CA-24 candidate Brett Wagner
dropped out of the race against
Elton Gallegly in his own style and on his own terms announcing his new quest to recall a local county supervisor because of this Republican rancher's less than wonderful environmental record.
Wagner quit a day after it was announced that a
series of complaints that were brought against him by some local dems were
totally discredited. The effort to force him out of the race started last October. Scandal or wise politics, I don't know.
This all by the way of introduction, read all the way through to the end, thanks.
Update 1: hekebolos tells me , my local paper didn't, that
Mary Pallant is a candidate along with
Jill Martinez.
Mary Pallant's website is http://www.maryforcongress.com and I can't make the link active as an edit, but hekebolos comment has it.
Mary Pallant posted here back in Jan. Maybe the tag will work.
Gallegly is more vulnerable than last time and Wagner got 34% of the vote then. I'm not going to say more on Gallegly as there are others who can and I hope they rant in the comments about him. But please tell me he's a pal of Jack's and the Dukester, please. Howie Klein has a story up now at DownWithTyranny that is called
"Breaking story:Is WILKES pointing the finger at POMBO,DOOLITTLE, HUNTER, and LEWIS? Can Gallegly not get swept up too?
Elton Gallegly is a 10 term, 911-fearmonger Republican and friend of defense contractors everywhere, and is now running against two candidates.
Santa Barbara local housing activist and Presbyterian minister Jill Martinez claims no political experience, but is progressive and well spoken
here in this forum.
Mary Pallant is an Democratic activist in the Ventura County area. She's on the Ventura County Commission for Women and is a delegate to the 41st Assembly District. Either candidate would be in good company with my favorite Congresswoman Lois Capps.
It looks at this point as if things may be organizing for the better in CA-24.
So what happened? Brett Wagner ran against Elton in 2004 and lost 34/64%. Openly gay, he is an expert on national security issues and has a think tank. There was pressure from a group of activists in October to pressure him to drop out in favor of Jill Martinez.
A Daily Kos
story here does a good job of the gay/anti-gay contentions.See the comments for especially good threads.
Here's the local rag's version,
"Democrats Push Wagner to bow out of House Race" fairly neutral and informative, on Oct 6. Some of the complainers wore Jill Martinez buttons, three months before she announced.....
Next, here's an article
"Gay-bashing behind Wagner ouster?" should add 'push' to the headline, but all parties are heard from.The dkos article covers it better..
This story:
"Gay Dem congressional candidate says party told him not to run ,Brett Wagner has no intention of stepping aside" covers the gay story well also.
Next up , on Nov 1 this...
"Wagner allegations will be investigated" covers the regional dem response.
Nothing until Jan 5 , 2006 when
"Presbyterian minister says she plans to seek Gallegly's congressional seat" (snip....) She will challenge at least one other Democratic contender, Brett Wagner, who ran unsuccessfully against Mr. Gallegly in 2004 and was asked this fall by two dozen Democratic colleagues not to run again.
"We want to field a candidate that we think has a chance of winning," Jim Miller, associate chairman of the Ventura County Democratic Party Central Committee, said after the news conference.
The Rev. Martinez has spent most of her career in ministry and working as an advocate for affordable housing. She said she has no firsthand knowledge of or involvement in the recent feud between Mr. Wagner and two dozen Democratic leaders who signed a letter -- later made public by Mr. Wagner -- attacking his credentials and asking him not to run....(snip)
So, what about those allegations and the investigation? Is LBJ's ghost stalking the west coast?
I found nothing except this terse blurb in the local progressive rag titled
"WAGNER CLEARED" that says this: (bold mine)
March 2, 2006
The California Democratic Party (CDP) declared a series of curiously motivated accusations against 24th District Congressional hopeful Brett Wagner entirely inaccurate last week. Controversy flared last year when several local Democrats - supposedly acting in the name of the CDP and citing perceived inaccuracies in Wagner's credentials - openly questioned his validity as a candidate. Acting upon a request from Wagner - also a Democrat - the CDP investigated the matter and concluded that not only was there no evidence to back up the accusations, but the accusers have no authority under CDP.
So, the next day he quits. Great. Just friggin great.
Brett's campaign blog is
suspended so don't go there....heh. The DCCC website still has him in the
race but you can find his goodbye letter
here which I will copy here:
Brett Wagner For Congress
Dear Friends,
As most of you know, I live at the southwestern corner of California's 24th congressional district, north of the City of Goleta in Santa Barbara County.
In 2004, my home district, the 3rd supervisorial district, switched from Democratic to Republican control for the first time in many years. The political balance of power also shifted as a result of that election.
Our current supervisor Brooks Firestone ran for office in 2004 as a moderate, but since taking office has taken a much different course of action. On a variety of fronts, our county's environmental future and quality of life are now in serious jeopardy due to Mr. Firestone's leadership style and legislative actions. Judging from the environmentally destructive decisions adopted by our county board of supervisors over the last year under Mr. Firestone's leadership, our district's residents simply cannot stand idly by and allow three more years of the same.
For that reason, I will not be seeking the Democratic Nomination for U.S. Congress in 2006.
I will be leading the Recall of Brooks Firestone and standing for office to serve as county supervisor. For those who may be interested in following future developments in this race, I would encourage you to visit our website at either www.RecallFirestone.com or www.BrettWagner.com.
I would like to thank everyone for all of your support during my run for the U.S. Congress and I would like to share with you that one day in the distant future that dream may yet become reality.
In the meantime,
All the very best,
Your friend,
Yours truly, (signed Brett)
That's a pretty neutral way to quit, he didn't go on radio shows (yet and I know of none) and he didn't support Jill Martinez...yet. Now wasn't there someone else pressured out of a race somewhere back east...how'd that turn out? He had something better to do right? Not bitter, but better. So far Wagner seems a classy guy. Time will tell.
Here's Brett Wagner's
recall website, with a picture of one of my favorite spots and views in the whole wide world. Good luck to him, Brooks Firestone is a typical local nice guy repub. I was in line at the Costco drugstore line with him recently and he was even more confused than I was....what was hell is he doing there? He's a bazillionaire..jeeze.
So what else is out there in blog world about this pressure and the people who smeared him , LBJ style ? There's this
DownWithTyranny! website that takes Rahm Emanuel to task for just such tactics. I'm not a (surprise) dem insider, so others will have to vet this site and the author's views...I'm just saying take a look. Here's the relevant bit about Brett Wagner. (You mnay want to read the whole screed.)
...(snip)...Elton Gallegly is a right-wing extremist-- a complete loon-- in a changing, moderate suburban Southern California district just north of Los Angeles, mostly Ventura County. In 2004 Brett Wagner, a national security expert and a progressive, built a strong grassroots base when he took on Gallegly (not unlike what Francine Busby, Christine Cegelis, Jerry McNerney and Lois Murphy did in their first-time races against Republican incumbents). None of these 2004 challengers won their races but all are poised to try to win in November. Except for one thing: Boss Tweed Emanuel. There wasn't much he could do about Murphy who came tantalizing close in a Pennsylvania swing district but the others, who are all in pretty red districts, have been pressured to step aside for a docile, vapid, homogenized, Emanuel-picked candidate. They've all told Emanuel and his surrogates to go screw themselves. The battle in Brett Wagner's case has become pretty public and pretty ugly.
Although the Emanuel attack dogs only whisper that Wagner is unelectable because he's openly gay, they attack him with a ferocity and vigor they have never turned against Gallegly, eager to install a vanilla, easy-to-manipulate puppet candidate in his place. Emanuel routinely gets uninformed Beltway Democrats to "sign on" for the shill candidates he's pushing. But no one tells Barney Frank what to do or who to support. This is what he had to say about Wagner: "Brett Wagner is a first-rate candidate. He is thoughtful, energetic and articulate and his particular expertise is the national security area, which has of course become especially prominent in our politics since the mass murders of September 11, 2001. His membership on the faculty of the Naval War College, his expertise with regard to the proliferation of nuclear weapons, and the high regard for which he is held for his thoughtful understanding of national security issues makes him a particularly qualified Democratic candidate. Of course he combines his national security expertise with a strong and articulate commitment to other important values. It is the unfortunate habit of many in the political community to pigeonhole openly gay candidates as people who somehow lack the overall perspective needed to effectively serve in Congress. In Brett Wagner's case, his outstanding credentials in the national security area means that any such effort to minimize him by stereotyping him will fail, and I must tell you that his presence in Congress would be enormously helpful in the causes we believe in."
Now when you go to a race where a grassroots challenger is just getting started-- without the name recognition a 2004 run gave Wagner, McNerney, Busby, Cegelis and Murphy-- Emanuel has found it much easier to push people out of races. But not always-- which brings us back to FL-16 and Dave Lutrin.....(snip)...
Now why bring all that up? It's interesting and is an example of 'how it goes', it doesn't always end up a loud calamity like the Hackett race was for some people. The drama of people's hope and efforts is part of the story, and these aren't just names on lists, but real people with real hopes and frustrations.
Just in case it matters, I've never met or spoken with Brett Wagner.
That's it from me for now, I hope to know more about these people and these issues and soon, so
"quit yer bitchin and start to stitchin" my friends, let's hear it.