what November holds. Of course that was before the Democratic nominee managed to shoot herself in the foot on live TV:
And what makes you think the rest of the Democrats wont do the same thing... (or even some of them.)
I’ve mentioned more than once that this race could be an indicator of what November holds. Of course that was before the Democratic nominee managed to shoot herself in the foot on live TV:
Yep, the GOP’s best hope is for a stray comment or two. And a little gay bashing thrown in. Senator Imhofe put it this way yesterday on the floor of the Senate (on live TV):
"The homosexual marriage lobby, as well as the polygamist lobby, they share the same goal of essentially breaking down all state-regulated marriage requirements to just one, and that one is consent. In doing so, they’re paving the way for illegal protection of such practices as homosexual marriage, unrestricted sexual conduct between adults and children, group marriage, incest, and, you know, if it feels good, do it."
Yes, ladies and gentlemen, this is the modern GOP. Gay people are for pedophilia. This is a sitting Senator, btw.
not quite MK, but then again you’ve never cared about "facts"
I’ve mentioned more than once that this race could be an indicator of what November holds. Of course that was before the Democratic nominee managed to shoot herself in the foot on live TV:
Yep, the GOP’s best hope is for a stray comment or two
LMFAO, with the Dems it’s a 100% lock certainty. No "strays" here, they’ll have plenty of company. You know why? Because the truth always tries to creep out! "You don’t need papers to vote" damn right that’s a part and parcel of the Dems strategy and beliefs.
Here is the complete version of what Busby said - which of course McQ omits:
You don’t need papers for voting — you don’t need to be a registered voter to help [the campaign].
Now, obviously, if you leave the second part of what she said out, it sounds alot different. But that’s a familiar Rethuglican tactic.
As for illegals voting, well, the reason most illegals are here is that they come here to work - mostly for businesses whose interests dove tail and are one in the same with those of the GOP. The GOP wants illegals here because they want cheap labor. Indeed, enforcement of immigration laws against employers declined significantly under Bush as compared to Clinton. If Busby told them to break the law, well, she could not do any worse than the GOP - who actually know the illegals are breaking the law and continue to allow it to happen.
I know, though, that mkultra would perform mkultra’s usual tactic of either misinterpreting or ignoring what I said in favor of another DU-worthy, incoherent, illogical rant.
Just to clarify, there were TWO races run in CA-50 yesterday dealing with the Congressional seat. One was to fill out the remainder of Duke Cunningham’s term (thru next January), which Bilbray won by about 4%. The other was a primary to see who would run for the Congressional seat in November and join Congress next January. In that one Bilbray won the Republican candidacy and Busby won the Democratic candidacy.
Oh, and if mkultra wasn’t totally one-sided she/he would have nothing at all to say.
