OC Blog

Correa's Welcomes Another Legislator's Anti-Registration Flipping Fraud Bill

This came over the transom yesterday from Sen. Lou Correa's office:

Senator Lou Correa Welcomes New Voter Protection Law

SANTA ANA – State Senator Lou Correa today publicly thanked Governor Schwarzenegger for signing into law legislation to provide greater protection and notice for California voters when party registration is changed in a re-registration. The measure, which was supported by Senator Correa, is Assembly Bill 452, authored by Assemblymember Juan Arambula. The new law will require a voter notification card, which is required to be sent to all registered or re-registered voters, to include a notification that the card may have been sent due to a change in party affiliation.

Little Saigon Outreach Headquarters Grand Opening

Little Saigon Outreach Headquarters Grand Opening
LITTLE SAIGON OUTREACH HEADQUARTERS
Asian Village Mall
9191 Bolsa Avenue, Suite 209
Westminster, CA 92683
May 30, 2007

Dear Friends,

As part of our ongoing outreach effort and constituents service, we will be inaugurating the Little Saigon Outreach Headquarters to better serve our mutual constituents in Central Orange County. Below are details of the grand opening celebration:

Senate Passes The "Help Re-Elect Lou Correa In 2010 Act"...

...otherwise known as SB 812, which passed the state Senate on May 24 by a 22-13 party-line vote. It would outlaw per-registration bounty programs.

I discovered this via a post by my friend Claudio Gallego on Orange Juice. Being a good Democrat, Claudio fans the flames of myth-making the OC Democrats have been stoking since registration flipping scandal broke amidst news of the OC GOP erasing the Democratic registration advantage in the 34th Senate District.

According to Claudio:

• The OC GOP believes it can only make registration inroads via registration fraud
• Correa's bill is simply intended to stop registration fraud
• Any Republican who voted against SB 812 must be for voter fraud

Yeah. And I'm the Tooth Fairy.

From The Correa Campaign...

Here's an e-mail sent out by John Scribner of the Lou Correa for Senate campaign:

Greetings all from the Correa Campaign,

Friday's vote tally, along with a smattering of additional votes from Saturday processing, continued to extend Orange County Supervisor Lou Correa's lead to well over 800 votes.

Saturday's vote count gave Lou Correa 64% of the day's vote - a trend established at the start of the week that allowed Correa to begin his break out toward victory. (raw numbers below)

Closing The Coffin: Correa's Lead Expands To 821 Votes

It feels anti-climactic, but I suppose I ought to post the OC Registrar's tally from yesterday's counting:

Lou Correa              55,234       50.0%
Lynn Daucher           54,413       49.2%
Otto Bade                    899       0.8%

Correa has now expanded his lead to 821 votes. By the time all is said and done, Lou Correa's margin may well exceed the number of votes garnered by Trojan Horse write-in Otto Bade.

Truth be told, it's unlikely we'll ever know for sure if Otto Bade cost Lynn Daucher victory in this race. That would involve knowing that each and every person who voted for Otto Bade would otherwise have cast his or her ballot for Lynn Daucher -- something that is impossible to know. I have no doubt the majority of Bade voters would have otherwise voted for Daucher. Daucher campaigned as an education conservative, and that is how GOP voters in the 34th SD. The Californians United/Otto Bade campaign was able to do what Lou Correa couldn't -- attack Lynn Daucher from the right and cost her conservative votes.

Which is why it is hard to calculate the impact of the Californians United assault solely via the number of write-in Bade received. Four district-wide mailers plus phone banks to pro-life and 2nd Amendment voters painting Daucher as pro-choice and anti-gun certainly caused a number of GOP voters to either skip that race altogether or vote AIP or Libertarian. Combined with the 899 votes Bade actually received and one can make a strong case the Bruce Young's evil plan cost Daucher the Senate race.

Alas, we'll never know for sure. There was nothing illegal about Otto Bade's candidacy. The law doesn't -- and shouldn't -- prohibit a citizen from launching a candidacy for petty, selfish reasons, or even from being dishonest in representing his or her reasons to the voters.

But I think it should disqualify him from consideration fro any public office. And he ought to be vigorously and overwhelmingly opposed should he ever place name on a ballot again.

Lou Correa Widens His Lead Over Lynn Daucher To 783

The latest 34th SD tally has Lou Correa widening his lead to 783 votes over Assemblywoman Lynn Daucher.

LOU CORREA                      55,147       50.0%
LYNN DAUCHER                  54,364       49.2%
OTTO BADE                            899         0.8%

Barring some dramatic or unforseen circumstance, as the say on E.R.: "Call it -- time of death, 5:00 p.m."

34th SD: Lou Takes The Lead

Today's updated tally in the 34th Senate District shows Lou Correa grabbing a lead of 282 votes:

Lou Correa                53,834        49.7%
LYnn Daucher            53,552        49.5%
Otto Bade                 891             0.8%

That's a 429 vote swing since yesterday. This doesn't look good for Lynn. 1st Supervisor District hopefuls are probably already on the phone to their consultants.

I'm going to mail Otto Bade a voter registration form inviting him to re-register as a Democrat.

The Daucher-Correa Count: Daucher Up By 147

The OC Registrar of Voters has justed posted the latest results, and now there are only 147 votes separating Assemblywoman Lynn Daucher and Supervisor Lou Correa -- with Daucher in the lead.

And the Democratic Trojan Horse candidate Otto Bade takes a bite with 886 votes:

LYNN DAUCHER (REP)   53,019             49.7%
LOU CORREA (DEM)       52,872          49.5%
OTTO BADE                   886                0.1%

The involved parties will have no finger nails left by the end of this.

UPDATE: Here's the customary Paul Mitchell analysis, brought to you by EdVoice.org:

So much for the common wisdom that Daucher would dominate the “damaged” absentees.  Today Correa won them by a 53/47 margin, cutting Daucher’s lead in half once again.

Credit Correa supporters for mounting the Otto Bade candidacy.  He won 886 write-in votes, a big deal given the current margin.

Today’s Totals:

Daucher:      53,019       49.7%

Correa:        52,872       49.5%

Bade:               886         0.1%

The registrar said yesterday that they would be reporting “damaged” absentees today for the 34th, but that there were not expected to be enough volunteers from the Daucher and Correa campaigns to oversee the counting of provisionals in the 34th.

They could be done with absentees, having counted 2,721 today.  If so, they will get into the provisionals tomorrow and we should get a trickle of those over the next several days.  Correa’s good showing in these absentees, and his overwhelming margin on those paper ballots (for people who chose not to use the electronic voting) have put him well within striking distance.  He needs to perform at 51.2%   

OC GOP/New Majority Registration Drive Made The 34th SD Competitive

Regardless of the ultimate outcome, the Lynn Daucher campaign deserves enormous credit for the strongest showing by a Republican candidate in central Central OC in years.

However, there is more to the story -- and credit must be given to the Republican Party of Orange County and The New Majority for creating the circumstances that made a Daucher victory -- or near-victory -- possible.

TNM's leadership (Tom Tucker, Larry Higby, Gary Hunt and Paul Folino) agreed to fund a voter registration drive but were uninterested in a generic effort, preferring to target resources in an area where their funds could change on outcome. Hence, the decision to target the 34th Senate District.

When the 34th Senate District was created in 2001, the Democrats had a registration advantage of 10.5% -- unsurprising since it was drawn to be a safe Democratic seat. By the time Sen. Joe Dunn was re-elected in 2002, that advantage had grown to 11%.

Daucher's Lead Shrinks A Little More To 302

Lou Correa gained a little bit of ground today, gnawing 59 votes off of Lynn Daucher's lead, which has shrunk a bit more to 302 votes.

Here's the customary Paul Mitchell analysis (brought to you by EdVoice):

Today’s Totals:

Daucher:     51,736     50.1%

Correa:       51,434     49.9%

Correa gained back 59 votes on Daucher, placing the gap at 302.  In today’s counting, he led her by a margin of 51.1% to 49.9%.  Correa needs to win the remaining ballots by a margin of 52/48 in order to prevail.  There are still 12,260 absentees outstanding county-wide.  Using previous counts, it can be assumed that this means there are 1,500 absentees to be counted in the 34th. The registrar has increased the likely number of Provisionals outstanding to 5-6,000 in the 34th, meaning that 25%+ of the provisionals were from this district, even though it is only 18% of the registration in the county, and about 14% of the votes on Election Day.  The registrar also suggested that only half of these 5-6,000 would ultimately count.  This is a much lower rate than in 2004 when only 16% of ballots were rejected.  Even though there are two wildly different ways of approximating the number of provisionals to be counted, both methods get you to about 2,500.  With a projected 1,500 absentees and 2,500 provisionals to count, it can be expected that we have 4,000 more votes to tally.

Today’s update is from absentees that had to be duplicated and re-run through the machines.  It can be presumed that they’ll get these all done by tomorrow, and start with the provisionals.  The Correa campaign has suggested all along that they will perform very well in the provisional ballots – something that is supported by previous elections.  If Correa wins the remaining provisionals and absentees by the same percentage as his election day counts, he will win by 62 votes.

Daucher Lead Over Correa Shrinks To 361

The latest results have been posted by the OC Registrar of Voters, and Lynn Daucher's lead over Lou Correa has shrunk to 361, meaning Correa cut Daucher's lead by more than 50% in a single day:

Lynn Daucher (Rep)     50,433           50.2%
Lou Correa (Dem)            50,072          49.8%

Ouch.

According to Martin Wisckol at Total Buzz, 47,000 absentees were counted on Saturday and the bulk of absentees were counted today. If that is true, and the number of uncounted ballots from the 34th SD has dwindled dramatically, that is the best news of the day for Daucher.

UPDATE: I've put in a call to Neal Kelley, but just went to voice mail. Today's results would seem to confirm Team Corea's claim that late ballots will substantially favor Lou.

A reader emailed me this take:

It is impossible to know how many of the ballots remaining to be counted are from the 34th Senate District, but of the 696,777 ballots counted so far county-wide, 14.42% of them voted for either Lou or Lynn.

14.42% of the remaining ballots equals 7846 to go.

UPDATE II: Here's Martin Wisckol's post on the latest tally.

UPDATE III: Following is the now-customary Paul Mitchell analysis of the day's tally:

Today Lou Correa made up a considerable amount of ground against Lynn Daucher.  He won 3,910 votes to her 3,507.  The gap now sits at 361, less than half of the weekend gap.  There are up to 6,200 ballots still to be counted.  In order to win, Correa needs to maintain today’s 53/47 advantage for the remainder of the counting.

The good news for Correa:  He has caught up some, winning today’s balloting at a 53% to 47% rate – close to his Election Day tally.

The good news for Daucher:  The remaining absentee ballots are not specifically from Election Day.  They are ballots which were damaged, and could have been cast at any time.

The bad news for us:  The rest of the counting will be going very slow.  Damaged ballots to be duplicated before being run through the machines and provisionals have to be researched and validated before being counted.

It all now rests on three factors:

1) How many absentee ballots are outstanding, which is probably around 4,000.  (absentee ballots have been about 12.2% of votes cast so far.  With 32,499 absentees in the county, that makes 3,965 outstanding).

2) When the absentees were cast. The remaining ballots are not date-specific.  They are ballots which were damaged and set-aside to be duplicated.  They include ballots from Election Day, (when Correa was winning 52/48) and prior days (when Daucher was winning 52/48).

3) How many provisionals are counted.  It has been expected that provisionals would lean toward Correa because they are day-of-election and because of the higher propensity for some precincts to have voting problems.  However, of the estimated 2,650 provisionals in the 34th, a good chunk will not count.  A Grand Jury Report from ’04 found that 16% of provisionals in Orange County were not counted because the voter could not be verified or has submitted more than one ballot (often when they mail on Monday and vote on Tuesday because they think their ballot isn’t going to be received in time). Applying this discounting to the provisionals, the total likely to be counted is around 2,200.

Correa’s one day performance at 53% is not likely to be repeated in the remaining absentees as they are not ballots that were turned in on Election Day.  He should out-perform Daucher on the provisionals, however he would have to win those ballots at a rate greater than 60% to 40% in order for it to have a decisive impact on the outcome.

Final Note: One aberration in today’s results was the counting of 5,665 “election day paper ballots” that had been left uncounted since election day.  I never understood what these were, but it seems from the counts that about 4,800 came from the 34th.  Because of these ballots, over 30% of today’s county-wide totals came into the 34th SD – a figure wildly different than previous days.  Excluding these paper ballots, today’s count was 14% of the total county ballots.

And, if anyone cares, here are the numbers:

November 13th            

6200         B               Ballots Outstanding    

50,072       C               Correa Total    

50,433       D               Daucher Total    

53%          x                Percentage Correa Needs to Tie  

47%          1-x             Percentage Daucher Needs to Tie          

                Formula: xb+c=(1-x)b+d                      

47%          Y                Percentage Daucher won in today's count

53%          1-Y             Percentage Correa won in today's count                              

                7417          Number of ballots counted today  

Dueling Methodologies In The 34th SD

Earler today, the OC Registrar posted the latest results from the Daucher-Correa race. Daucher is still ahead, although her margin shrank to 764.

So, who will win in the 34th SD?  That depends on to whom you talk.

Paul Mitchell from EdVoice sent out another analysis based on the latest count from the ROV:

Today the Orange County Registrar of Voters counted 47,000 ballots in the county, 5,847 which were in the 34th Senate District.  In this count, Correa added 2,958 votes and Daucher added 2,889.  This means that Correa made up a bit of ground (69 votes) and now is behind by 764.

Daucher’s daily percentage of the vote has been diminishing over time.  Thursday’s count was 56% Daucher, Friday’s was 52%, and today’s was 49%.  While this percentage of the vote is trending away from her, it also means that Correa’s uphill battle continues to get steeper.  He is losing time to make up ground, and the percentage he needs to get on all remaining ballots has increased.

Daucher's Lead Widens To 833. Is It A Lock?

Counting continues for the 34th Senate District. The ROV results released earlier today increased Daucher's lead to 833.

OC Democratic Party Executive Director Mike Levin places his hope in the belief that late absentees will break toward Correa -- something I wouldn't bet the farm on.

I subsequently received this e-mail from Paul Mitchell, political director and COO for EdVoice:

Today Assemblymember Lynn Daucher gained additional ground against Supervisor Lou Correa, and is now leading by 833 votes. 

Of the 5,200 ballots counted today, she won at a rate of 52%.  With the presumption that there were 7,000 votes outstanding, Correa would now have to win at a rate of 80% in order to overtake Daucher.

November 9th        

1378        B       Ballots Outstanding  

43204      C       Correa Total  

44037      D       Daucher Total  

80%         x       Percentage Correa Needs to Tie

20%        1-x     Percentage Daucher Needs to Tie        

       Formula: xb+c=(1-x)b+d          

                    80%              

52%         Y       Percentage Daucher won in today's count

I don't pretend to understand how this formula was derived, but I like the result.

Scenes From The 34th SD Count-O-Rama

They're still counting away at the OC Registrar of Voters. I've been snooping around and picked up some interesting tidbits from the last couple of days:

• OC Supervisor Lou Correa showed up at the OC Registrar's office the morning after the election, walking around and talking to ROV staff. I understand he's one of the candidates, but he's also one of the ROV staff's bosses -- making his presence inappropriate. If he were a Republican, I've no doubt the Dems would accuse him of trying to intimidate ROV staff. Perhaps that's why the Correa campaign team persuaded Lou it was best to leave rather than create a bad impression.

• The ROV is lousy with Democratic operatives -- several of whom have apparently been writing down the names of voters whose ballots are challenged. When told to stop, they apologize, claim ignorance and then substitute another operative who then does the same thing.

• If Daucher maintains her lead and wins the seat, it will be the only legislative seat with majority Democratic registration that elected a Republican on Election Day.

OC Democratic Party Considers Suing If Correa Loses 34th Senate District Race

From today's OC Register:

County Democratic Party Chairman Frank Barbaro said that if Daucher wins by a narrow margin, his party will consider challenging the outcome.

Gee, I didn't see that coming for the last couple of weeks.

"(But) I don't know if there's a legal basis to try to overturn an election based on people having to wait in a long line," he said.

Since when has that been an impediment to filing lawsuits to overturn an undesirable election result?

Daucher Widens Her Lead To 553

A reader e-mailed to let me know Lynn Daucher has increased her lead to 553 votes.

Looks like those theorists who theorized the late absentees would mirror the trend of the earlier absentees are proving correct.

Still, the number of uncounted absentees (up to 7,000) makes me wish I were a mathematician able to render some sort of scientific prediction.

Why Lynn Will Win (and the Vietnamese Vote)

Team (Van) Tran conducted a huge offensive on behalf of Daucher this fall. Numerous Vietnamese-language mailers were sent. Weekly ads ran in ethnic newspapers and around the clock on radio stations (1480 AM and 106.3 FM). Even though the ex-Brea resident was new to Little Saigon voters, Daucher visited the diverse district often, especially at the right time with key people including the governor. Scott Baugh and Daucher rightly acknowledged Team Tran as well as Garden Grove School board member Trung Nguyen for their help. Fellow GG board member Lan Nguyen also played a key role but he didn't make it to the Irvine Hyatt on election night despite winning his reelection.

Daucher prematurely spouted about "taking on Loretta Sanchez." At the time (11 p.m. on Tuesday) she had a double-digit lead...

About 2/3 of Vietnamese Americans in Orange County voted via absentee ballots sent early and late. It is unknown at this time how many requested ballots in Vietnamese. This past July, renewal of the temporary provisions of the Voting Rights Act received nearly unanimous bi-partisan support. However, a number of Republican lawmakers acted to amend, delay or defeat renewal of the Act, including Campbell, Miller, Rohrabacher and Royce. Calvert and Sanchez voted yes. Supervisor Chris Norby also testified against its renewal and its $22 million cost per election cycle (English and four other languages) to Orange County taxpayers.

How ironic that those requesting foreign-language ballots may affect the outcome of two local races this year. The other was Harman vs. Harkey. "He beat Harkey 1,364 to 591 on those ballots, 73 percent of which were in Vietnamese." Read the OCR article. I wonder how many voters requested Spanish-language ballots.

Van Tran anticipates that many of those absentees will be in favor of Daucher, resulting in more than the 138-vote lead posted at the Total Buzz yesterday. Yet unlike the Harman v. Harkey race in the 35th SD, a Republican battle, Correa and the Democrats have their share of Vietnamese supporters.

I was way off with my Sanchez v. Nguyen prediction. Tan may not have garnered as many Vietnamese votes. He spent much more money (>$500K) and fared no better than the other sacrificial GOP nominees who came before him. Tan lost 38-62. District turnout was a meek 26.5%. with 38% for Democrats and 27% for Republicans.

47th CD Registration: DEM 42.6%, REP 37.1%, DTS 16.7%, AI 1.7%

2004: Dr. Alexandra Coronado lost 40% to 60%. Voter registration was 187,846. Turnout was 58%. 2002: Entrepreneur Jeff Chavez lost 35% to 61% despite quitting before the general election. 2000: Elementary school teacher Gloria Matta-Tuckman lost 35-60.

Daucher & Correa, Neck and Neck

The latest results in the 34th SD were just posted by the OC Registrar of Voters, and Lynn Daucher and Lou Corrrea each have 50%. Daucher is actually ahead by just 13 votes. That is with 361 of 377 precincts reporting.

Wow. That's tight.

I overheard at the OC GOP election night party there are on the order of 20,000 uncounted absentee ballots. I don't know if these are now being counted and reported along with the precinct results. But given how heavily the absentees broke for Daucher, the number 20,000 is a comforting one to Team Daucher as the election day votes narrow the gap between her and Correa.

It's going to be a late night for both campaigns, both of which I'm sure have people camped out at the OC Registrar's until this is over.

Daucher Closes Strong

Four - count 'em, FOUR - Daucher mailers arrived at Stately Leyes Manor on Monday, the last mail day of the Fall campaign. For a solid month, we have received at least one Daucher mailer almost every day, most days multiple mailers. ZERO Correa mail. And a tidy little closer, too, the much-anticipated Schwarzenegger robo-call that apparently went wide to all(?) Republican households. Any Democrats?

Now that it is all over but the shouting (and recounts and lawsuits), the strategy for each side is crystal clear. Daucher started mailing before the primary and never let up, establishing herself in the hearts and minds (or mailboxes, anyway) of voters as our de facto Assembly representative. She was ubiquitous and effective hitting on a variety of issues important to the district. She also targeted sub-universes including Vietnamese, Latino, Women, Independents, etc. She had lots of signs and several TV ads. Although there were some Independent Expenditures (IE's), most notably from the California Republican Party, most of the media came disclaimed from Daucher for Senate, which means that the money, the media and the message, all ran through her campaign. She scores high on accountability.

34th SD Mailbox: Daucher On Eminent Domain

The Lynn Daucher for Senate campaign sent out this mailer on eminent domain which landed in 34th Senate District mailboxes on Wednesday.

Yet Another IE for Otto Bade

Yesterday, Californians United dropped another $14K independent expenditure for GOP write-in Otto Bade's Trojan Horse candidacy -- $14,021 for a mailer, to be precise.

That brings the Democratic IE group to $72,944.88 in expenditures for Bade. That's as much, in less than a week, as Bade raised in a year for his 2004 Assembly campaign.

They also spent $30,750 on "TV production and placement" in support of Lou Correa.

Daucher Catches Up

Stately Leyes Manor received FOUR pieces of Daucher mail today (Thursday), no doubt from a slight clog in the post office. This makes up for NO mail from Daucher on Wednesday. She was also featured on a large-format Republican slate ("Orange County Republican Leadership somethin-or-other...").

ZERO Correa mail today... no, wait, an "I.E." for Otto Bade - which, of course, is a diaphanously-veiled Correa effort. And four or five other pieces (No on 87, Maybe on 99, Up on Down, Cherry on Top, etc. ...).

Central county mailboxes are pretty full by now, so sensory overload is setting in. If the message hasn't sunk in by now, then it probably won't. All the more reason to suspect that the Bogus Bade campaign may be too little, too late....

One Of The Otto Bade Mailers

Here's one of the Otto Bade mailers -- I don't know if it is the first or the second one:

Another IE For Otto Bade -- That's $60,000 So Far

Yesterday, Californians United dropped $28,425.61 in independent expenditures for GOP Trojan Horse write-in Otto Bade: $25,970.55 for a mailer, and $2,455.06 for phone banking.

That brings Californians United IEs for Otto Bade to a total of $58,923.88. By way of contrast, Otto Bade recieved a total of $73,523.00 for all of 2004 when he ran for Assmbly that year.

For a list of Californians United contributors, click here.

By coincidence, I just heard a Lou Correa for state Senate radio ad on KFI even as I wrote this post.

Another IE for Otto From Lou Correa Backers

Californians United sent out another IE for Otto Bade today, according to Martin Wisckol at Total Buzz.

The expenditure was reported this evening about 5:20 p.m.: $14,673.66. That's enough to hit approximately 30,000 GOP households, again.

I hope Otto is being amply rewarded by the Democrats, because he's finished politically as a Republican. Maybe he can regsiter as a Democrat, and even things out for Tan Nguyen's swtich from Democrat to Republican.

Dave Shawver Endorses Lou Correa For Senate

Mike Lawson over at TheLiberalOC posts about a Republicans for Lou Correa letter that went out:

The Lou Correa camp sent out a “Republicans for Lou” letter this weekend.  The letter is a counter to the Dems for Daucher letter that Andrew and Claudio already blogged about.

And similarly, Lou’s letter is signed by a bunch of Who-dats? of the Republican party: David Shawver, Tran Tu, Al Ethans, George Georgieff, Mark Kusiak, Jess Saenz, and Hoa Truong.

You can read Mike's entire post here.

Interesting that Dave Shawver, the hapless Stanton councilman the government unions recuited to run against John Moorlach for 2nd District Supervisor is among this benighted group.

The Democrats Are Behind The Otto Bade Write-In. Gee, What A Surprise.

Martin Wisckol posts over at Total Buzz that the Democrats paid for an IE mailer hitting Lynn Daucher and promoting Otto Bade:

It's getting a little clearer who's behind Republican Otto Bade's last-minute write-in campaign for the 34th state Senate District race between Republican Lynn Daucher and Democrat Lou Correa. Not much of a surprise -- it's Correa's backers. I wrote about Otto the Spoiler in today's Buzz column (second item), but now campaign mail has been sent out on his behalf and we know who's paying for it.

A PAC called "Californians United" paid for a mailer that hit Saturday that attacked "liberal" Republicans (including a slam on Daucher) and touted Bade as a "conservative Republican." Californians United has also done independent expenditures on Correa's behalf.

You can read Martin's entire post here.

According to the Secretary of State website, the mailer cost $15,824.16. If you figure the mailer probably cost the Dems 50 cents per peice, that's about 30,000 Republicans -- 28% of GOP registration in the 34th SD.

Lynn Daucher & The Governator

The ubiquitous Anthony Kuo sent me this picture of 34th Senate District candidate Assemblywoman Lynn Daucher with Governor Schwarzenegger at her fundraiser the other day, which drew more than 400 attendees. I thought I'd share it with our readers:

Same Old Otto Bade

Otto Bade never returned my call, but Art Pedroza did manage to speak with him yesterday about why he's running a write-in campaign in the 34th.

I agree with Art's analysis: Bade's no threat unless Democratic interests spend money on IEs to tell voters about him -- the goal being to siphon away enough GOP voters from Lynn Daucher in order to ensure her defeat.

Otto has a checkered past: a manslaughter indictment (he was acquitted, but the person he killed is still dead), bankruptcies, mutliple divorces, illegitimate children, etc. Not really a guy who's big on keeping commitments or levelling with you.

So I wasn't surprised when Otto told Art this whopper:

Did Matthias recruit Bade? I asked Bade, but he claimed not to know Matthias.

Bruce Matthias worked for Bade's Assembly campaign for several months. Bade still owes Bruce so money, so I'm not shocked that he claimed not to know Matthias. What's another bad debt? Just throw it on the pile.

UPDATE: Mike Lawson at TheLiberalOC adds another possible theory as to Otto's motive.

Otto Bade Has Qualified As A Write-In Campaign In 34th SD

Yesterday, Otto Bade, the GOP's 2004 nominee for the 69th Assembly District, turned in 40 signatures to qualify as a write-in candidate for the 34th Senate District. Today was the deadline for doing so.

I just spoke with the OC Registrar of Voters office, and the signatures are valid. The next step is for the Secretary of State to certify him as a write-in candidate, which will probably happen in tomorrow or the day after.

It's becoming like Night of the Living Dead Republicans in central Orange County with unkillable GOP zombie candidates roaming the electoral landscape. First, Tan Nguyen and now Otto "Yes, I've Had A Checkered Past" Bade. Who's next? Jeff Chavez? Bob Dornan?

I haven't spoken to Otto yet, so I don't know what rational he's giving for his write-in candidacy. The real reason is likely political payback against Sen. Dick Ackerman and Assemblywoman Lynn Daucher. When Otto ran for Assembly two years ago, Ackerman didn't lend him the political and financial support he believed he was entitled to as the GOP nominee. My understanding is Ackerman, correctly, believed Bade checkered past (which is being charitable) rendered him a DOA nominee and he didn't want to waste limited resources on Bade's campaign. Daucher had endorsed Bade, but withdrew the endorsement when she found out about Bade's myriad legal problems.

Clearly, Otto is trying to torpedo Daucher. The question is, is he doing so in conjunction with interested Democratic parties.

More on that later...

UPDATE: I called Otto Bade to get some comment, but there was no answer. I'll let you know if Otto returns my call.

ANOTHER UPDATE: Martin Wisckol over at Total Buzz has reaction from the Daucher campaign.

Barbaro: "This Is Going To Help Elect Lou Correa"

This is from today's OC Register story on the Tan Nguyen scandal:

But Barbaro said that rather than hurt Democratic and Hispanic turnout, it could provide a boost. While Sanchez was already predicted to win easily, turnout will play a key role in the competitive match for state Senate between Democrat Lou Correa and Republican Lynn Daucher.

"The anger here is amazing," Barbaro said. "People are mobilizing. This is going to help elect Lou Correa."

While we now know Tan Nguyen is responsible for the letters, Barbarpo's comment makes it clear those who'd been theorizing it was a Democratic dirty trick were making an entirely reasonable  guess. That theory was based on the saem conclusion Barbaro comes to: the ultimate effect of the letter would be to boost Latino Democrat turnout by igniting Latino Democrat outrage. The Democrat dirty trick theory was obviously wrong, but nonetheless reasonable speculation.

Then again, Barbaro and the dirty-trick theorizers could turn out to be wrong about the ultimate consequence of the letter, as Lou Correa frets in the same article:

Correa wasn't so sure.

"I'm getting phone calls from voters saying they're afraid to vote," he said.

I'm not sure what to think about what the ultimate effect will be. I am almost certain that if Lynn Daucher ekes out a narrow win in the 34th, a lot of Democrats will immdiately blame the Tan Nguyen letter and seek to delegitimize a Daucher victory.

Lou Correa's Risky Vote

[This item is cross-posted on the FlashReport.]

If I am State Senate President Don Perata, I am wincing this morning over news account that my Democrat nominee in my #1 'defend' seat in the entire State has just cast a politically perilous vote.  Orange County Supervisor Lou Correa is in the last month of what will be a hard-fought battle to win election to California's 34th State Senate District. This seat was once reliably Republican (last held by former Senate Republican Leader Rob Hurtt) and then shifted to the Democrat column where it has been occupied by Joe Dunn these past eight years.  Due to strong efforts by the Orange County Republican Party, Republican registration evened up with Democrats (despite the gerrymander) and has ultimately settled with Democrats having only a two-point advantage. The Republican Party nominee for this seat is Assemblywoman Lynn Daucher. Electing Daucher to the Senate has long been the number one priority for State Senate Republican Leader Dick Ackerman, who weighed in on behalf of Daucher, playing a key role in urging neighboring Assemblyman Van Tran not to run in the 34th S.D. Republican primary.

Democrats Sent The Warning Letter To Voters In The 34th SD!

The investigation from the Democrat Attorney General won’t go far beyond today’s headlines because Democrat dirty tricksters sent the now infamous letter to voters in the 34th Senate District.   

Allow me to offer my evidence, which, although circumstantial, is considerably more powerful than the weak, whiny case made by Chris Prevatt and the herd response by some in the media.

My theory is based on the tremendous analytical tools at my disposal developed from 23 years of taxpayer-funded training as a military intelligence officer (Note to the perpetually humorless: tongue firmly planted in cheek). My logical reasoning, certainly more valid than Prevatt’s, advances along these lines:

We need to ask a few questions.

Correa Votes Against Sheriff Carona's Anit-Criminal Illegal Alien Plan

From Total Buzz:

Sheriff's immigration plan passes 3-1

Peggy called it -- County Supervisor Lou Correa opposed the plan, questioning whether it would actually make communities safer and concerned that it would erode relationships built by police and deputies with the immigrant community. Supervisor Tom Wilson was absent. We'll have more on the vote a little later.

Right, Lou. It won't make communities any safer to identify criminal illegal immigrants in our jails and so remove them from our communities by deportation. Too bad Lou didn't have the nerve to stand up to the La Raza-types in his party and support a limited, common sense program like this one.

Correa To Vote Tomorrow On Carona's Criminal Illegal Immigrants Plan

Peggy Lowe over at Total Buzz points ahead to a hazardous vote ahead for Supervisor Lou Correa:

I came back to a busy supes agenda for tomorrow. One item has surely made a certain Lou Correa a little nervous. Sheriff Mike Carona's plan to train local deputies to make federal immigration checks is up for a vote. That will, of course, put Correa on record on an immigration issue just three weeks before the election. The Buzzette's guess is a vote of 4-1 to approve it.

That puts Lou between a rock and a hard place in the context of his state Senate race. Voting for the Sheriff's plan angers the La Taza-types among activists and (more importantly) the Latino Caucus in both houses of the legislature. Voting against the Sheriff's plan will be used against Correa in the mail among 34th District voters --including many Latinos -- who don't see anything wrong with finding criminal illegal immigrants abd deporting them.

Lou Correa's A "Different Kind Of Democrat"? Uh, Yeah.

The Lynn Daucher for Senate campaign sent out this letter from the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association the other day, highlighting Lou Correa's record as a taxer and under-cutting his recent claim to be a "different kind of Democrat" because he opposes gubernatorial-nominee-and party albatross Phil Anglides tax hikes:

34th SD Mailbox: Lots O' Daucher Mail

Time to catch up on some of the Daucher mail flying around the 34th Senate District.

Here are eight mail pieces from the California Republican Party sent out during latter part of September:

• A Vietnamese language piece featuring Assemblyman Van Tran and Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger.

• A half-English, half-Vietnamese mailer targeting seniors and highlighting Tran's support of Daucher.

• A mail piece chock foll o' praise from various GOP elected officials.

• A health care-oriented mailer geared toward seniors.

• A positive working-and-moving-forward-for-you type mailer starring Arnold and others.

• A Spanish and English "working hard for working people" mailer.

• A fiscal conservative mailer.

• Another "working hard" themed mailer, this one featuring Santa Ana Councilman Carlos Bustamante and Anaheim Councilman Bob Hernandez.

I'll post additonal mailers as I get them, so those of us not living inthe 34th Senate District can get a flavor of what is being communicated to voters there.

Looks Like Lou Correa's Hedging His Bets

Martin Wisckol blogged this intriguing post over at Total Buzz:

In today's Buzz column, I spilt some ink about the huge fund-raising gap in the 34th state Senate District race between Lou Correa and Lynn Daucher. One thing I didn't fit in: Correa has still not touched the $297,000 sitting in his supervisorial account. He could transfer that money to his Senate account if, say, he thought it was going to be a tight race and didn't want to depend on supposedly uncoordinated efforts by political action committees. I have a sources on either side of this race who have opined that if he was going to transfer that money, he would have done it by now.

My interpretation is Correa realizes this is going to be much closer race than many observers (including me) originally thought, and he's hedging his bets.

New Daucher for Senate Cable TV Ad

Here's a newish cable TV ad from the Lynn Daucher for Senate campaign that began running last week.

It's essentially a video "thank you" letter to Daucher from North Orange County Community College Trustee Manuel Ontiveros. It's a good ad, emphasizing Daucher's education record, which always Senate GOP Leader Dick Ackerman has always pointed to as one of  Daucher's strengths as a candidate for the 34th SD.

More Blogosphere Fallout From Daucher-Vargas Episode

Frank Mickadeit gave a stinging -- and perfectly accurate -- assessment of Lynn Daucher's attempt at OC GOP Central Committee to extract a pound of flesh from Steve Vargas, the former Brea councilman seeking to return to that city's council.

OCR editorialist Steve Greenhut responded on Orange Punch with a call to revive the idea of Republicans for Correa:

Time For 'Republicans For Correa'
Based on Frank Mickadeit's excellent column, we learn that Assemblywoman Lynn Daucher's proxy at the Republican Central Committee tried to stop the party from endorsing conservative Steve Vargas, who is making another run for the Brea City Council. The Brea council is run by Daucher clones -- property-rights-hating, tax-raising, big-government liberals, and Daucher is still holding a grudge from the day she battled Vargas on the Brea council.

Over at Orange Juice, Art Pedroza responded to Frank's stinging and perfectly accurate assessment by attacking Mickadeit as -- what else -- "a tool of the OC GOP Machine." Art then promises to "set the record straight."

However, Art devotes most of his post to recounting the history of the Daucher-Vargas bad blood, promoting the candidacy of Ron Garcia (I'm beginning to believe Art doesn't care a whit about property rights) and venting about Mike Schroeder. The closest he ever comes rebutting Frank's analysis were these two passages:

Mickadeit faulted Daucher for trying to stop the Vargas endorsement - but the fact remains that Vargas doesn't have anywhere near the local support in Brea that Garcia enjoys.

and:

Also, Michadeit ripped Daucher for standing up for Garcia, even though ultimately Vargas won the GOP endorsement. Give me a break! The conservatives are not going to walk for Daucher. They never intended to. If she is going to win, she will have to do it on her own.

Neither of which rebuts Frank's point: sending your campaign manager to tell Central Committee  members not to endorse a candidate because you think he is a bad man was not a smart political move (to put it charitably). Lanza was sent on a doomed errand that could only hurt Daucher's campaign. How does having her request rejected on a 65-1 vote of the Central Committee help her campaign?

Crying "The conservatives are not going to walk for Daucher" is a cop-out excuse. Art's a conservative, and he's enthusiastically supporting Daucher. I have significant differences with Lynn's politics, but I also like her personally and she is the nominee -- I want her to win and would precinct walk for her.

And because I want her to win, I think it best to put the desire for payback on hold and not let her desire to defeat Steve Vargas counter-productively distract from the necessity of her defeating Lou Correa.