better shot at beating Rohrabacher. Almost every poster on DU who I have seen in last couple days has said same, BUT that is a very small sample to gauge, maybe others think the reverse. The DCCC and many other major groups supported Rouda. That all said I would 100000% percent support Keirstead if he ends up winning. I have no grudge whatsoever against him.
The Nastiest Primary in California
The ugly battle between Hans Keirstead and Harley Rouda could cost Democrats a much-needed House seat.
https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2018/06/california-primary-battle-between-hans-keirstead-and-harley-rouda-could-cost-democrats-a-much-needed-house-seat.html
NEWPORT BEACH, California—Last month, at a politically themed chili cook-off in Huntington Beach, Sandy Metcalf’s manila folder went missing. The folder contained copies of documents alleging Hans Keirstead, a neuroscientist running for Congress in California’s 48th District, had slept with his graduate students and, in one case, had punched one of them in a boozy incident following a concert. Metcalf had left her purse unattended for “three to five minutes,” she told me, and when she next saw the folder, it was in the arms of Anita Narayana, the political director for Keirstead’s campaign.
To be fair, it’s not easy to keep track of all the sordid accusations and opposition research flying around in the 48th District, which covers much of the wealthy Orange County coast. For months now, Keirstead has been locked in a nasty battle with a fellow Democrat, real estate executive Harley Rouda, as they try to claw their way into second place in Tuesday’s “jungle” primary, which would earn them a spot in the general election and a chance to unseat Republican Rep. Dana Rohrabacher.
The ugly infighting has split the state Democratic Party from Democrats in Washington, who have watched in horror as the two candidates have gone after each other.* The fear is that the ongoing battle might sink both Democrats and allow Republicans to finish first and second on Tuesday, making the November election an all-GOP affair.
The accusations hurled around by Rouda and Keirstead have involved everything from Twitter “hacking” to harassment to fabricated university degrees. Both campaigns, in recent days, have told me stories about the other sending either staffers or private investigators to harass their volunteers, and each has denied the other’s story.
Narayana, for her part, has been a central player on both sides of this battle, after she jumped from Rouda’s campaign to become Keirstead’s political director last July. When Metcalf—a volunteer for Rouda—saw her holding the folder at the chili cook-off, she enlisted the help of another Rouda supporter to confront Narayana, who claimed that it was brought to her by someone else, and besides, there was no name on the folder. A confrontation with raised voices ensued, and eventually the folder was returned. (Narayana claims the folder was “ripped from my hands,” and she felt so harassed that she asked for an escort to her car.)
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Ugly Feuds, “Drunken Stupidity,” Paul McCartney, and a Race That Could Flip Congress
The tangled tale involving a Democratic frontrunner in a closely-watched race.
https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2018/05/ugly-feuds-drunken-stupidity-paul-mccartney-and-a-race-that-could-flip-congress/
The race for veteran Republican Rep. Dana Rohrabacher’s Southern California seat is getting nastier as the June 5 primary nears. There’s already bad blood between the two Democratic frontrunners, Hans Keirstead, a stem cell researcher who landed the California Democratic Party’s endorsement in February, and Harley Rouda, a businessman who recently got the backing of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC). The two have been publicly attacking each other for months, and Keirstead says he believes his opponent is behind a “whisper campaign” that’s dogged his campaign since late last year.
Those whispers suddenly got louder last week when the politics blog Down with Tyranny published a two-page selection from an anonymous whistleblower complaint filed against Keirstead at the University of California, Irvine in 2009. It accused Keirstead of having affairs with members of his staff and graduate students when he was an associate professor of anatomy and neurobiology and codirector of UCI’s stem cell research center. The complaint also alleged that on a night in 2008, Keirstead punched one of his female students “in the face with such force that both she and another woman…were knocked to the ground.” Keirstead was eventually cleared of any wrongdoing.
A closer read of the entire 14-page complaint, along with related court documents, reveals a bizarre story that involves a $6 million lawsuit, a piece of rock’n’roll art, a fictional prison escape, music legend Paul McCartney, and a man with a serious grudge against Keirstead.
It’s unclear who dropped the oppo research at the center of this saga. Keirstead says Rouda’s campaign has been circulating the UCI complaint behind the scenes for months. Rouda’s campaign manager, Michael McLaughlin, denies this. “Hans should be more concerned about explaining his negligent behavior to voters and less concerned about who found out first about his questionable past,” he says. Down with Tyranny blogger Howie Klein claims to have received the document from someone inside the DCCC. Yet Meredith Kelly, the DCCC’s communications director, says, “No one at the DCCC gave Howie Klein that document.”
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