Ok. So I'm leaping onto coat-tails here. Kos admonishes us that we shouldn't just win, and we shouldn't just win big, but rather we should break their spirit by playing big and winning big in formerly red districts. In CA-04, a surprisingly red district here in California, the Republican candidate, well-known conservative icon and perennial candidate Tom McClintock has had his spirits broken .... Alone amongst local politicians, he refuses to even meet with the Sacramento daily newspaper so that he can share that right wing idealogy and so they can choose a candidate to endorse. More below.
Readers of this site are familiar with this race. A fair synonpsis:
California 4th: California conservative icon Tom McClintock has carpetbagged 400 miles to try and win this heavily Republican open seat. If Charlie Brown wins, it would be the sixth-most conservative district held by a Democrat — a real blow to California Republicans.
It is a heavily Republican seat. And Tom McClintock is a conservative ideologue, who's been in the State House and Senate for the past 20 plus years and has run losing campaigns over the years for governor, lieutenant governor, state controller (twice) and Congress (for another seat, CA-24, covering Ventura just outside of Los Angeles, about 400 miles away from CA-04).
But maybe, just maybe, this isn't the year where the usually loquacious (read: cannot get this guy away from a tv camera or right wing radio station to espouse his right wing idealougue views) wants to share all those great ideas he has with the rest of us. In fact, he won't even meet with the editorial board of the local newspaper, the Sacramento Bee, and today they're slamming him for it, in a post aptly titled "Desperately seeking Tom McClintock":
[F]or two hotly contested congressional races in our region, we've met with the candidates -- or at least most of them. In Congressional District 3, we met incumbent Dan Lungren, a Republican, and challenger Bill Durston, a Democrat, in one-hour interviews. Our endorsement runs tomorrow.
Congressional District 4, an open seat with the retirement of incumbent John Doolittle, is another story. That race features Republican Tom McClintock and Democrat Charlie Brown.
We met with Brown today. But for weeks, we've made phone calls and sent e-mails trying to schedule Republican Tom McClintock for a one-hour interview. We originally scheduled an endorsement for Congressional District 4 to run this Saturday, but told McClintock's campaign that we'd move it to accommodate his schedule. Today, his campaign told us that he was "not going to participate."
The story contiunues:
[I]f a candidate wins, he or she doesn't just represent the like-minded people in his or her district. He or she has obligations to the larger public. An important part of running for and serving in office is putting one's record and persuasive skills under scrutiny. That's been a role of the press since before the Founding.
We'd still like to meet with McClintock for the general election. And there's still time. The question is: If McClintock won't meet with editorial boards, does that bode ill if he's elected? Does it indicate a lack of willingness to engage with the larger public? What do you think?
For more info about the race, visit www.charliebrownforcongress.com.
And to donate to Charlie and really break their spirit, you can go here.