Dems on a mission to find vets to challenge GOP
Tom Tarantino has a certain quality Democrats these days are craving in a candidate, particularly in the suburban Contra Costa-Alameda County district where Tarantino will file paperwork Thursday to run for the Assembly. He’s a military veteran. “I’m looking for my next mission,” Tarantino, 39, told me this week in San Francisco, where he works as a policy manager for Twitter.
Democrats find the vet part of his bio particularly alluring in the Donald Trump era because veterans connote images like “stability” and “service to country” — desirable characteristics in a hyper-partisan time when 6 in 10 voters find the administration to be running “chaotically,” according to this week’s Morning Consult/ Politico poll.
The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee is actively recruiting veterans to run for Congress next year, and their national security backgrounds can be attractive to independent voters. Among the first-time vet candidates running in California is retired Navy SEAL Josh Butner, who is challenging incumbent Rep. Duncan Hunter in a very Republican Southern California district.
The leading example for Democrats is retired Marine Lt. Col. Amy McGrath, who just launched her campaign in a deeply red Kentucky congressional district that Trump carried by 15 points. In her race against incumbent GOP Rep. Andy Barr, who won last year with 61 percent of the vote, she cites the 89 combat missions
she flew.
But don’t write McGrath off as political cannon fodder until you check out the campaign video she dropped this week featuring her in a flight jacket standing on the tarmac. Some Democrats — a party still in search of a unified message — consider the video’s closing line a template for 2018.
“This is my new mission: to take on a Congress full of career politicians who treat the people of Kentucky like they’re disposable,” McGrath says in the ad. “Some are telling me a Democrat can’t win that battle in Kentucky, that we can’t take back our country for my kids and yours. We’ll see about that.”
Key phrase there: “my new mission.”
Tarantino used the “mission” message several times in describing why he’s running. He grew up in San Anselmo, a working-class kid in a wealthy town — his mom cleaned houses and his dad worked blue-collar jobs — before signing up for the Army Reserves during his first year at the College of Marin.
He served 10 years, including time in Bosnia and Iraq. But when he left the Army, he had the same experience as many other vets: “I couldn’t find a job.”
Tarantino eventually connected with the Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America, one of the more powerful veterans’ advocates in Washington, rising to become a top aide to the organization’s cofounder, Paul Rieckhoff. Tarantino testified before Congress more than a dozen times and was influential in getting benefits for veterans.
Rieckoff described Tarantino as a “star,” and said he is part of a wave of about 100 post-9/11 veterans running for office and split roughly equally between Democrats and Republicans.
“Part of it is Trump, and people are upset at some of the things he’s said and done,” Rieckoff said of why the veterans are putting themselves forward. “And part of it is that they see all the dysfunction in politics and they want to help. They’re problem-solvers. They’re trained to get (stuff ) done.”
Tarantino will have challenges taking on incumbent Assemblywoman Catharine Baker, R-Dublin, who won with 56 percent of the vote last fall and enjoys a reputation as one of the more bipartisan members of the Legislature. (She has held joint town hall meetings with Democratic state Sen. Steve Glazer, DOrinda, for example.) Plus, Tarantino just moved to the district in November. He will marry a Walnut Creek physician this month.
But with Democrats holding a 12-point advantage in voter registration in Baker’s district, “it’s a huge target,” Bill Wong, political director for Assembly Democrats told me. It’s the only Bay Area district held by a Republican.
“We were way off message” in previous attempts to win the seat, he said. Perhaps a veteran on a mission can help.
Every time there’s a new development related to the investigations of the Trump campaign colluding with Russia during last year’s campaign, people ask: When is Trump going to be impeached?
So I asked a few people who have seen the evidence that we haven’t: Californians who serve on the Senate and House intelligence committees investigating the matter. Here’s what they said:
Sen. Dianne Feinstein, member of the Senate Intelligence Committee: “Not close. Recent press reports concerning the president are very worrisome, including stories that he may fire the attorney general and even pardon himself. Those are the kinds of actions that could lead Congress to take a serious look at impeachment. But remember, the House and Senate are controlled by Republicans, and both chambers require the majority’s willingness to advance impeachment proceedings. Right now, very few Republicans are willing to stand up to the president.”
Sen. Kamala Harris, member of the Senate Intelligence Committee: “I will not at this point ask for or call on the impeachment of the president of the United States without having more facts and evidence that would be the grounds for that.”
Rep. Jackie Speier, DSan Mateo, member of the House Intelligence Committee: “Until at least 24 Republican House members become disgusted by the president’s incompetence and bullying, or at least feel that he is threatening their reelection, impeachment will not occur. The House needs a simple majority vote to impeach the president, and then the Senate needs a two-thirds vote to remove the president from office. I think it is more likely that President Trump will resign. It’s clear that the job is too much for him.”