Comments on: CD11: Harmer attends freshman orientation

By: John W

John W — Sat, 20 Nov 2010 20:39:22 +0000

Re #16 Ralph Hoffman

“Hot Stove League, eh?” I like it. Can I get a T-Shirt? Your point is well taken. Election is over, even if we don’t yet know the results for CD-11 and AG. However, I’m admittedly thin-skinned about constantly being told the flag, patriotism, the constitution and “our country” belongs to the Red team and that anybody not on board with that is anti-American. So, yes, I took the bait.

By: Ralph Hoffmann

Ralph Hoffmann — Sat, 20 Nov 2010 18:16:25 +0000

Steve, as you know, the League of Women Voters web site, http://www.smartvoter.org shows exactly the Nov. 19 totals you quote for the SOS’s web site, plus may be easier for voters to access. McNerney provided info to voters on the LWV site; Harmer didn’t. In this close an election, this openness could have won it for McNerney. What other bloggers think about my theory?

By: steve weir

steve weir — Sat, 20 Nov 2010 15:32:16 +0000

We posted on Nov. 15.

According to the SOS’s web site (Nov. 19), McNerney is at 111,438 and Harmer is at 109,655. (This is for Alameda, Contra Costa, San Joaquin, and Santa Clara which makes up the 11th CD.)

Contra Costa is processing our Provisional Ballots (some 1,859 in the 11th CD, remember, not all will count), our Late Conditional, our damaged ballot remakes, etc. We have about 17,000 uncounted ballots county wide (5% of the total count) including over 11,000 provisionals. As I have indicated before, the last 5% takes as long as the first 95% to count. So, we will not do an update until we have finished.

By: Ralph Hoffmann

Ralph Hoffmann — Sat, 20 Nov 2010 04:42:14 +0000

Laura asked a good question; Steve answered it accurately. Helen, Jason and John, you’re in the “Hot Stove League” now. Nov 17 has come & gone. What’t the latest count for CD-11?

By: Laura Sanborn

Laura Sanborn — Wed, 17 Nov 2010 21:15:01 +0000

Thanks Steve. I falsely assumed that the number of registered voters in various CA CDs would more closely correlate with population.

By: John W

John W — Wed, 17 Nov 2010 20:39:09 +0000

The “Founding Fathers” agreed they wanted the King out of their hair. They also designed a system of checks and balances. Beyond that, I’m not sure what those “values” are. They disagreed on strong vs weak central government, slavery, a national bank, protective tariffs and many other issues. To my knowledge, they never voiced opinions on health care, reproductive rights, net neutrality, anti-trust, environmental protection, climate change, bailouts, economic growth strategy, Latino immigration, nuclear nonproliferation etc. They expected we would confront challenges unfamiliar to them and expected us to slug it out on how to deal with them, just as they did. But what do I know? I’m just one of those ill-informed souls who was too blinded by Nancy Pelosi to realize that Mr. Harmer is the embodiment of “goodness and correctness.”

By: Jason B.

Jason B. — Wed, 17 Nov 2010 18:19:21 +0000

Mr. Harmer likes to talk about “our Founding Fathers” so often that you would think that he is an expert on the early American republic, but he is not quite “ready for prime time.” Mr. Harmer wrote in his e-mail quoted above, “I sat just a few feet from the site of John Quincy Adams’s old desk as Republican Leader…” Mr. Adams was never a formal congressional “Leader,” or “Republican Leader” or even a “Republican.” He died in 1848, a full six years before the Republican party was founded in Ripon, Wisconsin in 1854! (I’ll concede that Mr. Adams was a “National Republican” circa 1830, but that was a different political party than the Republican party that was created in the 1850s and has been in continuous operation to the present — but I don’t think that Abraham Lincoln would be welcome within the “G.O.P.” today.) Is Mr. Harmer equally full of “smoke” whenever he lectures us on other matters?

By: Helen Wells

Helen Wells — Wed, 17 Nov 2010 17:44:38 +0000

It’s pretty sad—yes, tragic—when uninformed voters who haven’t sorted out fact from blatant falsehoods, go to the polls and vote for someone who has been a puppet for Pelosi and has not considered the wishes of the American people. David Harmer is a very principled man, full of integrity, who supports public schools, who never once during the campaign attacked his opponant with lies and misleading messages. All this was done by his opponant and the DNC—all for power!One only has to read the 1,000s of tributes sent to David and Elayne Harmer all across the spectrum to know how much they admire and respect their example of goodness and correctness. HE IS THE ONE WHO BELONGS IN OUR CONGRESS TO HELP RESTORE THE VALUES OF OUR FOUNDING FATHERS.

By: steve weir

steve weir — Wed, 17 Nov 2010 01:00:07 +0000

Districts were last apportioned in 2001.

Total Regis. in the 20th CD is 210,419. Total Regis. in the 11th CD is 378,927. With the exception of CD 31 in LA (total registration just over 202,000), the 20th CD has the lowest registration in the state for a Congressional District.

Remember, Congressional Districts are apportioned by population, not registered voters.

By: Laura Sanborn

Laura Sanborn — Tue, 16 Nov 2010 21:42:23 +0000

Re: the SOS page on Close Contests http://vote.sos.ca.gov/returns/close-contests/ . Can somebody explain why the total number of votes for candidates in CA CD11 is nearly 3 times higher than for CA CD20? I thought that within a given state, the number of residents in each congressional district is about the same. A week ago I thought perhaps CD20 was just late in their vote counting efforts, but haven’t a large majority of votes been counted by now? I grok that GOTV efforts can increase voter participation, but THAT many more?