I always get excited when Repubicans get arrested. I think it has something to do with the frog. Well…Rep. John Doolittle hasn’t been arrested yet, but the FBI raided his house on Friday and now he has voluntarily given up his seat on the Appropriations Committee. A former aide of his, Kevin Ring, went on to work for Jack Abramoff and then as a lawyer at another firm. He announced his resignation for his law firm on Friday, the same day that the FBI raided Doolittle’s home. We’ve seen this before. Bob Ney’s former chief of staff abruptly resigned from his law firm when he turned state’s witness. And the FBI raided Dusty Foggo’s home long before Carol Lam indicted him on her last day as San Diego’s U.S. attorney.
Doolittle won re-election in 2006 by 7,539 votes. He only received 49% of the vote. It appears that Charlie Brown will be running against him again. It should be possible to pick off this seat. I don’t know enough about the district to know whether there is a Republican ready to step in if Doolittle is indicted. But I doubt Doolittle will ever win another election.
Duncan Hunter and Jerry Lewis are two other California Republicans that should probably be indicted for their links to Jack Abramoff. Hunter is running for President and I believe his son is going to run for his seat. I kind of doubt that we can win a seat in Hunter’s district (since he won it with 65%) or in Lewis’s (67%), but indictments would help.
if Doolittle does step down, Ahnold will probably appoint some moderate Republican who’ll get the bonus of running as the “incumbent” next year, making this seat even harder to pick up.
Or at least that’s how I see it…
I think that would only work for the Senate.
House seats have special elections, not interim appointments.
would that be the case in all states, or would it vary by state constitution? I’ll have to do some research on that…
technically, I sit corrected:
About.com link
The district, CA-04, is geographically enormous, stretching from Lake Tahoe to the Oregon border and occupying most of the northeastern quadrant of the state. It is very Republican, with a Cook Political Report index of -10.9.
That being said, there is no Republican out there who has significant name recognition over such a large area, so the Reps would have to throw a bundle of money against a huge wall. Charlie Brown got 46% to Doolittle’s 49% in 2006, with a Libertarian candidate siphoning off the other 5%.
From Brown’s website: “After graduating in 1972, he began a distinguished 26-year Air Force career during which he was involved in every U.S. military conflict from Vietnam to Desert Storm.” Charlie’s son Jeff just left for his fourth tour of duty in Iraq.
Charlie is a remarkably strong progressive Democratic candidate, a real stand-up guy who is the perfect person to put forward in this very red district. So, wonder what you can do to help him?
Well, last year, shortly after becoming the Democratic nominee for CA-11, Jerry McNerney won an online contest to be named as the 2006 DFA Allstar. A lot of people on the ground believe that the attention McNerney received by virtue of winning that title (in money, buzz, and volunteers) helped to put him over the top against Richard Pombo. Now DFA is running the 2007 version of this contest, and Charlie Brown is one of the candidates being featured.
So if you want to take a positive step to help Charlie Brown in his mission to unseat the execrable Doolittle, go on over to the DFA Allstar site and cast your vote for Charlie Brown. Then send out an email to your family, friends, associates, whomever, and ask them to go cast their vote as well. Something that simple really can make a difference.
Done. Although I didn’t vote for Charlie.
Move along folks…nothing to see here.