Reporting Live on California Politics From the Yearly Kos Convention in Las Vegas

But those who were intimately familiar with the race from the San Diego area, described Busby and her positioning as appropriate for the district and pointed out the strong Republican edge there. Citing polling that had been done just days before the election showing it was in a dead heat, one attendee, who was high in the Busby campaign blamed her defeat on a statement she had made the weekend before the vote which was seized upon and taken out of context by Republicans in a huge media blitz in the last couple of days. With immigration being a hot button issue in the district, Busby answered a question by a man who said he wanted to help her campaign but did not “have papers.” She stated that you do not need to have papers to vote and that the questioner could help her campaign. This was morphed into the media hit that she was in favor of noncitizens voting and the like.

Having grown up in the district, and having family members living there now, I’m not sure that much different could have been done to win this seat in June, other than avoiding the remarks that gave the opportunity for the hit. Losing by only 4 points is a miracle in this area and is 18 points better than she did in the last election in which she ran against the now resigned and disgraced Duke Cunningham. If we Democrats are able to get just a few of these 18 points in a few other districts in November, we would be in great shape.

The convention hotel is crawling with reporters from all over the country. I’ve just had a nice long chat with Dan Balz of the Washington Post about the November race between Angelides and Scharzenegger and the growing convergence of traditional reporters and bloggers.

While many of us from the Golden State are still a bit sleep deprived from Tuesday’s election, being here has given us some perspective on the election and how California is different from the rest of the nation. If I could just figure out what to do with the factoid that 60 million Americans voted for the American Idol and square that with our low turnout election, I will be able to sleep soundly this evening.

The fellow being interviewed is John Laesch. He has received raucus applause in different rooms when he mentioned that he is running for Congress against Speaker Denny Hastert. He was in a media training session earlier this morning. He also is armed with his laptop.