[EL] Vargas, his opponent & campaign information

Sun Jun 10 19:02:17 PDT 2012

I think there may be one flaw in Douglas’ argument. While it once was true that Republican turned out in greater numbers in Primary Elections than did Democrats, that no longer is universally true and hasn’t been from some number of years. Once the final counts are in for this election and the elections officers around the state make their turnout tapes available we can know the answer. But there was nothing on the ballot this month to drive a turnout for either party and I would guess the percentage of turnout for each party was pretty close to equal. 

Larry Levine

From: law-election-bounces at department-lists.uci.edu [mailto:law-election-bounces at department-lists.uci.edu] On Behalf Of Richard Winger
Sent: Sunday, June 10, 2012 6:47 PM
To: 'Rick Hasen'; law-election at uci.edu; Douglas Johnson
Subject: Re: [EL] Vargas, his opponent & campaign information

The most deceptive thing about the Crimmins campaign was that list of endorsements.  As I noted, those individuals endorsed Mr. Crimmins for his 2008 and/or 2010 races, when he was the Republican nominee against Congresswoman Susan Davis (in another district).

Richard Winger
415-922-9779
PO Box 470296, San Francisco Ca 94147

--- On Sun, 6/10/12, Douglas Johnson <djohnson at ndcresearch.com> wrote:

From: Douglas Johnson <djohnson at ndcresearch.com>
Subject: Re: [EL] Vargas, his opponent & campaign information
To: "'Rick Hasen'" <rhasen at law.uci.edu>, law-election at uci.edu
Date: Sunday, June 10, 2012, 6:33 PM

The headline repeats my own personal pet peeve about some campaign finance rhetoric: Vargas did not pick his opponent, the voters did. Vargas provided information to voters, and some of them may have reacted favorably to that information. Note that the headline on the article ("Vargas helps pick opponent in race for Congress") is much more accurate than the headline sent to the blog ("Vargas picks opponent in race for Congress"), though in Rick's defense I suspect the newspaper changed its headline after Rick sent the email.

Did Vargas's information swing voters? The only evidence is from the same political consultants who sent the mail. I personally have my doubts: in a statewide election where Republicans were much more likely than Democrats to turn out, the best-known Republican candidate managed to get 20% of the vote in a district where Republican party registration is 21% and third-party/decline to state voters make up 29% of registration (the other two Republicans combined for another 9.3% of the vote -- remarkably similar to how the third and fourth Democrats on the ballot combined for 9.1%). Mr. Winger's information about Crimmins is important, but so is the list of endorsements <http://www.smartvoter.org/2012/06/05/ca/state/vote/crimmins_m/endorse.html>  for Crimmins. Mr. Winger is also correct that Crimmins only spent $5,000, but he was the biggest Republican spender -- none of the other Republican candidates spent enough to have to report anything to the FEC. And my understanding (I could be wrong on this) is that only Mr. Crimmins has appeared as a candidate in past Congressional elections, which would have made his name more recognizable than that of Ms. Gionis and Mr. Portley. Crimmins is also a veteran -- a HUGE plus (especially among Republican voters) in military-friendly San Diego. And voters did not need to rely on the Vargas mail to know that -- Crimmins's ballot designation was "Teacher/Military Officer," while Portley was "Computer Scientist" and party-endorsed Xanthi Gionis was the bizarre "Educator/Businesswoman/Author." Even more bizarre, party-endorsed Gionis has no individuals endorsing here on her endorsements page <http://votexanthigionis.com/why-xanthi/endorsements/>  other than a City Councilman from Imperial Beach. So did the Vargas mail sway voters? Perhaps, but I'm not going to take the word of the author of the mail on that. Did it cost Ducheney 2nd place? Almost certainly not. (She trailed Republican party registration by 8%).

But moving on to my bigger point: I believe that the rhetoric around this issue is often misleading (such as saying someone is "buying" a seat), and, more substantively, such rhetoric distracts us from addressing the real issue: voters who either lack access to useful information about the individual candidates, or who choose to not invest the time to learn about the candidates.

Campaign reforms that only limit the money spent on elections only exacerbate the issue: candidate mail and tv ads are just about the least accurate source of information on candidates out there, but at least it's something. In my view banning it, severely restricting it, or taking actions that shift the money into "independent" expenditures, do nothing to address the fundamental problem that the voters are casting ballots without good information on the candidates.

Do I have the answer? No. But I hope to see the campaign "finance" discussion refocus on the voters' lack of salient information, the resulting ease with which things like candidate mail can sway them, and how can we address that, rather than focus on exacerbating the lack-of-information problem.

- Doug

Douglas Johnson

Fellow

Rose Institute of State and Local Government

m 310-200-2058

o 909-621-8159

douglas.johnson at cmc.edu

From: law-election-bounces at department-lists.uci.edu [mailto:law-election-bounces at department-lists.uci.edu] On Behalf Of Rick Hasen
Sent: Saturday, June 09, 2012 10:24 AM
To: law-election at uci.edu
Subject: [EL] ELB News and Commentary 6/9/12

“Vargas picks opponent in race for Congress” <http://electionlawblog.org/?p=35470>  

Posted on  <http://electionlawblog.org/?p=35470> June 8, 2012 6:25 pm by Rick Hasen <http://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>  

Must-read San Diego Union-Tribune article <http://www.utsandiego.com/news/2012/jun/08/vargas-picks-opponent-in-race-for-congress/?print&page=all>  on gaming the top-two primary: “Democratic state Sen. Juan Vargas used some of the $630,000 he spent running for Congress in the primary election on an unusual but ultimately fruitful cause — direct mailers promoting a Republican rival, his preferred opponent in November. Vargas finished with 45 percent of the vote, according to unofficial results of Tuesday’s primary. Republican Michael Crimmins had 20 percent and former Democratic legislator Denise Moreno Ducheny had 15 percent.”

UPDATE: <http://www.ballot-access.org/2012/06/09/california-democrat-in-san-diego-congressional-race-funded-weak-opponent-so-as-to-knock-out-his-strongest-opponent/>  Richard Winger provides some important context.

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