UPDATE: 11/16/2010 It looks to us like Cooley is sunk, although the fat lady has yet to sing. (Let's just say she is warming up.)
However, in view Los Angeles County Registrar of Voters Dean Logan's checkered recent past (quietly resigning as Registrar in Kings County, Washington to take the job in LA--after a voting scandal that included some precincts where there were more ballots that voters, many presents with missing ballots, provisional ballots not checked at all, voters invited in to "re-register" to validate invalid voter registrations, 130 ex-felons being allowed to vote, and may other irregularities in a very close state-wide election where the "winner" "won" by 300 votes--Steve Cooley's complaints in LA seem like déjà vu all over again.
Link: http://www.seattlepi.com/local/273692_logan13.html
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We just received this press release from the Steve Cooley for California Attorney General Campaign, which is self-explanatory:
A Statement from: Kevin Spillane - Senior Consultant, Steve Cooley for Attorney General Campaign:
“With the counties completing their semi-official returns, Steve Cooley trails Kamala Harris by 14,838 votes – two-tenths of a percentage point. There are over 1 million provisional and absentee ballots yet to be counted.”
“The race for Attorney General will not be decided for at least another couple of weeks, and potentially could go until the official Certification of Vote deadline on December 3."
“We will continue to monitor the situation. The only thing we are certain of is that the final outcome will be close. We are grateful for all the good wishes of our supporters and will keep you updated.”
Our only comment: As we said during the aftermath of the controversy surrounding the Bush vs. Gore election in 2000: Let the votes be counted!
Until then, Kamala, it may be a tad premature to measure the drapes in the Attorney General’s Office. Ha!
--Blogonaut
Related:
Attorney general race hangs in the balance as 2 million votes remain uncounted (LA Times 11/4/2010)
Kamala Harris Declares Victory In CA Attorney General Race - The San Francisco Appeal
California attorney general's race still too close to call - The San Jose Mercury News
11 comments:
Premature indeed!
Count Steve Count!!!!!
Hi:
Steve Cooley shouldn't have pissed off all the medical marijuana patients when he continued the violent raids against the dispensaries. We don't forget. If he wants to keep counting, I hope his loss is slow and especially painful.
On the other hand, the Giants were and are awesome. What a great team, in a great city, with great fans. Now, let Timmy smoke!
Cheers
The refugee
Welcome refugee!
We don't know what Cooley did to piss off the voters in LA--but obviously he did something to lose there by 14%.
We haven't smoked a joint in over 20 years but in our younger days rolled our share when it was a "felony" offense.
That never stopped us as kids.
Now simple possession of an oz marijuana is an infraction--a parking ticket, so we don't see what the big deal legalization is, either way.
BTW, if really legalized, you know darn well Big Tobacco has had marketing plans for this possibility for decades, and within a year will have 95% of the market share.
Besides, 60% of the fun of pot in the 70's was the fact that it was anti-establishment and illegal.
Doesn’t legalization kind a take the fun out of it?
Last if the Giants do smoke pot, you can bet the Rangers are going to be on the phone tomorrow ordering a couple Lb’s of the same brand!
Steve Cooley pissed of patients when he repeatedly busted down dispensary doors, and seized all the cash, pot, cars, and anything of value, not only from the actual dispensary, but from the homes of its owners and employee's. He doesn't file charges, but effectively puts the dispensary out of business.
I sure don't want an AG who engages in these tactics.
And all those crazy Michael Jackson fans didn't forget his handling of the case, and preferential treatment given the defendant.
It was the crazy, pot smokin, Michael Jackson fans that cost him the election. I hope that makes you feel better. : )
Anon,
I only know one thing: It ain't over.
There is no "cost him the election".
We think that the next AG will be the not-Kamala-Harris, i.e. Cooley, not because Cooley is perfect, but because he is the only PROSECUTOR who showed up for the job interview.
We just received this emailed statement from the Cooley campaign:
"The latest ballot numbers for the California Attorney General’s have already narrowed. Contrary to the inaccurate information put out by the Harris campaign, Steve Cooley currently trails Harris by only 9,364 votes – that is a margin of one-tenth of one percent of the votes cast."
http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-attorney-general-20101105,0,4476074.story
(From the LA Times 50 minutes ago):
Attorney general race hangs in the balance as 2 million votes remain uncounted
The laborious task of tallying the ballots begins in earnest. Democrat Kamala Harris is leading Republican Steve Cooley by just one-tenth of a percentage point, or 9,364 votes.
Nearly 2 million ballots across California remain uncounted in the wake of Tuesday's general election, with the state attorney general race hanging in the balance as the slow process of tallying the outstanding votes began in earnest Thursday, state elections officials said.
San Francisco Dist. Atty. Kamala Harris, a Democrat, was leading Republican Steve Cooley, the district attorney of Los Angeles County, by just one-tenth of a percentage point — or 9,364 of the 7,215,055 votes counted thus far in that contest, according to the secretary of state's office Thursday afternoon.
With such a slim gap, the race for California's top law enforcement office remained too close to call, and a clear winner may not emerge for days or even weeks.
The pool of uncounted votes consists of many vote-by-mail ballots, including some that were turned in on election day, as well as provisional and damaged ballots. Signatures on the vote-by-mail and provisional ballots must be verified by elections workers before being counted.
LOS ANGELES topped all counties in the number of unread ballots: an estimated 411,960. Mail-in ballots were 233,374 of those. THE OTHER COUNTIES WITH THE MOST UNCOUNTED BALLOTS were SAN DIEGO WITH 240,000; ORANGE, WITH 233,196; ALAMEDA, WITH 122,000; SACRAMENTO, 120,000; SANTA CLARA, 108,000; AND CONTRA COSTA, 107,000.
Ventura County reported 40,279 uncounted and Riverside County 78,100. San Bernardino's estimate had not been submitted to the secretary of state. Nine other counties, including San Francisco, Kern and Sonoma, also had not submitted estimates.
In tiny El Dorado County, between Sacramento and Lake Tahoe, 17,400 ballots remained uncounted Thursday. Potentially, that could equal 25% of the vote in the county.
Election officials have until Nov. 30 to tally all the votes.
"It can take up to 28 days for some counties to finish their canvass,'' said Shannan Velayas, spokeswoman for the secretary of state's office.
Cooley was widely seen as an early favorite in the attorney general race, thanks to a history of electoral success in Los Angeles County, where he became the first district attorney in more than 70 years to win three terms.
But Harris was leading Cooley by more than 14 percentage points in Los Angeles County.
It is now being reported that Meg Whitman spent $175,000,000 of her own money to fund her wacky stunt jump from the CEO chair of E-Bay into the California Governor's mansion. No doubt the consultants and ad buyers--who reaped millions by telling the former CEO not to worry, the polls are wrong--said what the ego driven former executive wanted to hear. Nevertheless, they lied to their principal and in return for millions delivered the same speeches they had already written for Arnold eight years ago as well as that idiotic ad where Whitman waxed poetic about the California of 30 years ago--when Jerry Brown was Governor!
Of course, had Whitman been interested enough in California politics for the better part of three decades preceding her decision to run for Governor to even bother to register to vote, she might have figured out how stupid that ad was on her own.
Now the spin misters (including but not limited to her campaign tsar who is appearing on Meet the Press this Sunday) are saying no Republican could have won an election in California this year; but watch Steve Cooley, candidate for California Attorney General do just that by December 2 when all the absentee and provisional votes in that race are counted (Harris currently has a shrinking 9,000 vote razor-thin-margin (two tenths of a percent of the seven million votes counted so far) with 2 million ballots left to count—many of them from Cooley-friendly counties).
9364 votes apart is still 9364 more for Ms. Harris. I don't understand the logic behind the idea that there are Cooley-friendly counties. It seems to me that since the rest of the votes went to the democrats, why would the democratic voters switch over to the republican vote? What makes Cooley so fabulous to make a democrat vote for him?
I know how smart you are, and probably have a great answer, but I hope you are wrong in your predictions. Cooley is a tyrant.
Signed,
StonedRefugee
The fat lady sang. Or was that Steve Cooley conceding defeat.
Happy Thanksgiving!
from: Stoned Refugee
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