Dan Lungren for Congress

Dan Lungren has been a Member of Congress in two different districts. He was first elected as a member from a district(42d) in Southern California and in 2005 beat out two other candidates to represent a district (3d) near Sacramento. In time between those two congressional stints he was Attorney General and he also made a run for Governor.

His opponent in 2006 was an emergency room physician named Bill Durston. Lungren won with almost 60% of the vote. Durston is running again. But this time Durston has run a despicable campaign. For the last week or so he has run an ad, called "End Politics as Usual" that is a typical political cheap shot that uses grainy photographs. As pointed out in the Sacramento Bee - the ad is misleading in its claims.

Durston is opposed to the American involvement in the Iraq war. He has also tried to make the point that his key issues is the role of special interests in politics. He says unequivocally he is against the "special interests." His campaign site has a video of a portion of a 2006 debate on the role of special interest money in politics. But if you look up his campaign disclosures a good deal of his contributions have come from groups like Sheet Metal Workers and the National Air Traffic Controllers Union. I am not sure how he can make the claim that he is against special interest contributions when he accepts them. He is either naive or disingenuous.

Congressman Lungren is a conservative who represents a conservative district. Unlike his next door neighbor, John Doolittle, he is not an unbending one. His recent vote on the bailout package (Lungren voted yes, even though he had reservations on the package.) is an example of his willingness to dig in on the issues. I am not sure whether Durston actually believes the muck his campaign is putting out or whether he is being led by campaign consultants. In either case that does not make for much a case for his election.

On the other hand, Lungren's willingness to think out issues and even consider alternative views on an issue, makes a strong case for retaining him.