California: Orly Taitz Continues Jihad Against Damon Dunn
From Orange County News: "Irvine real-estate guy Damon Dunn [pictured far left] beat Laguna Niguel dentist/birther lawyer Orly Taitz [pictured left] by a margin of roughly three-to-one in this month's primary election to determine the Republican candidate for Secretary of State. But though the election is finished, Taitz has persisted in insisting that Dunn is as ineligible for office as she thinks Barack Obama to be. She has taking her beef with Dunn to an Orange County courtroom."
More: "As we've addressed in the past, Taitz's accusations against Dunn center around the fact that he registered more than 10 years ago as a Democrat in Florida. California election law says that you can't run in a party primary if you were a member of another party within a year of filing. She also alleges in her complaint that Dunn falsified the signatures of supporters and willfully omitted information about his past registration on official documents. But Dunn's Florida registration expired in 2005, and Dunn's lawyers argue that even if it didn't, Dunn would be fine because of the way the law treats out-of-state parties."
Georgia: Sanford Bishop Jr. To Republican Challengers: "Bring It On!"
During nearly two decades in office, U.S. Rep. Sanford Bishop (D-Ga.) has faced few challengers. The moderate-liberal Democrat is running unopposed in the Democratic primary for what would be his tenth term in the U.S. House of Representatives. But three Republican candidates will try to appeal to conservative and frustrated voters across the district, hoping to gain one more Republican seat in Congress.
The self-proclaimed "peanut politician" says he expects how Republicans will try to try to challenge him this fall - on his vote for the health care overhaul. Rep. Bishop says he thinks the legislation is a "win-win" and says it helps both people with and without health care coverage. According to his office, about 77,000 people in the 2nd District do not have health insurance. He admits many of his constituents opposed the health care bill. Rep. Bishop says if re-elected, jobs and the economy will top his agenda. He says he'll also make fixing education a top priority and to do so, he believes states need to do their part to fund public education.
South Carolina: Tim Scott: Making History By Running Away From It
Newsweek writes about South Carolina State Rep. Tim Scott's all-but-guaranteed bid to become the first black Republican in the U.S. Congress from the South since Reconstruction: "Scott presents himself as a fairly typical aspiring Republican congressman, and on paper that is what he is: he grew up in the state, he opened a small business, and he serves in the state legislature. He is staunchly conservative on every issue: hawkish on national security, committed to keeping out illegal immigrants at all costs, and in favor of repealing health-care reform, cutting taxes, and defending 'traditional marriage' by keeping the institution off limits to gays and lesbians. He even embraces the frame of states' rights for issues such as labor law and health care; some Southern Democrats and liberal historians have argued that the reemergence of states' rights as a rallying cry on the right suggests a continuity between today's conservatives and past opponents of civil rights."
More: "But Scott prefers not to ruminate on the historic nature of his candidacy, nor to see political issues in a racially tinged light. 'I'm looking to the future more than the past,' he says. 'States' rights to me is empowerment of every state in the Union. Health care is a state issue.' Likewise, Scott sees his success as no greater change than 'the evolution of an issue-centric electorate.' 'Voters are more interested in your issues than in any other characteristic,' he says. Merle Black, a political scientist who studies the South at Emory University, agrees that local voters simply treated Scott like they would any well-established local politico. 'Scott has a lot of experience in the district and a strong base of support in the Charleston portion,' notes Black. 'Scott polled extremely well among white conservatives throughout the district. Those folks like African-American candidates who are conservative.' Nonetheless, the ability of South Carolina's white Republicans to get behind a black candidate, even a conservative one, may strike some political observers as remarkable, particularly because South Carolina is arguably the most unlikely of all Southern states to host such a racial breakthrough."
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News: Bookeristas Running For Political Office
