A pace that’s impossible to keep up

June 7, 2006

I won’t delve too deeply into every individual campaign result from yesterday, but the one race on everyone’s radar deserves a closer look.

A former Republican congressman narrowly beat his Democratic rival early Wednesday for the right to fill the House seat once held by imprisoned Randy “Duke” Cunningham, a race closely watched as a possible early barometer of next fall’s vote.

Republican [tag]Brian Bilbray[/tag] emerged victorious after a costly and contentious race against Democrat [tag]Francine Busby[/tag], a local school board member who ran against Cunningham in 2004.

With 90 percent of precincts reporting, Bilbray had 56,016 votes or 49.5 percent. Busby trailed with 51,202 votes or 45 percent.

Obviously, [tag]Democrats[/tag] had hoped to pull an upset yesterday by winning in a solidly-Republican district. They fell a little short in the end. But for [tag]Republicans[/tag] this morning, it’s hard to spin the results as an encouraging sign of things to come.

It’s very much reminiscent of Jean Schmidt narrowly defeating Paul Hackett is Ohio’s 2nd last year — a race that the GOP was supposed to win easily went down to the wire, and ended up costing Republicans a fortune. Put it this way: if the GOP has to work this hard just to keep ordinarily-safe Republican districts in November, they better raise more money than they’ve ever raised before.

As Stuart Rothenberg noted yesterday, before results were available, “The National Republican Congressional Committee is pouring resources into this race at an astonishing rate in hopes of saving the seat. But the NRCC will not be able to put $5 million into every contest this fall, so a Bilbray victory, if it happens, should not mislead observers into thinking that Democratic prospects in the fall have been exaggerated.”

Ultimately, coming close isn’t good enough, and it’s Bilbray who’s going to take the oath of office. But if this race was a bellwether election, Republicans can’t be at all pleased with how this year is shaping up.

I saw that Kerry got 44% of the District in the last election, and now Busby got 45%. The Dems spent just as heavily as the Repubs there, so if I were a Republican, I’d be a little bit cheered by these results. Wouldn’t I? Bush’s negatives didn’t appear to drag down Bilbray as much as we had hoped?

  • Sorry, but I have to think a 4.5% margin of victory for a first time candidate is not bad.

    It’s important to mention, whenever you bring up Jean (the Bitch) Schmidt that she insulted another member of Congress on the floor of the Congress after having made her first speech about the need for comity in the House, and that she had to withdraw her slanderous comments about Jack Murtha. This “person”, who defeated a Iraq War veteran by the narrowest of margins, is the one who the Republican’ts choose to attack a Marine Corps veteran of Korea and Veitnam?

  • Among registered voters … the republicans held a 15 point lead.

    This is something that can’t be ignored.

    Also one can’t ignore that Bilbray built his success upon a platform that runs counter to Bush policies.

  • I wonder just how many of these “almost made it” stories we’re going to hear this November.

    I agree that the GOP spent an obscene amount to barely hang on to the seat, but the fact remains that incumbents of both parties have made turnover of congressional seats extremely difficult and rare. The GOP comes up with one unbelievable scandal every week, any one of which would have run Clinton out of town on a rail, and still the elected Dems jsut sit there.

    Extending back to tthe Constitutional provision of the Electoral College, current members of Congress may have further locked us all into a system which is becoming nearly impossible to change — exteme gerrymandering, more frequent redistricting, skyrocketing costs of TV time, etc.

    One has the distinct feeling that the world is rushing past us, that we are on the defensive, that the rich and powerful think only of getting while the getting’s good. Pre-revolutionary France anyone?

  • “Also one can’t ignore that Bilbray built his success upon a platform that runs counter to Bush policies.” – micro

    Good point. Ricky Santorum is running away from Boy George II also. The add sort of writes itself: “Ricky Santorum, if he’s to the right of George Bush, isn’t he wrong for Pennsylvannia?”

    Ricky is now Ricky because his ads call Bob Casey “Bobby” Casey.

  • A lost election is a lost election, whether it’s by 4.5 percent or 15 percent. Bilbray will be able to use what little “incumbent” advantage he has to coast to re-election in November. And Jeanie Schmidt isn’t going to be unseated either.

    However, there’s still a little time for Dems to scrap their midterm strategy (if you can call it that) of sitting on their hands and become an opposition party.

  • No sign of Americans having had enough here. There should have been. There’s no other way to look at it. The Republicans would have been blasted out of office in this district if there were really a mood for drastic change in this country. There isn’t. Only
    that passive reflection of dissatisfaction in the polls that doesn’t seem to go anywhere.

  • I’m confused. According to this, she got 41K votes whereas he got 32K. Is the point that have to count all Republican votes as a vote for him (likewise Democratic for her)?

  • While running this close in a district with a heavy R registration edge is a positive, and losing is still losing (one less chance to take the majority in the House), at the end of the day I think it is hard to read much of anything in this race — Busby had just caught up and had momentum when she made a really foolish mistake, a mistake largely unique to her and her district. Even if the registered R’s had been looking for a change, she gave them an excuse to go back to their roots. Hopefully the lesson isn’t “rookie candidates make mistakes and the Dems have a lot of rookie candidates.”

  • Sounds like Democratic turnout was low, and THAT is a problem.

    Maybe the local Dems weren’t too concerned about yet another election, one that will be re-run in a few month’s time. Maybe.

    I’d say the chance of a larger turnout in the fall is possible, and the Republican base will probably be even more fed up with their own party by then. Their trend is down, down, down, and we need to keep throwing them anvils.

    Busby’s gaffe was pretty bad, and she still got 45% in a heavily Republican district. Hopefully her speaking/thinking skills will improve and the people’s big chance to throw out the bums will get the lazy Democratic asses into the voting booths.

  • Busby is still going to run in November, right? She’s been getting better… (yeah yeah it’s a long shot).

  • Bilbray attributes his victory to the anti-Mexican — I mean immigration-reform — focus of his campaign. Francine Busby was the best candidate she could be. Her government experience was as a member of a small school board, and the fact that she was the Dem nominee in this race is simply a legacy of the party writing off Duke’s district for years. There may have been more attractive candidates, but they would’ve viewed running as a waste of time in that GOP stronghold. No one down here really thought Ms. Busby had a great chance, but she worked very hard, ran a clean race, and came up looking pretty good after a the Repub Congressional Campaign Committee spent a fortune to fling mud at her. The party should be proud of her.
    . . . jim strain in san diego.

  • dave s: From what I can find, Bilbray spent, in total, about $11M on this race, Busby spending was about $4.5M.

    I think that it is important to remember that, although she lost, Ms. Busby picked up 18 points this time around (I believe she lost by 22 points last time around).

    I think Busby should run again in November, and I think progressives in the district should stop bitching about BushCo and go vote. I think that the race will be even closer next time around for no other reason that Bilbray isn’t really even a Californian.

    -jjf

  • I find no silver lining in any loss. Remember, it was a close race that put Bush into the White House in the first place. Nothing is more dangerous that the dipshit on the other side of close.

  • Does anyone know what percentage of voters actually turned out for the race?

    Statewide it was pretty dismal, and if it was the same in San Diego then I hope the loss will at least energize those Dems who stayed home this time to turn out in more force in November so the outcome will be more positive.

  • RE: #14;
    Yeah, let’s run her again. It’s worked so well so far?

    Why do Dems keep doing the same thing over and over and expect different results? She lost! Twice! The people don’t want her. Find a new candidate. (Ditto for Kerry in 2008)

  • Yeah, what #9 said about http://vote.ss.ca.gov/Returns/usrep/5000.htm – WTF? The “Percent” column appears to refer to a breakdown of votes within a particular party, fine, but raw votes, Busby is ahead with 46,585 votes to Bilbray’s 37,050 with 100% of precincts reporting. I don’t get this. I emailed the “contact us” link once before about inconsistencies on the Secretary of State elections website and I never got a reply.

    • Comments are closed.