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The Bee’s Weintraub Fronts Latest G.O.P. Redistricting Plan
By Bill Cavala
A veteran of over 30 years in Sacramento
Dan Weintraub beat up another straw man in his silly column in today’s Sacramento BEE.
Weintraub writes, “almost no one serving in the Legislature today has ever had to run a campaign appealing to independent voters or independent minded members of the opposite party.”
Weintraub blames redistricting for this failure. But he’s quite wrong.
Republicans never campaign to “independents” or “like minded Democrats”. They run intensely negative campaigns designed to depress the turnout of these groups – or to get them to pass over the contested race.
Lynn Daucher’s campaign, for example, mailed pieces attacking Lou Correa to Democratic and declined-to-state voters every day for a month. That’s 30 pieces of mail. None were designed to get votes for Daucher. All were designed to persuade “independents” and “independent minded Democrats” not to vote for Correa.
Shirley Horton survived three elections in the same manner. In her campaign against Patti Davis, she said two dozen times that Davis would raise taxes. The fact that Davis had pledged not to raise taxes didn’t matter. (The San Diego paper mentioned the charge as false in paragraph 5 of a wrap up story).
Republican Voters are loyal partisans – partisan because of ideology. If the proportion of Democrats and Independents casting votes in an election can be reduced far enough, then the Republican wins. Attacking the Republican doesn’t have a similar effect because a Democrat can’t attack from the ideological ‘right’ and, again, Republican voters are ideological.
It’s why Republican candidates win districts that are 40% registered Republican over 95% of the time: that 40% becomes half the vote when 30 hits produce dropoff among Democratic and declined to state voters. In 2006, John Kerry defeated George Bush in the 78th AD while Horton won in the same seat. She didn’t win with “cross over” votes. She won because Democrats “opted out” of voting at all because of the negative campaigning.
Now Republicans shouldn’t be blamed for this tactic. Politics isn’t beanbag, after all.
But journalists who ignore these facts and campaign for redistricting proposals that create more districts where this tactic can be used are simply fronting for the GOP.
By Bill Cavala
A veteran of over 30 years in Sacramento
Bill Cavala was Deputy Director of the Assembly Speaker’s Office of Member Services where he worked for over 30 years.
He attended undergraduate and graduate school in the 1960’s and received a doctorate in political science at UC Berkeley. He taught political science at UC Berkeley during the 1970's while he worked part-time for the State Assembly.
Cavala left teaching at UC Berkeley and went to work for Assembly Speaker Willie Brown in 1981 until his tenure as Speaker ended in 1995, and he has worked for his five successors as Speaker up to and including Speaker Fabian Nunez.
Mr. Cavala manages election campaigns for Democratic candidates.
Comments
Oh Bill, aside from your argument with Dan Weintraub, why do you call it a "GOP" plan, wasn't it Common Cause, League of Women Voters, and LA Chamber of Commerce who started it? You know that.
Larry Gallup
Posted by: larry gallup at March 30, 2008 11:33 PM
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