San Diego Politics Blog

Francine Busby appears to have managed to save defeat from the jaws of victory.  Throughout the weekend the perfect summer weather was repeatedly interrupted by newscasts featuring Busby’s lethal "misspoken" comment.  Busby and Bilbray had up until this point been pretty close in the polls.  But this should tip the balance to Bilbray, who has run on the issue of ’stopping illegal immigration’ since Day 1.  The Republicans are closing with this issue and moderate voters concerned about immigration will in all likelihood flock to Bilbray in droves.

But the fun that has been the 50th is now being usurped by the drama in the 51st District where Republican Jim Galley has reportedly engaged in bigamy. I’m sure the allegations of abuse and  defaulting on child support payments won’t help him either.  Meanwhile, minor Democrat candidate Danny Ramirez says more-credible-but-still-going-to-lose Democrat Juan Vargas tried to bribe him with the hope of getting Ramirez to drop out.  Bob Filner appears to have mastered yet another campaign victory as his opponents are decimated, one-by-one.

In the Bruce Thompson-Bill Horn race for Supervisor, Horn has wisely decided to deflect attention away from his personal life issues and turn the race into a referendum on whether Bruce Thompson wants to help illegal immigrants.  Seriously, the Horn mailer actually does accuse Thompson of "Helping Illegal Immigrants."

Lake Research (a Democratic polling firm) has a new survey out that shows Democrat Francine Busby ahead of Republican Brian Bilbray in the 50th district.  The poll, which was conducted May 12-15, shows a ballot of 47%-40%.

MyDD has the story here.

The 50th district never seems to have a reliable candidate field.  You just never know who is in and who is out.  Now we have another candidate in, Republican Bill Hauf.

Does Hauf hurt Bilbray (help Busby) by undermining support for Bilbray, the Republican choice?

Or does Hauf bring out more Republicans to the polls, as he claimed he would do in his comments to the press?

Read the story here.

If you aren’t happy with the Republican choices for the 77th (and it’s surely going to be a Republican who holds this seat) then you can read more about Democrat Chris Larkin at the 77th AD Blog.

Take note that Chris makes me look good when it comes to keeping a blog constantly updated!  Check it out here.

The Swing State Project reports on a SurveyUSA/10News poll which shows Brian Bilbray and Francine Busby all tied with 45% of the vote each.

Swing State notes that Busby does better among Democrats than Bilbray does with Republicans.  But most notably, Busby crushes Bilbray with Independent voters.

Among Dems, Busby is doing a terrific job - she holds them at a rate of 92-3. (Wow!) Meanwhile, Bilbray holds Republicans by 82-12. Of course, there are many more Republicans in this district, so Busby makes up the difference by obliterating Bilbray with indies, 54-19.

So Eric Roach decided not to run in June despite putting out a lot of feelers that suggested he would run.

There are a lot of interesting aspects to the Bilbray-Roach potential matchup that never played out.  Like, why was Bill Hauf paying for polls to encourage Roach to run?

The producer of the Roger Hedgecock show says Roach is toast.  He also takes shots at Howard Kaloogian and Bill Morrow.

So what’s next for Roach?  And will Bilbray ever manage to get the leading conservative candidates to be a bit more excited about him?

Hedgecock’s producer takes the shots at Bilbray’s Republican counterparts.  The question is, has there in recent San Diego political history been such a prominent Republican nominee who faced such unwilling support from other prominent Republicans?

Hauf.  Roach.  Kaloogian.  Morrow.

If Bilbray can’t get these people of his own party to at least "fake" support for Bilbray, then how will Brian Bilbray get a majority of voters to back him?

Good news for Busby, bad news for Bilbray.

A Republican-sponsored poll finds that the Democrat candidate is pulling ahead in this "safe" GOP seat.

Read more at the Flash Report here.

I came across this testimonial of sorts on the website for Grassroots Campaigns which works to help promote progressive candidates and causes.

They talked about the coordination with Moveon.org to get Democrat voters to the polls on April 11th for Busby.  They pledge to do the same again "in the fall."

What’s most relevant is that the array of left-of-center groups that worked to boost Busby’s vote total on April 11th in the process identified her core base.  This is a luxury Brian Bilbray does not enjoy.

He had to fight for his 15% of the vote and now must unite the Republicans behind him and then figure out how to get indpendent and Democrat votes.

Jon Fleischman of the Flash Report doesn’t seem to be on board with this.  Fleischman today screams about the need for a conservative candidate to be on the ballot or else risk a win by Democrat Busby.

The Bilbray campaign looks to be in serious jeopardy.

Democrat congressional candidate Francine Busby has responded to the ads by Republicans suggesting that she was soft on a teacher implicated in a child porn case.

At the same time, Busby is also firing back with a commercial that attacks Bilbray’s record as a lobbyist.

Busby’s people have put the word out that she has pulled comfortably ahead of Bilbray in the polls.  If that’s true then the national GOP could be poised to face a massive national embarrassment by losing what was once thought to be an unshakably Republican seat.

See Busby’s ads here.

Vice President Dick Cheney, U.S. Senator John McCain, and House Speaker Dennis Hastert are teaming up to raise money for Republican congressional candidate, Brian Bilbray.

Bilbray has just sent out a mailer to voters indicating that he is the 1 Republican for 2 Elections.

Clearly, Bilbray is concerned about a potential challenge from Republican Eric Roach and he is going to box Roach out by making himself the only Republican candidate worth consideration.