Willie Brown: Water Issue to Drown Democrats in 2010?

[Stephen Frank]

Will Republicans be smart enough to note that the 30% plus unemployment rate in the Central Valley is due to the Democrat leadership of Nancy Pelosi and her love of fish over people.

As long as Costa, Cardoza and McNerney vote for Pelosi for Speaker, the farms of the Valley will grow into the Oklahoma dust bowl of the 1930's. Defeat these three supporters of fish and Pelosi and maybe we can grow lettuce instead of unemployment in Lodi.

Punish the Democrats for punishing the families and children of the Central Valley.

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[AyatollahGondola]

Willie Brown, SF Chronicle, 10/04/09



A political earthquake is rumbling in the Central Valley over water, and it could cause a real tsunami for the Democrats in the 2010 elections if they don't handle it well.

That's the message I'm getting from my Blue Dog Democrat friends in farm country.

Rep. Jim Costa, D-Hanford (Kings County), told me unemployment in his district is running at 35 to 45 percent. The once-fruitful federal farm subsides are drying up and so is the water, with people blaming the Democrats on both counts.

The perception is that folks like Rep. George Miller, D-Martinez, and environmental activists are orchestrating a policy out of Washington that says "yes" to water for the delta smelt and "no" to water for crops. Anger over putting fish before jobs in these lean times is running as strong as any anti-war, anti-Enron feeling we had up here in the Bay Area during the Bush years.

Not only could the fish fight lead to a split within the Democratic Party, it could also be just the issue Republicans are looking for when the environmentalists' best friend in the Senate, Barbara Boxer, faces re-election in 2010.

What I see is two parties trying to get control of water for their own differing, but self-serving reasons. But both parties are using "the fish" as a weapon of opportunity. Neither gives a damn about fish, but many Californians do. Subsidies drying up to farmers you say? I doubt it. Farm bills have enjoyed a wide range of support each time surface in Congress. It would be wishful thinking that subsidies dry up, and all the illegal alien labor had to migrate back south, finally freeing up the farming enterprise for fair play, and putting a much needed crimp in the power of the mexican lobby here in California