The Davis Enterprise wrote:Monday October 23, 2006
Thompson upbeat; foes face uphill climbBy Cory Golden/Enterprise staff writer
The Davis EnterprisePublished Oct 22, 2006 - 20:02:21 CDT.
Ousting four-term incumbent Rep. Mike Thompson, D-Napa, amounts to no small task.
He won 67 percent if the vote in 2004. This time out, he’s raised $1.5 million.
Two of his District 1 opponents — Republican John W. Jones, a retired police officer living in Davis, and Peace and Freedom candidate Timothy J. Stock, a West Sacramento attorney — are running for office for the first time.
Green Party candidate Pamela Elizondo of Laytonville received 4.8 percent of the vote in 2004.
Jones has tallied the most money among the challengers: $61,000, according to the nonprofit Center for Responsive Politics.
District 1 includes Del Norte, Humboldt, Lake, Mendocino and Napa counties, part of Sonoma County and southern Yolo County.
Its voter registration breaks down like this: 45 percent Democrat and 28.9 percent Republican, with 19.1 declining to state a party preference. Green Party faithful are the next largest group, at 2.88 percent.
<span class=postbold>Thompson</span>
Without a big-name challenger, the 55-year-old Thompson has put ample energy and some of his money into the Democratic effort to retake the House. He has led an effort to defend 12 seats that in 2004 either went to President Bush or where Democrats won by slim margins.
Thompson said last week he had grown “cautiously optimistic” his party will regain the majority.
If that happens the California delegation — behind Rep. Nancy Pelosi, who is in line to be speaker — will hold considerable sway.
Thompson said it would push for: increasing the minimum wage; repealing a rule stopping the Secretary of Health for negotiating for lower prescription drug prices; repealing Bush’s veto of a bill loosening restrictions on stem cell research; and bolstering the student loan program.
A member of the powerful House Ways and Means Committee, Thompson’s own priorities would include: standing against efforts to privatize Social Security; addressing climate change, including providing incentives for the development of alternative energy and carbon sequestration; and again calling for “pay-as-you-go” rules requiring that Congress pay for any bill it passes.
Thompson has called for a better accounting of the estimated $11 million an hour being spent in Iraq. The Vietnam veteran, who voted against the war, said that U.S. troops should pull out of Iraq “as soon as practicable.”
“This stay-the-course strategy is no strategy at all — it’s a political slogan,” he said. “It’s an embarrassment.”
From his current term, Thompson spotlighted the passage of his bill protecting 273,000 acres of Northern California as wilderness; a bill creating a commission to investigate chemical and biological weapons testing on servicemen and women between 1962 and 1974; and a bill increasing the tax deductions available for landowners who sign conservation easements, protecting their land from development.
Thompson is a former state senator. He and his wife own a small vineyard and have two grown sons.
Online: mikethompson.house.gov.
<span class=postbold>Jones</span>
Jones says he is campaigning to bring integrity and “conservative, tradition, family-type values” to Congress.
He draws a sharp line between himself and Thompson on Iraq and combating terrorism.
“I am very much of the position that we should stay the course...,” he said. “We’re defending ourselves.”
Jones said Congress should vigorously debate such issues, but present a “unified voice” after votes are taken. Dissension among the country’s leaders means “a show of weakness” that emboldens terrorists, he said.
“The incumbent is a classic example of ‘I didn’t get my way, so now I’m going to raise hell about it,” Jones said. “You can’t do that.”
Jones would target taxes and government bureaucracy, privatizing at least a portion of Social Security and limiting Medicare eligibility.
Congress has shown little will to reform immigration, he said. Borders should be secured with physical or virtual fences and increased law enforcement, services for non-citizens except for emergency care should be eliminated, and the government should crack down on businesses knowingly hiring illegal workers.
Companies should hire workers through the existing worker visa program, he said, a process that should both be streamlined and include background and medical checks.
Thompson has not done enough to improve infrastructure in his district, the challenger said, and the wilderness bill the congressman touts flies in the face of “smart harvesting” of trees that would lessen fire risks while creating jobs.
Fifty-eight and single, Jones retired from the UC Davis Police Department after 31 years on the job here and in Santa Barbara. He holds an MBA from UCD and a bachelor’s degree in political science from UC Santa Barbara. He has served as a Scoutmaster and as an adviser to service fraternity Alpha Phi Omega.
Online: johnwjonesforcongress.com.
<span class=postbold>Stock</span>
Stock, 61, said he agrees with Thompson on local issues, but has a beef with Congress in general.
“Those people haven’t stood up for anything, and they’re not doing what’s in the national interest,” Stock said.
He calls for a withdrawal from Iraq in the next year.
Stock supports a “benevolent approach” to immigration, registering workers.
His other focus would be increasing the minimum wage and providing basic health care worth $12 per hour. He would propose eliminating taxes on the first $25,000 of earnings, with the income tax increased incremental steps up to “40 or 50 percent” for those making over $250,000 a year.
Stock also believes there is too much intrusion into personal privacy in the name of national security and worries about the suspension of habeas corpus.
Stock said he is “a little more capitalistic” than the Peace and Freedom Party. He said he supports its call for impeaching Bush, “but I don’t think it’s realistic.”
A graduate of the University of Illinois law school, Stock holds an MBA from the University of Pittsburgh. A California resident since 1987, he is divorced with two grown daughters.
Those interested in his campaign may e-mail
vote2006@cow.com. For more on his party, see peaceandfreedom2006.org.
<span class=postbold>Elizondo</span>
Elizondo, 63 and a member of the Green Party since 2000, has been promoting a message of “Five Simple Rules to Save the Earth and Its Inhabitants.”
Taxes should be collected by a three-cent tax (one cent each for county, state and federal government) on every dollar transaction, she said. Governments should then buy what they want through private businesses.
The money the government now spends on defense, space research, sports arenas and charity to other counties should be used instead to pay citizens $15 an hour for a 30-hour work week, plus a $300 housing stipend, and efforts to save the environment.
Businesses should be given tax exemptions for money spent on research to better the environment, and marijuana and hemp should be legalized for all uses.
Elizondo said she believed law enforcement, judges and elected officials often violate citizens’ constitutional rights.
“They throw people in jail for nothing,” she said.
Elizondo is the divorced mother of three grown sons. She has worked as a psychiatric technician at a state hospital, co-owner of a candle-making business and bartender, and has taken classes at two junior colleges and Sonoma State University.
Online: sonomagreenparty.org/pamelizondo.html.
— Reach Cory Golden at
cgolden@davisenterprise.net or 747-8046.
Sunday, October 22, 2006
