Running for Congress to the Left of Obama

By Joe Garofoli, San Francisco Chronicle

15 April 12

he redrawn congressional district that stretches along the Pacific Ocean from the Golden Gate Bridge to the Oregon border is a political world like no other.

The open seat vacated by retiring Democratic Rep. Lynn Woolsey of Petaluma is one of the few places in the United States where all but the two Republican candidates are running to the left of President Obama.

For the eight Democrats and two left-leaning candidates who decline to state a party preference, the district is a progressive sanctuary where longtime Grateful Dead drummer Mickey Hart headlines a fundraiser and campaign trail visits from liberal icons Phil Donahue and Sean Penn are highly touted.

It's where several antiwar floats graced the Mendocino Fourth of July parade, where opposing the Patriot Act and supporting single-payer health care are badges of honor, and where advocating the legalization of marijuana is a mainstream position - especially when it's the largest cash crop in part of the district.

Outside Chance for GOP

In the campaign leading to the June 5 primary, one of the candidates, Mendocino physician William Courtney, advocates that cannabis should be treated like a "vegetable" and used in its raw form - think grinding it into a juice - as a preventive medicine.

While Democrats are expected to draw the most votes in June and go on to face each other in November under the state's new "top two" primary system, a Republican has an outside shot to win one of the two spots. That's because 62 percent of the district's voters historically have chosen Democrats in primaries and 38 percent have backed the GOP.

If most of the Democrats remain bunched together, as early internal polls are showing, and "one of the two Republican candidates catches fire, he could be in there," said Paul Mitchell, a Democratic consultant who has analyzed the demography of California's congressional districts for its redistricting process.

Mitchell has worked against primary candidate Jared Huffman, a Democratic state assemblyman from San Rafael, in a previous Assembly race and contributed $500 to Huffman's current campaign.

"That is what I'm hoping happens," said Republican Dan Roberts, a Mill Valley securities broker who has loaned $160,000 to his campaign and raised a fraction of that. Though Roberts supports abortion rights and same-sex marriage, he rails on Democrats for the federal stimulus package and the new health care law.

Few Black, Latino Voters

Such sacrilege is rarely heard on the stump north of the Golden Gate.

"This district is unabashedly liberal unlike other liberal areas," Mitchell said, because it has few black or Latino residents - traditional parts of the Democratic base who have tended to vote more conservatively on social issues such as same-sex marriage.

The challenge, at least among the Democrats, is that the candidates agree on most issues. Once in Washington, "we'd probably vote the same way," said candidate Susan Adams, a Marin County supervisor and longtime nurse.

Instead, the candidates tout their particular type of liberalism.

Huffman talks up his office-holding experience. Adams is the single mom who has done the nitty-gritty work of a county supervisor. Norman Solomon, the nationally known rage-against-the-corporate-machine activist and favorite of the liberal blogosphere, has Penn and Donahue on his side.

Internal campaign polls now show Huffman with 24 percent support, according to a March survey his campaign commissioned. Bunched far behind him are Adams, Solomon, Roberts and Republican Mike Halliwell, a retired professor from Cotati.

Lately, the campaigns have focused on Stacey Lawson, a Democrat in the pack behind Huffman. Though she has never run for office before and lived in the district less than three years, she has raised $736,547, outpacing the field.

Newcomer's Voting Record

Key for Huffman is Susie Tompkins Buell, the wealthy Pacific Heights co-founder of the Esprit clothing line and one of the nation's major Democratic fundraisers, who has introduced Lawson to her deep-pocketed Rolodex. Lawson has tapped into money from Silicon Valley, where she became a millionaire before she was 30 by selling her software company.

But like another wealthy neophyte business executive candidate, 2010 Republican gubernatorial nominee Meg Whitman, Lawson has a poor voting record. According to elections records in San Francisco, where she lived before moving to Marin County almost three years ago, she voted only four times in 12 elections between October 2003 and November 2008.

She didn't vote in the November 2008 election when Obama was elected and California voters passed Proposition 8, which outlawed same-sex marriage in the state.

"I certainly made a mistake in not being more consistent in voting," Lawson told The Chronicle. "For some time, like many citizens across the country, I felt disenfranchised and not feeling like my vote mattered."

Lawson said she thought she could bring more change by hiring workers for her company, helping students start businesses and working with a nonprofit to alleviate poverty.

At a March fundraiser in Petaluma where he jammed on the guitar while Hart played drums, Huffman jabbed at Lawson, a Harvard Business School graduate who wrote a glossy, 50-page blueprint for her campaign outlining "how restoring America's manufacturing strength can help rebuild America's middle class."

"Anybody can go to Wikipedia and think up something to say about health care or the environment," Huffman said, without naming names. "But you can't just wake up some day and say, 'I want to represent that place in Congress.' " Lawson, who lived in a trailer with her family in Washington state for several years as a child as they struggled financially, said her experience as a Democrat "in the trenches" of the business world "is a more credible place to have meaningful dialogue across the aisle than any of my opponents."

Focus on Corporate Cash

Solomon, who has never held elective office, said Huffman may be too beholden to corporate interests. AT&T ($10,800) and E. & J. Gallo Winery ($7,800) were among the top 10 contributors to Huffman's Assembly campaigns through 2010, according to the nonpartisan MapLight, which tracks campaign contributions.

"I was the Occupy candidate before there was an Occupy movement," Solomon said, adding that he is refusing to take money from corporate interests. "Corporate money, for a politician, is habit forming. Once you start taking it, it's hard to take the needle out of your arm."

Tuesday Debate

Dominican University in San Rafael will host a 90-minute debate for all 12 candidates on the June 5 primary ballot for the Second Congressional District at 7 p.m. Tuesday at Angelico Hall. The Community Media Center of Marin (cmcm.tv) will broadcast the debate on Marin County public access cable TV systems. The debate is open to the public and will be moderated by Dominican University of California President Mary B. Marcy.