An interesting trend in the primary results is that the more progressive candidates tended to win the state legislative races - Yamada over Cabaldon in AD-08, Leno over Nation in SD-03, to give just a few examples - but the more moderate candidates had success in the Congressional races.

It's hard to make a direct comparison, because many of the contested legislative races were usually not in the same places as the contested Congressional races. The legislative fights tended to be in safe Democratic districts (with AD-80 being a notable exception) whereas the Congressional fights were of necessity in those districts where Republicans currently hold the seat.   Read More »

(cross-posted on Crooks & Liars)

The Los Angeles County Registrar of Voters decided in they could save a few bucks by creating a complicated ballot design for the presidential primary. In 2008, that decision has now lead to the disenfranchisement of countless voters. What we don't know is the scope of the problem.

Here is the deal:

Almost 20% of California voters are registered as "Decline-to-State" (DTS). About 776,000 of these DTS voters live in Los Angeles County. To vote for President, like other DTS voters across the state, LA County DTS voters had to ask for a "Democratic Party ballot" on Tuesday (see funny, now prophetic video here).

However, in Los Angeles County -- and only Los Angeles County -- these DTS voters were given a special "Democratic Party" ballot that required voters not only to fill out a bubble for their favorite Democratic Party presidential candidate, but ALSO to fill in a bubble at the top that they wanted to vote "Democratic" -- a redundant requirement. According to the Los Angeles County ROV, if the DTS voter didn't fill in the redundant "Democratic" bubble, their vote would not be counted.

This is what we are calling "double bubble trouble".

The Courage Campaign, thanks to our lawyer Steven Reyes' eagle eyes, discovered that a failure to mark the "Democratic" bubble resulted in the vote not being counted. Regardless of the clear-cut intentions of voters, the Los Angeles County Registrar of Voters (ROV) is refusing to do what is necessary to count these ballots.

Now, under a national spotlight, the ROV must do the right thing and count these votes correctly. Voter intent is clear. Missing the top bubble (and it's easy to miss) after you already asked specifically for a "Democratic" ballot -- and voted for a Democratic candidate -- should not mean that your vote goes uncounted.

This is not about the candidates. This is about making sure every vote is counted.

Help us fight to make sure every vote is counted and that this never happens again.

The moment of truth is almost upon us. After months of run-up, Super Tuesday is tomorrow. It has to share time with Mardi Gras and the anniversary of the Constitution, but I think it'll be alright. What seems to be increasingly clear is that we've got a full-on dogfight on our hands here in California. Recent polling suggests that Obama has erased a double-digit Clinton lead in the past week and the two are now statistically tied. Which means that anything could happen, and turnout will play a huge role in determining a winner.

To that end, Courage Campaign has been working hard to get the message out to Decline-To-State voters that they can vote in the Democratic primary as long as they request the ballot. Thanks to the incredible generosity of Courage supporters, we're up today with radio ads spreading the word in San Francisco, Sacramento, Fresno and Bakersfield. We've got our old friend Bradley Whitford doing the ads for us, and the more times we can get it played between now and the polls closing tomorrow, the better the turnout will be.



Check out the thanks from Rick on the flip.   Read More »

Cross-posted from Huffington Post.

Last year at this time, CNN ran a piece about the Courage Campaign's petition drive to move the California presidential primary forward from June to February 5th. Many doubted that our premise would be born out, namely that by having California competitive in the presidential primary, we might actually have a say in policy formulation and make long term political alliances that would benefit the state, not just export money to finance campaigns in other states.

Put simply, we were right. After the tumult of Iowa and New Hampshire and Michigan, followed Saturday by a first-ever caucus in Nevada and then an election in South Carolina, California has become a key "battleground" state for all of the leading candidates. While no one, least of all the pollsters, has a clue what will happen, the people of California have already won.

I remember four years ago, when as the Chair of the Dean Campaign in California, we could but sit and watch as Iowa and New Hampshire and then Arizona and New Mexico, decided that John Kerry would be the nominee. Not this year.   Read More »