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Democrats’ Obama bounce in California disappearing

By: The Associated Press | 28 Feb 2010

CERES, Calif. - Kent Hancock can’t remember tougher economic times in the two decades he’s sold used cars in California’s Central Valley …

Hancock’s frustration is evident throughout the nation’s most populous state. Just a year ago, the Democratic Party looked at California as a base for adding to its majorities in Congress. Now, it could be a the place where it loses them.

Even Democratic Sen. Barbara Boxer, widely viewed just six weeks ago as a shoo-in for re-election to a fourth term, now faces the toughest race in her 28 years representing California in Congress.

That was before Republican Scott Brown’s upset last month in Massachusetts took from Democrats the seat held for nearly five decades by Edward M. Kennedy, who died last year. Kennedy, like Boxer, was one of the Senate’s most stalwart liberals.

“Every state is now in play,” Boxer warned fellow Democrats after Brown’s victory …

Republicans, meanwhile, have expanded their takeover list.

Rep. Kevin McCarthy, who’s recruiting Republicans to challenge incumbent California Democrats, said he has no worries that the GOP will lose any of the House seats it now holds in the state. Democrats, he said, will have to focus on keeping seats in perennially competitive districts in other states …

McCarthy named four California House Democrats on the GOP’s target list: Jerry McNerney of Pleasanton, who represents a district in which Republicans are a majority; Loretta Sanchez of Garden Grove, who faces a Republican challenger seeking to motivate the district’s growing Vietnamese population; and Jim Costa of Fresno and Dennis Cardoza of Atwater, who represent agriculture-dependent districts decimated by high unemployment …

Sanchez’s district is in a part of Orange County that leans Democratic but voted for former President George W. Bush in 2004 and Republican Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger in 2006. It has a large Vietnamese-American population. “They come out and vote in large numbers, and they’re 2-to-1 Republican,” says her opponent, state Assemblyman Van Tran …

“Things aren’t going well. Regardless of whether it’s a Democrat or Republican, they better be worried because they are doing their jobs and failing,” Avilla said.

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