Insider Politics

So the State of the Union was last night.

Did you see it?

Me? Nope. I was busy.

As interesting as national politics is right now all I can think about is local politics, specifically an upcoming primary race. It is nicely summed up in an article in the San Mateo County Times.

"Voters won't elect a replacement for state Sen. Jackie Speier, D-Hillsborough, until 2006, but three candidates are well on their way to sizable war chests, according to new campaign finance statements.
Former San Mateo County Supervisor Mike Nevin, Assemblyman Leland Yee, D-San Francisco, and former Assemblyman Lou Papan have amassed more than $600,000 among them for what's expected to be one of the most hotly contested state Senate races on the Peninsula in some time.
Nevin was the most active during the reporting period, which stretched from Oct. 1 to Dec. 31. He raised about $114,000 and has about $242,000 on hand. Yee raised about $83,000 during the period through an Assembly campaign fund and one for the Senate race. He has about $313,000 on hand, but most of it is in the Assembly account. He could transfer the money to his Senate campaign.
Nevin plans to abide by a volunteer $850,000 campaign-finance limit for state Senate races, while Yee and Papan said they have not made up their minds whether to accept the cap.
"I'm confident in our position," Nevin said. "I think we can keep pace raising money with any of the candidates in the race." Most of Nevin's money has come from developers, labor unions and police officers. Nevin served in the San Francisco Police Department before entering politics.
Yee believes the amount of money raised to date will likely be a small fraction of the total raised in the race. Yee said he believes each of the candidates has the ability to raise more than $1 million, although Nevin would not hit that mark since he has accepted the campaign-finance limit.
"There is some disparity among the three of us in the money we've raised," Yee said. "Now that all of us are gearing up. The June (campaign-finance) filing should be a little more telling."
Yee has received a large amount of donations from the real estate industry, unions and political-action committees for various industries.
Papan said he was not worried about his opponents' fund-raising advantage. "There was a guy in the district who put up $7 million, and it didn't help him," Papan said referring to Republican Steve Poizner, who ran unsuccessfully for the State Assembly in November. "It will take a lot of money to defeat me— that's why (Nevin and Yee) are out there hustling."
Nevin, Yee and Papan will square off in the Democratic primary for Speier's State Senate seat in June 2006."

Interesting...