R2K, CA-04: Brown +6

[Lunar]

Well because he's a bit of a sleezeball, career politician who's willing to do anything to get to a higher office.  Not too different from most, but McClintock wears it on his sleeve a bit more.  Trying to depict a 26-year veteran as anti-troops/anti-American is just absurd.

This is my district, go Brown! I've followed this race intensely and Brown seems like a genuine good guy.

[Lunar]

Why is this surprising?

A likable nobody [and a big-time veteran, Dems hella love their veterans to prove that we've got military credentials, something we're insecure about] in a very republican district taking down a conservative establishment figure in what will be the fourth or fifth most Republican-leaning [nationally] districts controlled by a Democratic representative.

[Lunar]

I am still not seeing how McClintock losing an election is surprising.  This is the result I expected.

Well most pundits ranked it somewhere between the 40th an the 60th seat most likely to change hands.  McClintock has run four state-wide campaigns and always did extremely well in the district.  And his signature issue, pretty much the only thing he cares about, taxes, is the signature issue for the district.  Tom McClintock is basically as perfect of a fit for the district as one could get.  And if Charlie Brown got elected, again, he'd be in the top five or so of the most conservative districts held by Democrats.

I did a lot of research into the district and trust me, if Brown wins, it'll be one of the key House upsets of the year.

[Lunar]

Brown came close last time, and McClintock does not even live here.

Good grief.

Brown came close last time to a evidence-supported, corrupt politician.  This was during a Democratic landslide year and Brown couldn't beat a pseudo-indicted politician with the lastname "dolittle" (the attack ads write themselves).

McClintock is heavily favored.


That said, the Brown campaign has been SUPERB and McClintock has a 5 to 6 election history of running "almost" campaigns - but that has usually been statewide offices in liberal California -- he has generally overperformed his expected margins.

[Lunar]

He has a history of running losing campaigns (another House race, two State controller races, a Lt. Governor's race, and a governor's one), which was one of my points that you dismissed

[Lunar]

He has a history of running losing campaigns (another House race, two State controller races, a Lt. Governor's race, and a governor's one), which was one of my points that you dismissed

In the statewide races, he always ran better than the generic Republican.  The House race was not in that favorable of a seat and he ran well.

Strange that you give him a race that he should be favored in and he runs worse than usual.  Kinda like a team that plays down to its competition.

McClintock would be stomping the district if he was running against a California generic Democrat.

But he has been helpless from stopping Brown redefining the race as a battle of biographies.  I don't know how much of that you attribute to each candidate. 

[Lunar]

Silence, Moderate.  The talking points are that McClintock is the best candidate ever for this district, and if he loses it means the end of the Republican party forever.

Yeah, that's what everyone is saying, totally.

[Lunar]

Well he ran out of money!  What's a guy supposed to do?

[Lunar]

I'm skeptical that the carpet-bagging charge is that effective, we don't really have an identity in this district.  We might be anti-SF or anti-LA (attack ads do pretend that McClintock is from LA), but it's not like the sort of antagonism you'd see in other areas.  I mean, people living in generic exburbs are whom we're talking about here.

What it DOES do is help drive the narrative of McClintock being a pseudo-scummy, do-anything, career politician. This narrative isn't powerful since Brown only really talks about being a veteran 24/7.

I think it was the extremely tough primary race against Ose (who also used the carpetbagging charge) that ruined McClintock by draining him completely of funds.