Can A Big Tech Shill Be A Progressive? How About A Pro-Genocide Politician?
As of this morning 181,899 ballots had been tallied in the hot congressional primary in the Silicon Valley to replace Anna Eshoo, who’s finally retiring at the ripe old age of 82. None of the front-runners are any good so my interest in the race has been minimal, other than to watch the immense amounts of money being spent on the race. Each of the contenders would be a typical corporate Democrat, voting right on social issues and... up for sale on pocketbook issues. All of them. Former San Jose mayor Sam Liccado is in first place among the 11 candidates with 21.1%… what a mandate! And then Santa Clara County Supervisor Joe Simitian (endorsed by Eshoo) and pretend-progressive Assemblyman Evan Low have been in a see-saw race for second place since March 5. (Mail-in ballots had to have been received by a March 12 deadline.)
I’ll get to the excitement in a moment. Let me just say a few words about the candidates in contention. (The conservative Dem who tried to buy the seat with $1.4 million of his own money and $1.3 million from a Bezos-funded SuperPAC, Peter Dixon, who ran on one issue— “I’m a veteran”— flamed out with 8.1% in 5th place, behind Republican Peter Ohtaki. OK, now the serious contenders— Liccardo, an anti-union corporate Dem is at least a little better than the other candidates on the Israeli genocide against Gazans. Simitian is a dull conservative with an appeal to rich people who don’t want to call themselves Republicans. And Low wants everyone to just stay focused on how he would be the first gay Asian to represent the district in Congress and ignore his shitty record in Sacramento and the fact that he’s owned, lock, stock and barrel by Big Tech and would be a disaster in Congress.
On election night, Simitian was in second place but on March 14, Low pulled ahead by 63 votes as mail in ballots, were counted. The next day, as more San Mateo County votes were counted, Simitian was up by 44 votes. On March 18, Simitian’s lead was just 12 votes and most of the votes left to be counted are “challenged ballots” with signature (different signature than the one on file or no signature on the envelope) or other problems, like no ID from a. First-time voter. The next day Low pulled ahead— by 2 votes— with 1,658 of the “challenged ballots” remaining to be dealt with. Voters have until the end of teh business day on April 2 to fix their ballots.
On the 20th, Low gained a vote and led Simitian by 3. And then, on Thursday Simitian was back in first place… by one vote:
There’s another California Super Tuesday race I want to mention— the one in my now district, CA-30, to replace Adam Schiff, who’s moving on to the Senate. You probably know that Blue America had endorsed the progressive contender in the race, Maebe A Girl. She didn’t raise much money— in a race swimming with it— and I knew she would have a terrible time getting traction. As of Feb. 14, just 7 of the candidates had raised over $100,000, although 2 more— conservative failed actor Ben Savage and Republican Alex Balekian) contributed enough of their own money to put them into that category as well:
Anthony Portantino- $1,615,102
Nick Melvoin- $1,428,680
Michael Feuer- $1,374,730
Ben Savage- $1,373820 ($1,327,000 self-funded)
Laura Friedman- $1,079,522
Jirair Ratevosian- $298,409
Sepi Shyne- $387,684
Maebe A Girl- $109,514
Alex Balekian- $107,715 ($30,106 self-funded)
Friedman and Melvoin also had significant support from “independent” SuperPACs which spent big on their behalf in the race.
As you can see in this most recent graphic from the NY Times, only 5 candidates got over 10,000 votes. That Maebe is on that list is something of a miracle— and due entirely to her grassroots, non-media campaign. Starting with the L.A. Times, she was dismissed as a serious candidate by nearly every media outlet covering the race, including progressives.
Typical was the superficial and uninformed coverage from Daily Kos: “The Democratic field features two state lawmakers, state Sen. Anthony Portantino and Assemblywoman Laura Friedman, while Los Angeles Unified School District Board of Education member Nick Melvoin is also waging a well-funded effort. Another notable name belongs to former Los Angeles City Attorney Mike Feuer, who ran an abortive campaign for Los Angeles mayor in 2022 but has the support of that race's eventual winner, Mayor Karen Bass. The field also includes Ben Savage, the Boy Meets World actor who has been self-financing most of his campaign. West Hollywood Mayor Sepi Shyne and former State Department official Jirair Ratevosian are also campaigning as Democrats, though they haven't brought in anywhere near as much money as their rivals. Ratevosian may also benefit from being a member of the area's large Armenian American community, though local leaders tell Politico they don't have a deep relationship with him. Another five Democrats, as well as two Republicans and an unaffiliated candidate, round out the field.”
In her 2022 campaign against Schiff, Maebe took 60,968 votes (28.9%). So more people cast their ballots for her in the district than cast their ballots for Friedman, let alone Portantino, Feuer, Savage, Melvoin, Shyne or Ratevosian, the ones who the media pushed as serious candidates. Oh, and serious means, NOT TRANSGENDER, although we’re not like Alabama or Wyoming in California so no one overtly opposes someone because they’re trans… they just ignore them. Aside from Blue America, her campaign was backed by the Sunrise Movement, Catch Fire, the Move Left Voter Guide and Knock LA Progressive Voter Guide, which assessed the race this way:
Maebe A. Girl, making her third run for a version of this seat, is a vocal and unapologetic progressive, and she came out early and strong for a ceasefire in Gaza. She has also been energetic in the local community as a neighborhood council member and an activist, and would make history as the first transgender, nonbinary member of Congress. She is the best, most progressive candidate in the field. We have recommended her before, and we have no reservations in doing so again.
Laura Friedman has done a decent job in the Assembly as a consistent supporter of housing and transit and a strong and effective voice on the environment, and in some years might seem like a viable “least worst” alternative for pragmatic-minded voters. But her unbending support of Israel’s mass slaughter of Palestinians, and her utter lack of genuine concern for the lives of innocent Palestinian civilians, is both revolting and utterly disqualifying at a time such as this.
The rest of the field is an embarrassment. Mike Feuer seems to hope that, if he raises enough money, voters will forget the colossal DWP scandal that unfolded under his watch as city attorney. Anthony Portantino has been a consistent friend of every police association under the sun and has frequently used his position as chair of the Senate Appropriations Committee to quietly kill off progressive bills offending either his own sensibilities or those of leadership. Nick Melvoin has been a happy warrior for big charter school money on the LA Unified School Board. Ben Savage (of Boy Meets World fame) seems to like dressing up as a cop and… well, honestly, it’s hard to tell what else he cares about. The list goes on, but you get the picture.
Vote Maebe.
This was the last update before Election Day from the very progressive Primary School and usually pretty reliable:
God, there are so many candidates here. This race has stratified into three clearly delineated tiers: the million-dollar club, the weaker fundraisers who might’ve been able to take a plucky grassroots angle had ten million dollars not flooded into this race, and the also-rans. Realistically, only the million-dollar club has a chance at advancing, so we’ll start with them.
As you might have guessed, the million-dollar club is the five candidates who have taken in more than a million dollars over the course of their campaigns: former LA City Attorney Mike Feuer, state Sen. Anthony Portantino, Los Angeles Unified School District Board Member Nick Melvoin, Assemb. Laura Friedman, and Boy Meets World actor Ben Savage. Of these, Savage is easily the least viable— sure, he’s raised and spent more than Friedman, but Savage is a failed candidate for West Hollywood City Council who’s mostly self-funding his bid. This is good, because he’s also the least progressive in this tier, and hopefully he’ll eat into the vote shares of Portantino, Feuer, and Melvoin— the progressive standout of the top tier is Friedman. Melvoin is a biiiiiiiiig charter school guy— as in, the industry spent a bajillion dollars to put him on the LAUSD board because they knew he’d be a reliable vote to sell out public education to private corporations. [Somehow Primary School was unaware that the charter school lobby had also funded Friedman’s political career.] As LA City Attorney, Feuer made his signature issue…cracking down on unlicensed marijuana shops? Melvoin and Feuer both lack labor support, which is another red flag. Portantino is just generally underwhelming and fanatically opposed to rich people in Beverly Hills ever having to see an apartment building, but with the lion’s share of labor support, the most money of anyone in the race, and a constituency larger than a congressional district, he’s the safest bet for one of the two runoff spots. Friedman is nice, normal, supported by the segment of organized labor that isn’t with Portantino, and, most of all, she’s pretty progressive across the board. It’s hard to find… really anything bad in her record, and quite easy to find the good: she has consistently supported efforts to establish a state-level single-payer system in California, she’s a big environmentalist (and not in the aesthetics-driven crank way, but in the “let’s build bike lanes and beat up the oil industry” way.)…
The second tier— people who might’ve had a shot had this race not become a money pit— consists of three people: West Hollywood City Councilmember Sepi Shyne, repeat CA-30 candidate Maebe A. Girl, and former Barbara Lee/State Department staffer Jirair Ratevosian. All three have broken six figures, and all three are openly queer candidates running in what’s probably the gayest district in the country. But with close to three quarters of a million dollars separating the highest-raising candidate in this tier (Shyne) from the lowest-raising in the top tier (Friedman), they’re all hopelessly outgunned.
The third tier…oh, we’ve explained eight people to you already, do you really need us to explain the candidates with $5 and a prayer?
“Repeat CA-30 candidate Maebe A. Girl.” That was it? That’s all they had to say about the only actual progressive in the race? I really expected more from them, since their earlier reporting was pretty positive about her. And promoting a genocidal candidate long-funded by charter school billionaires as a progressive? Sigh.