Not a bad day. Danica Roem was sworn in as a House of Delegates member in Richmond today, taking the seat of a lamebrain who had spent most of his 25 years in the house hating on gay and transgender people. AND, Darrell Issa finally accepted the fact that the rest of us already knew: He is toast, and will not run for re-election.
Gosh! Remember the days — the 1970s — when Orange County was the GOP hotbed of California? Think Bob Dornan. (Ugh.) Now, things are so changed and the party's situation so dire that not one but two Orange County Republicans have called it quits in a week. So this is, shall we say, a California earthquake: Democrats will be favored to flip both Issa's and Ed Royce's seats.
The other fact about Issa, which not everyone will point out, is that as a fabulously wealthy arsonist and car thief, he could self-finance. There's no guarantee that whoever emerges as the Republican candidate will be in the same position, and we cats can't envision the National Republican Congressional Committee putting a lot of money into the race. Mostly because in Southern California, media buys are so expensive they couldn't get away with writing a check for just $250,000 or $500,000. It would have to be $5 million or more. Nope — better places for them to expend limited resources.
The Republicans' best hope is a narrow one: California has jungle primaries. That means that the top two finishers, regardless of their party ID, get to run in the general election. The GOP has to hope that a half-dozen serious Democrats jump into the race, that they split the Democratic vote, and that a Republican is able to slip into second place and make it into the fall. But given how Orange County has morphed from the Days of Dornan, it would have to be a pretty credible, general-election-type Republican. Hm.
Oh, well! Another day in which the GOP is distracted from selling the tax bill. The clock is ticking. We cats PURR.
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