Diane Feinstein announcement

[Ken Burch]

137. The term "litmus test" is heavy-handed.

When the phrase "no litmus test" is invoked, what else can it mean but that we have no right to hold the people we elect to anything?

What, as you see, do we have the right to expect of Democratic officeholders and what do we NOT have the right to expect?

As to Brown...he's progressive on balance, and I'd have always voted for him in the fall.

But there were tons of rightward tacks he made that I don't think he ever had to make.

He was absurdly "law and order" as governor and especially as Oakland mayor, he appeased the Prop 13. crowd,and achieved nothing in doing so, since none of them were even going to consider voting for hi, he ran as the "flat tax/balanced budget amendment" candidate for president, and he spent way too much time joining the right in trying to delegitimize progressive activists. He was also a hard-line drug warrior decades past the time when there was any pragmatic reason for any California Dem to take that stance.

And what do you think it says about him that he inspired that Dead Kennedys song?

And it looks as though he often used his influence in the state party to push for the nomination of the least progressive candidates possible, which made little sense in an era when California has moved further and further to the Left.

He's been better in his last two terms on policy and rhetoric and I commend him for that.