Inland Empire Progressive

It’s hard to believe that Sen. Bob Dutton ever ran a business let alone was successful in politics. As I listened to You Tube, floor speeches, and other web content, I was kept thinking: “This guy is the guy who wants to represent us to develop 21st Century policies for the Inland Empire?” I think when it comes to government and business policies the elitist good ole boy network has seriously made him lazy and weak. His campaign his had no original thought or creativity and I don’t expect his policies in Congress will be any different. He will not express any creativity and will certainly follow the party line. He might have lived in the 31st Congressional District for 30 yrs., but his policies and thinking are from 30 years ago. But I guess a daft congressman is better than an extremist.  

While Rep. Gary Miller and Sen. Bob Dutton haven’t talked about it much, there have been events over the course of the last four years that have affected the gay community. From the repeal of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell, to President Obama’s evolution on the issue, and the non-enforcement of the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA), the gay community has achieved more policy progress than either Immigration or Climate change. On the federal level and on the state level these two conservative candidates haven’t evolved in any way on the gay rights issue in a fundamental way. They still possess an early 20th Century mentality on the issue, even though their party has a caucus of gay conservatives (the Log Cabin Republicans). Most conservative gay candidates have to be closeted in order to run for any local office. Just look what happened to Bill Postmus here in the Inland Empire to find out what happens to gay conservatives in the Republican Party. No wonder so many of them vote Libertarian! As...

Progressive Democrats (myself included) are not happy about the choices they have in November. The prospects of living under Republican governance for the next two years is met with a glumness. MoveOn.org publishes a ballot guide asking local voters their ballot choices. As you can see from the statements below, that glumness is palpable. The most laughable statement is that he is the more moderate of the two candidates. I would say his recent comments against a pathway to citizens for Mexican immigrants beg to differ. Both Rep. Gary Miller and Sen. Bob Dutton are Conservative extremists in moderate clothing, twisting their principles to try and comform with a nonexistant moderation. Some of the top rated reasons for supporting Mr. Dutton are to vote against Gary Miller. There is much resignation in the ranks of Democrats that a plum seat has been lost in the short term. In 2014, wh...

  The simple math of 4 Dems and 2 Republicans placed the Dems in a statistical disadvantage from the beginning. Of the Dems 1 was a carpetbagger (Rita Ramirez-Dean) but being a female Latina and a strong advocate of education was sure to syphon some votes. Renea Wickman ran for the assembly in 2010 and lost, but wanted a bigger prize in the congressional race. I thought she was the clear frontrunner, but our fundraising was minimal and the candidate was not as inspiring as she was in 2010. Justin Kim was a surprise. He ran a very progressive and grassroots campaign which got the youth vote, Asians, and educated voters very excited. He also has a fundraising base in Loma Linda where he is from. I will most definitely be supporting him if he decides to run in 2014. Pete Aguilar was not ready for prime time. He has a donor base, but it is uncertain if they will return to the fold in 2014. In addition, as I inspected his background more and more I found he was a DINO that had ties...

With no Democrat in the race for the 31st Congressional District, it has been very quiet here in the Inland Empire. Besides a couple of endorsements, this race has been largely uneventful.  While all the Inland Empire candidates have the energy and stamina of a tortoise. Mr. Dutton has been pretty lethargic.  Maybe it’s all that hard work of being California Senate Minority leader that’s kept him from running a more spirited campaign. I don’t know, but what I do know is that candidates who don’t take their races seriously tend to lose. And lose big.