As The Media Obsesses Over New York Special Election, It Ignores Leftward
Lurch In California Special Election

In the past few weeks, conservatives and their allies in the press have
obsessed over the special election in New York’s 23rd congressional
district. Pundits have claimed that the rise of Conservative Party
candidate Doug Hoffman as the likely winner in that race is a “referendum
on the Obama-Biden spending agenda” and evidence of a rightward shift in
the nation’s politics, despite the fact that this particular district in
New York hasn’t elected a Democrat in a century.

While pundits have obsessed over the special election in New York,
they’ve completely ignored another race that evidences a progressive
resurgence. Today, voters in California’s 10th congressional district
will go to the polls to elect a member of congress to replace former Rep.
Ellen Tauscher (D-CA), who was brought into the Obama Administration to
serve as the Under Secretary for Arms Control and International Security.

As The Nation’s John Nichols notes, CA-10 is a far more competitive
district than NY-23:

    If [NY-23] elects a Republican Tuesday – and, though Hoffman is
running on the Conservative Party line, he is now backed by local, state
and national GOP leaders and organizations – the district will hold to
the pattern it has been on since Ulysses Grant was president. On the
other hand, California 10 was represented by a Republican until Tauscher
beat him in 1996 – and in the past century, Republicans have represented
the core counties of the district more frequently than Democrats. In
other words, California 10 is the more historically competitive turf.

Despite the competitiveness of his district, Democrat John Garamendi
leads Republican David Harmer by ten points in the latest polling.

What makes Garamendi’s lead all the more impressive is his progressive
stances. While CA-10 was previously held by a Democrat, Tauscher
legislated as a centrist. A member of the business-friendly “New Democrat
Coalition,” Tauscher was a supporter of rolling back the estate tax,
tightening bankruptcy rules, and expanding free trade agreements.
Following the Democratic takeover of the House of Representatives in
2006, she famously warned her colleagues to not run “over the left cliff”
by passing too much progressive legislation.

Garamendi, on the other hand, is an unabashed liberal. He is a strong
supporter not only of a public option, but of a single-payer Medicare-for-
all health care system, supports the creation of an exit strategy from
Afghanistan, and actually defeated the hand-picked candidate for the
Democratic endorsement.

If he is elected, and he likely will be, it will mark a dramatic leftward
shift in CA-10. But with all the media coverage of NY-23, most Americans
may never know that.

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Slavery: The belief that people can be property
Corporatism: The belief that property can be people.