There’s a political war brewing in the mix of tony and working class suburbs of the East Bay that, thanks to the Top Two primary, is between two Democrats – self-described “centrist” political consultant Steve Glazer and Assemblywoman Susan Bonilla, a pragmatist perhaps best known for her work on the “Uber” bill and working with Gov. Jerry Brown on education reform.
Bonilla is widely expected to carry the bulk of the Democratic vote in this solid blue district. Glazer, who won the endorsement of a Republican challenger and also backed a Republican over a Democrat in last year’s East Bay Assembly race, has courted GOP voters aggressively (even hiring a GOP consultant). In the May runoff, he is counting on winning the lion’s share of GOP voters, who will likely make up a disproportionate share of the special election vote.
His challenge, as is Bonilla’s, is capturing the votes of Democratic and Republican moderates — as well as voters who don’t have much of an allegiance to either party.
Glazer’s strategy has been well documented in the media: run against organized labor, which represents a small slice of the Seventh Senate District’s electorate. Editorial writers have tripped all over themselves lavishing praise for a Democrat that lashes out at unions; usually that is without mention of the massive infusions of cash to his campaign from the likes of insurance companies, Agri-business and pharmaceutical corporations, as well as the Big Tobacco-funded JobsPAC.
But will Glazer’s anti-union strategy resonate with voters?
There’s little evidence to think it will. (Full disclosure: I’m working for the independent expenditure campaign against Glazer).
It’s nothing new for California Democrats to embrace moderate-thinking Democrats. Think Bill Clinton. Think Dianne Feinstein. Think Jerry Brown.
But Steve Glazer is no Jerry Brown. Not by a long shot.
Brown (nor for that matter, any successful Democrat) has not run a slash and burn campaign against working families and the Democratic Party the way Glazer has.
In fact, Brown, Clinton, and Feinstein all have embraced a similar agenda that the unions do: middle class values, worker fairness, affordable health care, and income inequality. You won’t find any of that in Glazer’s playbook; it focuses on BART strikes, slashing pensions, and untested education changes.
To be sure, successful moderate Democrats have had their differences with labor on one issue or another. But Glazer’s anti-union campaign has been more reflective of something from a Tea Party manual.
Glazer now has the difficult task of being all things to all voters – telling Republicans he’s anti-tax, anti-high speed rail, and a fiscal conservative while trying to convince Democrats he’s socially progressive and a big backer of higher education.
That kind of political fence-straddling may have been enough to get Glazer to where he is today. But voters of both parties typically cast ballots for a candidate that reflects their values, not one with cottage cheese ideology.