Primary Update

In the June 5 California Primary Election, south OC incumbents on the Republican ballot have the edge in their races. The entire outcome is not difficult to predict:

President: Mitt Romney
U.S. Senate: Elizabeth Emken
U.S. Congress: Incumbent John Campbell will face challenger Sukhee Kang in November. 
State Senate: Incumbent Mimi Walters
73rd Assembly District: Incumbent Diane Harkey
73rd A.D. GOP Central Committee: Incumbents from two merged districts will win all six seats (specifics will follow).

Cong. John Campbell has more than $1 million in campaign cash, and he’s already focusing on the November runoff. Only two viable candidates are running in the Primary: Campbell and liberal Democrat Sukhee Kang. A third name is on the ballot, Dove Canyon resident John Webb.

Campbell is a conservative Republican with a favorable conservative record, but some of his votes upset his constituents. He supported TARP and Cash for Clunkers, and he voted to end Don’t Ask Don’t Tell.

TARP votes have become one-word campaign issues against Campbell and other conservative Congressmen who supported TARP. But how many voters remember when the House first rejected the $700-million bailout (September 2008) and the DJIA dropped 777 points? It is difficult to read a summary of the 2008 situation without getting chills: http://articles.marketwatch.com/2008-09-29/news/30765319_1_bank-failures-financial-rescue-plan-worst-point

A fear-driven market and looming financial collapse are no excuse for panic voting, but TARP isn’t the black-and-white matter that sound bites convey.

Regarding DADT, Campbell said he believed his vote would give the military the authority to decide. For some conservatives, this issue ended their friendship with Campbell, and they would remove him from Congress as his punishment, even if it gave his liberal opponent a leg up.

TARP was in 2008, and DADT was in 2010. Anyone who wanted to dump Campbell had time to find a legitimate Republican candidate. Some anarchists, including SOC912 members, wanted John Webb to run against Gary Miller, even though Webb wasn’t a Republican. When Miller ended up running in another Congressional district, Webb was out of the picture. The same anarchists had a resident of Aliso Viejo lined up to run against Campbell. However, the Aliso Viejo man dropped out, and Webb was back in, running as a Republican (after changing his voter registration in 2011) against Campbell.

Webb’s supporters include those who recruited him and conservatives who are mad at Campbell. The third group voting for Webb is Democrats casting a strategic vote against Campbell to get him out of the race. When liberals and conservatives are both voting for the same non-Republican candidate who didn’t organize a campaign, one of them is not thinking things through.