Summary
* John Burton. There were stirrings in the environmental community when liberal former congressman and state Senate leader John Burton endorsed [Cynthia Murray], the candidate least liberal and least identified with environmental causes. It should not have been a surprise-there's a long-standing confluence of interests here. Murray, Burton, Judy Arnold, Margie Goodman and Gary Giacomini are beer drinking buddies and/or political pals. Arnold, who worked for Burton and Giacomini, is seeking Murray's seat, with her blessing, on the Board of Supervisors. Goodman was Burton's chief of staff, worked for Giacomini and is now Arnold's campaign manager. And anyway, Burton was never much of an environmentalist. He was for the underdog. With his jaundiced view of the high status environmentalists of Marin, John Burton was in the mode of his late brother Phil: blunt, funny and profane. While in Congress Phil created the Golden Gate National Recreation Area. Asked about his presumed love of the outdoors, he is said to have replied, "Outdoors? About the only time I see the outdoors is when I step out of my car to take a leak."
Evidence on the latter point is the fact that Bill Bagley, who once held the seat [Damon Connolly] now seeks, was moved to switch his registration from Republican to decline-to-state in order to vote for Connolly in the primary. Bagley, 78, is mostly retired from lawyering but not from schmoozing. He says, "You know I was never much of a Republican, anyway. Damon is a friend and, besides that, he'd do a great job. He'd hit the ground running and with term limits, which by the way have ruined politics in Sacramento, having experience is very important. He's the only guy who knows what state government is all about. And another thing: He's a UC Berkeley guy and he'll stand up for the university. I did it in the Legislature. But there's nobody up there now to do it."[Alex Easton-Brown]'s personal quality that needs work? "Impatience." Past event he'd do differently? "My Assembly race in '72. When I won the primary the big Democrats had me up to Sacramento-Willie Brown, John Burton, Bob Moretti, John Vasconcelos. They said they'd back me against the incumbent Republican, Ken Maddy, but I had to tone it down, not come on as such a liberal. So I did and I lost and I've regretted it."See the full content of this document
Extract
Racing to Sacramento
There are no duds among the six candidates in the stampede to win the Democratic primary for the 6th District Assembly seat, now being vacated by termed-out Joe Nation. Any one of the six would do a serviceable job. A couple of them might rise to do an exceptional job. That said, there are indeed differences, some of them significant. Before walking through those differences, here are themes that emerge:
* Numbers. Winning the June 6 Democratic primary is about the same as winning the general election in November. In the 6th District, as of January 3, 2006, there were 120,004 registered Democrats (51 percent), 57,236 registered Republicans (24 percent) and 45,614 declined-to-state (19 percent).* Woolsey Effect. Most of the 6th District Democrats are in Marin, but so are all but one of the candidates, Petaluma City Council member Pamela Torliatt. Only 38 percent of the district Democrats are in Sonoma, but if Torliatt gets 70 percent of them to vote...See the full content of this document
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