Posted on 12/27/2003 6:08:19 PM PST by NormsRevenge
SACRAMENTO -- Those who like politics will love 2004. Those who don't, won't -- especially in and around Stockton, where some of the state's toughest political battles will be fought.
President Bush is set to shatter spending records in his bid for a second term, and Republicans promise to spend buckets of cash trying to unseat Democratic U.S. Sen. Barbara Boxer. That alone should be enough to inundate Californians with political advertising.
But people in the San Joaquin County area will get a further dose, since they'll be host to California's fiercest state Senate campaign and a pair of multimillion-dollar Assembly races.
The area will be a hot spot for a couple reasons. First, when politicians drew this decade's political boundary lines, they left an unusual concentration of so-called swing districts, likely to go either Democrat or Republican. And the region itself is transforming, growing in population and changing from a farming area to a cluster of commuter villages for the Bay Area.
"What's going on in the Central Valley is you have a lot of demographic changes. And you know, demography controls politics," said Richie Ross, a Sacramento power broker who will manage the campaigns of both state Sen. Michael Machado,
D-Linden, and Assemblywoman Barbara Matthews, D-Tracy.
Machado's bid for a second term will involve fighting back a well-funded challenge from Stockton's moneyed mayor, Gary Podesto. By most accounts, the Machado-Podesto race will be once of the costliest, as both parties are prepared to spend millions in the fight.
"This will be one of the only competitive races," said Allan Hoffenblum, a longtime Republican strategist who keeps track of campaigns for his publication California Target Book.
In 2000, Machado won a narrow victory over then-Lodi City Councilman Alan Nakanishi. Though Machado is not considered a liberal in the Legislature, Republicans hope to portray his voting record as too far left for the district.
Nakanishi, for his part, won a seat in the Assembly in 2002. He's up for re-election, but Democrats are so convinced he can't be beat in his GOP stronghold district, they didn't even find a candidate to run against him. The only opposition Nakanishi will face in November will come from Libertarian candidate Cullene Lang, whose bid is considered a classic third-party long shot.
Assemblyman Greg Aghazarian, R-Stockton, like Nakanishi, is seeking a second term. He'll face Democrat Tim Weintz Sr., but Democrats are unlikely to put much money into the Weintz campaign, which is also seen as a long shot.
"He's a perennial candidate," Hoffenblum said. "He ran against Matthews and came in last in a field of four."
Matthews, however, once again finds herself on the Republicans' target list.
Two Republican candidates will compete in March to see who takes on Matthews in November. The fall race will pit Matthews against either Moses Sanchez, who lost a primary bid last year and has since served as an aide to Rep. Richard Pombo, or Merced City Councilwoman Nellie McGarry, a prolific fund-raiser.
Ross said Matthews is ready for as hard a race as the Republicans want to make it.
"Everything Barbara Matthews has gotten in her life has come the hard way," Ross said. "She'll approach this race very seriously, and we'll do everything that needs to be done."
Despite being a prime target in 2002, Matthews actually won her second term by a bigger margin than her first. In 2000, she defeated Aghazarian 53 percent to 45 percent. In 2002, she defeated attorney Brian McCabe 56 percent to 44 percent. Both years, she won about 10,000 votes more than her opponent.
Assemblyman Guy Houston, a Republican from Livermore whose district reaches into San Joaquin County, also faces a tough challenge this year in what promises to be another expensive, well-advertised race.
Houston is seeking a second term in the Assembly. In 2002, he defeated Donna Gerber, a union-backed Democratic county supervisor, by nearly 10,000 votes, 54 percent to 46 percent.
Next year, Houston will face attorney Elaine Shaw, a prolific fund-raiser who last year ran an unsuccessful attempt to unseat Pombo. The conservative congressman fought back the challenge and won handily, 60 percent to 40 percent.
Democrats say Shaw is a good foil to Houston and promise significant resources for the campaign.
"She has a proven record of being able to attract support," said Bill Cavala, a longtime strategist for Assembly Democrats. "This is one of the few competitive districts in California, so it will be taken seriously by both parties.
The parties will spend millions, said Darry Sragow, a top Democratic campaign strategist.
"This is a district we can win, and we want that seat," he said.
Hoffenblum said they'll have to come up with a "pretty persuasive argument" to get voters to dump Houston.
"Of course Houston is somewhat concerned, because she's very wealthy and can somewhat self-fund her campaign," Hoffenblum said. "That always gets an incumbent worried."
Houston declined to assess the threat from Shaw, offering only to say, "That's why we have elections."
Hoffenblum said experts will be watching the Houston-Shaw race with interest, but that "it should be pretty safe for Houston."
The district certainly maintained its Republican edge during the October recall election, voting 58-42 in favor of the recall and 52 percent for Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger.
If the new governor maintains his popularity through next year, his endorsement could help tip those swing races.
"But that's a big unknown," Sragow said. "What Schwarzenegger is going to look like in a year is anybody's guess. One thing in politics is you don't predict that far ahead."
One things for sure, however, he said, if the parties do battle it out for these three seats, the region will be in for plenty of political advertising.
"This should be an interesting election cycle for the TV stations and the U.S. Post Office," Sragow said.
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