CD 11 Down to the Wire

This is cross posted from our friends at RinoAlert.

The race in CD 11 is down to the wire: Republican establishment candidate David Harmer has moved from behind and is neck in neck with U.S. Marshal Tony Amador. Harmer has made much of his victim status due to an unfortunate mailer by Elizabeth Emken commenting on membership in the Mormon church. This resulted in a significant uptick in his fundraising (not to mention sympathy votes) and a last crash and burn for Emken.

At a recent event, I was challenged about my belief that Harmer would be a weak candidate against McNerney. We Republicans need to remember that who defeats McNerney is unimportant- what’s important is that he is defeated and we end the Pelosi dynasty.

Let’s remind ourselves about the 11th Congressional District-

REGISTRATION

Since the last gerrymander , the district is evenly divided between Republicans and Democrats.

 

Party	Republican	Democrat	Decline to State	Others
% Registratrion	39.30	39.06	17.72	3.92

The area has historically trended Republican, but that is mostly gone. Cook Report rates it at Republican +3, but this is optimistic.

DEMOGRAPHICS

• 64.1% White
• 19.7% Hispanic
• 8.7% Asian
• 3.4% African American

Generally affluent (over $60,000 median income) but unemployment in the Valley is running near 20%.

David Harmer must be able to attract enough DTS, disaffected Democrats, and Hispanic votes to have any chance. Put simply, he can’t.

NO HARMER PATH TO VICTORY

Wait until Jerry “Milquetoast” McNerney and the DCCC get their teeth into Harmer. Think of the choice hits Harmer will take-

1. Carpetbagger
   This will hurt – despite the exceptions to the rule, and more importantly the DCCC spinmeisters will tell the story of district shopping and hypocritical positions at every turn
2. Collection Lawyer for the credit card industry
   Everybody loves bill collectors
3. TARP porker
   Recipient of TARP bailout money after taking a huge severance, then he proceeded to apply for and take unemployment benefits while running for Congress.
4. Utah
   Candidate Emken’s scandalous anti Mormon comments in the Republican primary hurt her credibility, but you can count on the the Dems to make sure everyone in the District knows that the real story of Harmer’s values are in Utah not the Bible belt of the Central Valley. His shameless use of his religion and family to raise money will become an embarrassment.
5. Anti-immigrant
   His “Arrest them all and send them back to Mexico”  attitude should eliminate that pesky Hispanic vote
6. Intellectual and personal arrogance
   Harmer comes off as a parody in public. When cutting his radio commercial, his handlers had to alter his voice electronically for his radio.
7. The 11th Commandment
   Harmer’s invocation of the “11th Commandment” and then waging a vicious whispering campaign to attack the integrity of his opponents will come back to haunt him.

The details of the predicted attacks don’t matter, this will become truth by the time the Democratic left wing attack machine is done with David Harmer. McNerney’s strategic positioning regarding Veterans and his “hide and deny” strategy will insure that Pelosi’s lap dog stays in the Dem kennel.

I challenge anyone to devise a strategy that gets Harmer over the goal line. Numbers matter: where is the coalition of voters to defeat McNerney? Is he going to turn out Hispanics to vote for him? Is his lawyerly past going to motivate the DTS folks? McNerney won’t win big, but he’ll win. Harmer is following the Dean Andal failure playbook.

If Harmer is the Republican candidate, it will be a national tragedy, not just a local embarrassment.

CD 11 Horserace Continues

 

The Little Emken that Couldn’t

You’ve got to admire the Emken campaign. I don’t know who is running her campaign, but mired in single digits, he keeps  her swinging. See her new hit piece here. Unfortunately for Elizabeth, it’s more like a Warner Bros. cartoon-

Keep swinging, Elizabeth, you might hit something eventually.

Harmer Still Carpetbagging

Elizabeth’s playbook is right about one thing, Harmer is an opportunist carpetbagger who has worked for the credit card collection agencies most of his professional life.

When you hear him in person, you’d think he has spent his life writing books (yes, David, some of us know what a book is), and in the ivory towers of conservative think tanks (truth? 16 months of think tank work total).

Imagine the Fall campaign against the Democratic machine. . .

Harmer is the Democrat’s best hope to retain CD 11.

Goehring is Disqualified

Why the heck are we still dealing with this guy? His 15 minutes are up. No matter how his consultant tries to spin things, the whole shoot the liberals Facebook blow-up is clear: we can’t trust him with guns or an internet connection. Dumb is dumb.

Plus, in case anybody has missed it, people working illegally in the U.S. has become an issue, again. Goehring is a shill for those who hire illegal aliens; he’s admitted doing it himself. Any position he takes about illegal immigration must be assumed a lie unless it fesses up to this truth.

Imagine the Fall campaign against the Democratic machine. . .

Goehring is the the Democrat’s second best hope to retain CD 11.

Harmer’s Mormon Problem

David Harmer is a Mormon and is running a carpetbagger campaign in the CD 11 Republican primary. This would normally be no surprise nor problem. But the Harmer campaign has decided to make it an issue. There is nothing like victim status to help one get ahead in today’s politics.

Elizabeth Emken, also a candidate in the CD 11 Republican primary, sent out a campaign mailer that, I’m shocked to tell you, pictured a story about Harmer in the Mormon Times!! How despicable, to point up a Harmer article appearing in a Deseret News publication. Mrs. Harmer promptly fired off an indignant letter to everyone on Harmer’s contact list, reporting

But then she takes a gratuitous swipe at our faith … even putting “Mormon” in boldface.

It’s a none-too-subtle appeal to religious prejudice, and I find it repugnant.

Please, Elayne, methinks thou protesteth too much.

There is no gratuitous swipe at Mormonism (go here for that). No, the article in the Mormon Times is an important insight into Harmer as a possible Congressman. Harmer is quoted as saying that he “considers himself a Christian first, an American second, a conservative third and finally, a Republican.” Voters should know the candidate before casting a ballot.

The indignity over “even putting ‘Mormon’ in boldface” is simply silly. Here is the Mormon Times banner-

Mormon kind of jumps out at you, doesn’t it?

The allegation of religious prejudice is just a campaign tactic to energize more Mormons to donate to their co-religionist and claim victim status. This is not the first time Harmer has shamelessly used his family members as a campaign tactic.

The following is kind of long, but if you really want to know what kind of person David Harmer is, read away. Oh, and be sure to have a barf bag next to you just in case:

April 7, 2010. Harmer For Congress
Benjamin, my robust eight-year-old, attacks life with such gusto that he’s become a frequent patron of Kaiser’s minor injury clinic and emergency room. In fact, he’s on a first-name basis with several of the doctors, nurses, and support staff there. To his history of burns, broken bones, and stitches, he recently added a new injury: a stab wound. To the thigh. With a pocketknife. Through his jeans. Self-inflicted.
Home when it happened, I heard him shriek and came running.
"Benjamin," I said, a bit crossly, dressing the wound, "what were you doing playing with a knife? And why on earth did you stab yourself?"
"I was trying to get the quarters out," he answered, and he pointed toward one of his most prized possessions: his Statehood Quarters Collector’s Album. It lay open on the floor, with about half the quarters missing. Next to each empty slot on the 50-state map was a small gouge mark, about the size and shape that a boy trying to pry out a quarter with a pocketknife might leave.
"The quarters aren’t supposed to come out," I said. "Collecting means you save them."
"But I wanted to give them to your campaign," he explained.
Oh.
"Ben, you don’t have to do that."
"But I want to, Dad."
I gave him a hug, carried him to the Suburban, and watched as Elayne drove off, heading for the hospital.
Returning to Ben’s room, I found, next to the Statehood Quarters Collector’s Album, a response card for one of our fundraising events. (I had sent an invitation to each of the kids, wanting them to feel included and important.) Ben had carefully completed the card, writing his name and address, and even filling in the blank for the amount of his contribution: $12.50. With no money in his piggy bank, he had decided to give the only cash he had: his quarter collection.
Now, Ben’s is the only injury I know of that resulted from our fundraising drive. But his willingness to sacrifice for the cause of freedom exemplifies the spirit of this campaign. I have been humbled and inspired by the generosity of our supporters, over 1200 of whom rose to the challenge and assured that we attained our first-quarter goals. I’ll provide a full report next week, but for now, please know that with your help, the campaign is off to a remarkably strong start.

David Harmer is raw ambition personified. He will go anywhere, say anything, use anybody to realize his lifelong ambition to become a Congressman. I think we’d all be more comfortable if he went back to the district in which he lives, and ran for something he might be qualified for, say District Attorney?

FOLLOW UP: See Halfway to Concord’s discussion of the CD 11 races.

Pombo Surges

Every insider Republican in CD 19 just knows Richard Pombo is a dead man walking, right? WRONG!!

The People’s Advocate Survey of likely Republican primary voters is showing a huge swing.

CD 11 Congressional Ballot Survey		April 27 and 28
Candidate	Vote %	% with Leaning
Jeff Denham	24%	26%
Richard Pombo	20%	22%
Jim Patterson	19%	21%
Larry Westerlund	2%	2%
Undecided/NA	35%	28%

Patterson is dropping like a stone, while Denham is just holding. Pombo is moving forward strongly.

Patterson never really had the district wide clout nor money to compete successfully. Though Denham has some name ID, his RINO status has hurt him in the District.

Pombo has the “big mo” as we move into the critical final four weeks of the primary campaign.