A relatively peaceful balance of power has existed in North San Diego County for some time, with general cooperation between Supervisor Bill Horn, Assemblyman Mark Wyland, Assemblyman George Plescia, State Senator Bill Morrow, Congressman Darrell Issa, and Congressman Duke Cunningham. With seats opening rarely in this solid GOP turf, there was little reason for the party organization and the elected officials to concentrate on anything but cleaning out pockets of local
Democrat officeholders, or running up the region’s vote tally with solid GOTV programs. But like in WWI, the Duke (I guess the historical figure was actually an Arch Duke) is gone. This is combined with various partisan seats which were opening regardless, and a challenge to the sitting Supervisor from a former legislative member. Meaning: Flanders (no Probolsky, not Homer Simpson’s neighbor) and the Somme are yet to come, and the political graveyards are going to have some new guests.
With Assemblyman Mark Wyland termed out of the 74th Assembly, three Republican candidates have emerged. Leading the pack is conservative Martin Garrick, a former Reagan Administration official and former Vice Chairman of the San Diego Republican Party (disclosure – he’s a client).
Garrick has the ability to contribute and raise formidable resources, and has an incredible stream of local, state, and national Republican endorsements. He is also one of the hardest workers I’ve ever met. Escondido City Councilwoman Marie Waldron (a close friend) is another candidate in the contest. She is also running as a conservative, and has put together a coalition of legislative endorsements. Somehow though, she has managed to get in a running brawl with YAF (Young Americans for Freedom) who have been rolling out newspaper clipping after newspaper clipping of some less than fiscally conservative votes she took on the Escondido City Council. They’ve been sort of saving the other candidates opposition research money. The final declared candidate is Encinitas City Councilman Jerome Stocks (a close friend), whose campaign is just getting off the ground. Now you know the cast… more as the race develops…
The 74th is an interesting legislative seat in that it is organized. In this context, it means most precincts actually have a trained and active precinct captain. So while ground games in most districts tend to be rather limited, an active campaign here can field dozens, or hundreds of workers. Sharon Zacharias "The Ice Queen" manages the system, literally working every day to increase both the numbers and the quality of the volunteers. I’ve really never seen anything quite like it. Very old fashioned in a way, but also organized with modern communication tools. And ‘year round’ activity so it doesn’t have to be re-created constantly.
[Publisher’s Note – I took the liberty of adding Martin Garrick’s photo to this post, figuring that any candidate with the prescient foresight to hire Duane and then have Duane become an FR Blogger deserves a photo credit. I’m glad to see that everyone running is Duane’s "close friend" (I wonder if they all feel that way). When Stocks has a website, we’ll link him up. In the meantime, the other candidates can ask their "close friend" Duane for a photo — but I don’t think he has figured out how to do that yet! LOL. Flash]