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  • Heated Races, Exciting Results

    HEATED RACES, EXCITING RESULTS
    BY GAREN YEGPARIAN

    ASBAREZ
    Friday, June 22nd, 2012

    The June 5th Presidential Primary Election turned out to be quite
    interesting. Since much has already been written about them, I'll
    spare you my extended commentary about the effects and results of
    two new factors in California politics: the "top two" primary system
    and redistricting by a citizen commission. As a result, the November
    General Election will also produce some novelties. There are also
    other factors countrywide that will contribute to the mix.

    >From an Armenian perspective, the two main races were for the top
    two positions in the 43rd and 46th California State Assembly districts.

    Also, Danny Tarkanian won his Republican primary in Nevada's 4th
    Congressional district, which bodes well for adding another strong
    voice to advocate Armenian issues in Congress starting next year.

    Please see the attached table for the results of the races in which
    I made recommendations. I must here issue an apology to Khatcho
    Achadjian who was running for reelection to his 35th California
    Assembly district seat. He is such a strong candidate, but living
    outside of heavily Armenian areas, that I fell victim to a ghetto
    mentality and neglected to include him in my recommendations.

    The first of "THE TWO" races is in California's 43rd Assembly
    district. This district, as reconfigured by the post-2011 Census
    redistricting process, includes some of the biggest Armenian
    communities in the LA basin: Atwater, Burbank, Crescenta Valley
    (partially), Glendale, and Hollywood, all of which have respectable
    concentrations of Armenians. Here we have Greg Krikorian and Mike
    Gatto. The latter won the seat after a nasty campaign a little over two
    years ago. You might remember that campaign, where Nayiri Nahabedian,
    the main candidate supported by the Armenian community, was undercut
    by another Armenian running. For many people, who are convinced that
    was no accident, the latter was recruited by the Gatto camp to split
    the Armenian vote, which was probably the only way he could win.

    This time, to avoid a replay of that scenario, Greg played his cards
    very close to the chest and didn't announce his candidacy until
    very close to the deadline, making it extremely difficult to find a
    spoiler on such short notice. Of course this also hurt a little on
    the fundraising and publicity fronts because it meant a late start,
    but that will be made up between now and November. This will be a very
    important test for our community since Gatto has not performed amicably
    (even though it might appear he did because of his perfunctory actions)
    towards this part of his constituency. There is much to write about
    this race, but it will come out over the next few months.

    Election results (click to enlarge)

    The second of "THE TWO" races is in California's 46th Assembly
    district. This one is where the new top two system had a major impact.

    Six candidates were vying to get past the primary election in this
    predominantly Democratic registration district. Adrin Nazarian,
    familiar to many as Paul Krekorian's chief of staff and before that a
    campaign organizer for other candidates, came out on top with 11,083
    votes (27.3%). But, second place has been too close to call. It has
    flipped between Brian Johnson and Jay Stern.

    If Johnson (currently with 8145 votes, 20.1%), a Democrat, comes in
    second, Adrin will face a bloody, ugly campaign. Huge sums of money
    were spent in the form of "independent expenditures" on behalf of
    Johnson by organizations advocating charter schools. The amount
    exceeded what ALL THE CANDIDATES TOGETHER spent on the campaign. A
    lot of what that money bought was negative advertising, sometimes
    even crossing the line into what might well be called racism. One of
    the hit pieces directed against Adrin was a mailer showing a bald guy
    with a big nose, hairy armpits, and a mustache (Armenian stereotypes).

    Clearly, it was appealing to the basest instincts among voters.

    If Stern (currently with 8175 votes, 20.1%), a Republican comes in
    second, the campaign will be far less challenging since, as I noted
    above, this is a heavily Democratic district. As of this writing,
    Stern is 30 votes ahead of Johnson with less than 2000 votes left to
    count (these are ballots that were cast provisionally, were damaged,
    were absentees that arrived on election day, or were not counted on
    election day for some other reason). There is good reason for optimism
    at this point, i.e. that Stern will beat Johnson for second place,
    but it's not over yet. This demonstrates the importance of EVERY
    VOTE. "My vote doesn't matter," as an argument utterly collapses when
    faced with this reality.

    Another bloody campaign has been in the 30th Congressional district,
    the "ermans" race. Here, two supporters of Armenian issues, both
    Democrats, have gone for each others' throats. Brad Sherman came out
    ahead in the primary, currently with 39,689 votes (42.4%), to Howard
    Berman's 30,425 votes (32.5%). But 20,903 votes (22.3%) were divided
    among three Republican candidates. Conventional wisdom has it that
    this segment of the electorate is more likely to support Berman, which
    means he would win in November. But, this is a simplistic analysis
    and how the ermans conduct their campaign until the general election
    may well have an impact on how people vote. It will be very intense.

    As a sample of how intense, here's a story. I was volunteering for
    Adrin campaign. Parts of that Assembly district overlap with the
    ermans' Congressional district, meaning voters in that overlapping
    area were getting bombarded with campaign literature, calls, and door
    knockers. One person I spoke to was so tired of it all that he said,
    in all seriousness, "you'll just have to call me after the election".

    But these won't be the only hot issues in November's election. There
    will be a large number of propositions for Californians to vote
    on. In other states, divisive ballot measures addressing 'wedge"
    issues will be put to the electorate, often cynically, just to
    drive up voter turnout on whichever end of the political spectrum
    that issue is important to. The political climate will also be VERY
    hot in Wisconsin where the union-busting Republican governor just
    survived a recall election but lost his State Senate majority to the
    Democrats because a Republican senator was ousted and replaced by a
    Democrat. The conflict over this governor's unconscionable policies
    has been going on since early 2011.

    Sadly, there is already an effort underway in Florida to
    allegedly "clean up the voter rolls". This is right-wing speak for
    "disenfranchise". Usually poorer, or otherwise Democratic leaning,
    segments of the voting public are targeted. Florida did the same
    thing in 2000, at least partially leading to Bush's election. Luckily,
    they haven't been as successful this time because their vile actions
    are being watched more closely. But Republicans aren't the only ones
    who engage in this loathsome practice. See "Solution Seeking Problem"
    in the November 17 issue of Asbarez to learn about what Mike Gatto,
    a Democrat, did.

    Above everything else, please set aside enough time on November sixth
    to vote, or do it by mail beforehand.


    From: Baghdasarian
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