Posted on 06/03/2002 8:47:28 AM PDT by Coop
Now, five months from Election Day, Condit's out, the partisan makeup of the seat is nearly even and Democrats are crying foul over the GOP's registration tactics.
Democrats have alleged that a Republican drive to boost registration in the district - where state Assemblyman Dennis Cardoza (D) and state Sen. Dick Monteith (R) are battling to replace Condit, who lost in the primary - used fraudulent tactics to trick voters into joining the GOP.
Republicans have countered that the Democrats' charges are overblown and that they are now simply trying to intimidate legitimately registered GOP voters.
The one thing the parties agree on is that the numbers really have changed. In June 2001, the registration split in the newly drawn district was 52 percent Democratic, 35 percent Republican.
Currently, both parties agree, the breakdown is about 47 percent Democratic and 41 percent Republican.
"The Republicans have said that they feel Monteith is a viable candidate because of the registration change, because of the growing conservative registration there and because of the effects that come from the lingering Gary Condit story," said Cardoza spokesman Doug White. "Our response is, we don't believe that the numbers accurately reflect the party registration of the area."
But the GOP says that the numbers used during redistricting last summer were already out of date, as a massive Republican registration drive in many parts of the Central Valley had left newly inked GOP registration cards sitting in county clerks' offices waiting for tabulation.
More importantly, Republicans believe the new numbers give them a genuine shot at a district that has sent Democrats to Congress for decades.
"In our experience with legislative or Congressional districts, once Republican registration rises above 39 percent or the 40 percent range we can consistently compete for the seat," said Rob Stutzman, spokesman for the California Republican Party.
Stutzman said that last year's wave of new Republicans is genuine, and that many have responded with disgust to the controversy surrounding Condit's relationship with murdered Washington intern Chandra Levy.
"Once the Condit story broke we saw a sharp spike [in registrations] we didn't see anywhere else in the state, including a lot of party-switchers," said Stutzman.
But Democrats believe that the GOP is simply trying to spin away the fact that the district is clearly Democratic.
"If the Republicans want to waste their time and resources in a district like this, they can have at it," said Kim Rubey, spokeswoman for the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee.
Whatever the registration figures, Democrats have a long list of numbers of their own that they say makes this reshaped seat solidly Democratic.
In 2000, Al Gore would have taken 55 percent of the presidential vote in the new district, while Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D) would have pulled in 62 percent in her re-election bid.
Sen. Barbara Boxer (D) and Gov. Gray Davis (D) both would have won the seat decisively in 1998, as would have Bill Clinton in both 1992 and 1996.
Outward confidence in Cardoza's chances hasn't stopped Democrats from trumpeting their voter-fraud charges.
Encouraged by local Democrats, several voters have come forward to say that they were tricked into registering as Republicans. As they tell it, registration workers hired for the GOP drive stationed outside of supermarkets and other public places would tell them they were signing a petition to lower taxes or applying for a rebate from the power company or some other falsehood.
The registrations that came under scrutiny apparently occurred last year, before the state party became more heavily involved in the drive around the beginning of 2002.
One worker who had been paid to collect signatures last year was fired in January after the state party became concerned about his tactics. California Republicans say that the entire situation was resolved well before the recent round of stories hit the local press.
Cardoza has co-sponsored a bill in the state Assembly that would require county officials to call voters whose registration cards were filled out in pencil to verify their intent to switch parties.
The California Republican Party has seized on this topic and alleged that a political consultant working for Cardoza has enlisted lawyers to call registrants, a tactic the GOP brands "voter intimidation," particularly of minorities.
There is no way to quantify how many voters were allegedly fraudulently registered, and the current investigation by the Secretary of State's office will have little bearing on the election, leaving Republicans and Democrats to debate whether the new numbers will really matter for their candidates.
Democrats expect Cardoza to win San Joaquin County - which includes Stockton and the newly added portions of the district - decisively, while they believe Stanislaus and Merced counties will likely be more competitive.
Republicans agree that San Joaquin is heavily Democratic, but they say Monteith will win Merced and could take enough of Stanislaus to tip the race his way.
The wild card in the race will be the Democrats who supported Condit in the March primary.
"At the end of the day, 38 percent of the district was loyal to Gary Condit, and there's a sizable percentage ... that's going to look for some payback on Cardoza," said Steve Schmidt, spokesman for the National Republican Congressional Committee.
But Democrats argue that many of those voters have voted for Cardoza in his state Assembly campaigns and will support him again in November.
When guilty of something, accuse the Pubbies before they can accuse you.
The Democrats sure seem to be doing a lot of hyperventilating over registration they say isn't going to matter anyway. :-)
The democRATS gerrymandered this district to make it more likely for a democRAT to win. Looks like they miscalculated.
Indeed. I read the whole piece in a fog of confusion. I suppose they should be a bit worried if their core constituency is the type that can be somehow duped into registering for the other party. Poor bastards can't forget Palm Beach....
Exactly. Me thinks they doth protest too much.
I would like to coin a new phrase for this tactic that is being used by the Dimocrats: "The Politics of Desperation"
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