Ann Ravel nabbed the ultimate endorsement this week in her quest to replace soon-to-term-out Sen. Jim Beall in the 15th State Senate District.
On Monday afternoon, former President Barack Obama announced his “first wave” of endorsements for the 2020 general election, with Ravel being the only state candidate on 44’s list of California races.
“I’m proud to endorse this diverse and hopeful collection of thoughtful, empathetic and highly qualified Democrats,” Obama wrote in a Facebook post announcing the news. “Together, these candidates will help us redeem our country’s promise by sticking up for working class people, restoring fairness and opportunity to our system and fighting for the good of all Americans—not just those at the top.”
In 2013, Obama named Ravel—a lifelong public servant and former head of the California FPPC—to the Federal Elections Commission, where she served until her abrupt resignation in response to partisan gridlock in 2017.
Ravel told Fly that the endorsement came “out of the blue.”
While she never personally spoke to the president about the endorsement, she said she recently reached out to the Obama Alumni Association, which highlights the work of people who served in the administration.
“He’s so well respected and so well liked by people in the Democratic party that it will be, I think, really helpful for me to show that even in a two Dem race that I have qualities that are much more aligned with the president,” she gushed.
Ravel said the endorsement is especially significant since the former commander-in-chief primarily endorsed candidates for federal races.
“I am particularly thankful and proud of the fact that he obviously went out of this way to make a decision on my behalf,” she added.
Ravel faces Santa Clara County Supervisor Dave Cortese in the November election.
I am sure Brock Turner and Aaron Persky agree
It should be clear that not everyone cares about endorsements. Also for some democrats like myself, Obama was the Deporter in Chief. He deported and separated more families than even racist Trump! I am a democrat, but I voted for John McCain the first time, then Obama second time. I support KAMALA Harris for VP and for president in the future. Be ambitious Kamala! Few people have been as prepared as you are when running for office, not even Obama.
There’s something fishy about a former President interjecting himself into a local political race in a state he has nothing to do with. I smell a rat.
> I support KAMALA Harris for VP and for president in the future.
According to the media handicappers on the internet, Kamala is a long shot “because no one likes her”.
Same problem as Hillary.
Lefties don’t like Kamala because she prosecuted people and put “the poor and minorities in jail”.
We’ll be interested to see how effective you are in polishing up Kamala’s image.
You are not well-informed Bubble. She is the top choice among Democrats and Independents. Warren is second and Rice a distant 3rd. Bass was the last of the lust with a 3.5 percentage. There was a ten point difference between Harris and Warren. KAMALA was 54.6. I know the Biden campaign has always had three in mind: Harris, Wareen, and Rice. I have participated in their internal polling which they typically ask you to chip in after you vote. I only chipping in if Kamala is VP! I have faith she will be VP and a future president! Go Kami be ambitious…!
Bubble, the extreme left do not like Kamala because she does not share the mind set those people shared. They also know she is not someone they can manipulate. They also know she is not a dictatorship apologist which most of these people are (supporters of Iran, Fidel, Maduro, Morales…). We should not care about them. They are a 4% of the Democratic Party. In California they are a larger percentage. They voted for Ro Khanna to lead the California delegation not Our Gov. They tried to do the same in New York in favor of AOC. It did not work. All because they feel Bernie performance in the presidential race deserves something. The fact that the extreme left dislikes Kamala is a plus not the contrary.
> All because they feel Bernie performance in the presidential race deserves something.
Joe Biden jumped out of the water like an Alaska salmon and swallowed Bernie’s socialist economic plan right up to Bernie’s elbow.
If Kamala is Biden’s VP, she’ll be singing songs out of Bernie’s hymnal.
She hasn’t and she won’t. This is why they do not like her. You are confusing Kamala’s character for Warren or Bass. This is why Kamala is not seen as “loyal” #2! People tend to fear and admire those who are truly authentic and have their own mind. That is Kamala. There was a recent vote defunding the military…proposed by Bernie and his monkeys. Warren voted in favor and Kamala against…There is no ambivalence in Kamala’s character and worldview. People do change opinions throughout our lifetime, but that is typical development. KAMALA is KAMALA!
> KAMALA is KAMALA!
KAMALA is ZELIG !
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zelig
Are there posting guidelines? Why did the fly block me again?
Misspellings?
Obama endorsed a candidate who has never used homophobic attacks to advance her political career! That cannot be said of Dave Cortese, who ran an attack mailer against “anti-family” Ken Yeager when they ran for the same seat. Whether it’s two male humans or two male penguins, love is love, and it’s wrong to take advantage of anti-gay prejudice for political expediency.
Cortese was born as the son of land-owning local elected official Dominic Cortese. During the 2014 race for mayor used to talk in debates about how well he understood latinx San Jose residents from his time interacting with the people who worked on his father’s lands, and how he understood affordable housing better than the other candidates because he had developed some of the land he inherited into affordable housing. I may eat a diet of krill, but that’s pretty hard to swallow!
Agree with Penguin! The Senate does not need someone like Cortese. His talk is cheap. Family owned apts that prior to TPO ordinance would not rent to special needs populations like HUD VASH or Section 8. Shopping Center in East Foothills has a parking patrol – for what? It’s a huge space with tons of parking? Is it necessary to warn people for parking there to go across the street to Antipastos and get a sandwich? We can do better!
> Are there posting guidelines? Why did the fly block me again?
Think of posting to an internet blog as like “voting by mail”. Sometimes, your ballot just isn’t counted.
Nobody knows why. “Nobody knows nuthin'”.
But, all the important ballots were counted and the fact that YOUR ballot wasn’t counted didn’t change the election results. TRUST US!
The solution to disappearing blog posts and disappearing ballots is the same: vote early, vote often, and vote in multiple jurisdictions.
Sometimes, you have to go the extra mile to make democracy work.
Bubble, Kamala is:
tough on crime:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vaKLUI3tjCY
fighter:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=orApM0PqZdw
not an extreme left:
https://www.commondreams.org/news/2020/07/22/top-vp-contenders-diverge-warren-votes-yes-and-harris-votes-no-slashing-pentagon
There is nothing wrong about being a cop. The problem is being a corrupted cup guided by own prejudices and racial biases…! Go Kamala; be ambitious!
> Bubble, Kamala is:
Kamala Harris is a worker bee in the California Democratic Party hive mind.
Does Kamala know that the California Democratic Party is Getty/Brown/Pelosi/Newsom family oligarchy?
No. Kamala doesn’t know that.
Kamala is a totally predictable known quantity. She will listen to the buzzing in the hive and fly in the same direction.
Would Kamala ever #WalkAwayFromDemocrats ?
Whatever cliff the California Democrats are heading for, Kamala is there with them.
F@Ck the haters?
Neither Cortese nor Ravel are particularly inspiring candidates. However, Cortese maintains ties to, and support from, labor unions, some progressives and small business owners, as well as influential members of the Italian-American community and other ethnic communities, from long years as an elected local official. Obama’s endorsement of the pro-business Ravel is consistent with the Democratic Party machine’s half-century flight from organized labor into the arms of professional managers and their corporate and non-profit overlords. Obama, and the Democratic Party machine, seeks to undercut anyone who would not coddle wealthy donors and their lobbyists.
Obama’s endorsement statement above states: “Together, these candidates will help us redeem our country’s promise by sticking up for working class people, restoring fairness and opportunity to our system and fighting for the good of all Americans—not just those at the top.” Unlike the showman Trump, the salesman Obama is engaged in a bait and switch exercise here. During eight years as president, including the first two with a majority of Democrats in both houses of Congress, he didn’t lift a finger to restore fairness and opportunity and sure as hell didn’t fight for all Americans.
The Obama administration adopted policies in the midst of the Great Recession that actually helped gut home ownership, especially among Black households (https://jacobinmag.com/2017/12/obama-foreclosure-crisis-wealth-inequality). Obama famously backed down without a fight in addressing income inequality (watch the first three minutes of this: https://www.youtube.com/ watch?v=LfgSEwjAeno); didn’t lift a finger to reduce the influence of money on politics (https://theintercept.com/2016/02/10/obama-celebrates-nine-years-of-doing-nothing-about-money-in-politics/); doubled down on fossil fuel development, including fracking (https://theintercept.com/2020/ 08/ 07/joe-biden-climate-policy-advisers/); gave a free pass to Bush administration officials involved in corruption and crimes, including torture (https://theintercept.com/2018/10/09/brett-kavanaugh-supreme-court-bush-administration/) and expanded U.S. live fire military operations from two countries to seven (https://www.latimes.com/projects/la-na-pol-obama-at-war/).
Indeed, Obama left people hopeless that any worthwhile change could come from this snake oil salesman. The combined frustration, disgust and cynicism caused by the Obama administration’s pro-elite domestic policies, and aggressive expansion of military engagements abroad, laid the basis for Trump’s unlikely win in 2016. Obama has added insult to injury by spearheading the Democratic Party establishment’s drive to defeat Bernie Sander’s campaign (https://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/ 472090-obama -privately-said-he-would-speak-up-to-stop-sanders-report; https://www.chicagotribune.com/nation-world/ct-nw-nyt-barack-obama-bernie-sanders-democrats-20200414-tdpw52c46vgqjjevu54attf4yu-story.html) and by supporting Biden, a politician with a despicable career (https://www.vox.com/2019/1/10/18173132/joe-biden-hillary-clinton-2020; https://harpers.org/archive/2019/03/joe-biden-record/). Biden who now stands against any significant change while the political economy and the social system reel toward serious crisis in the face of an unprecedented pandemic (https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2019/6/ 19/18690910/biden-fundraiser-controversy-segregationists-donors). Business as usual: service to wealthy elites uber alles.
This can only mean one thing: a Biden presidency would produce conditions conducive to the election of someone worse than Trump, if you can imagine such a candidate.
Glenn, I voted different times for Kamala because she is bright and had the skills for the positions she was running for not because her relationship with stupid Willie. If Trump became president even after bragging about grabbing women by their pussies and sexually preying on women, the Willie story is potatoes! Find another attack sweetheart. Go KAMALA! F@CK the haters???
Fexxnist- Really? She was so bright and skilled that her tenure as SF’s DA featured a less than 50% murder conviction rate.
How about her campaign support from the Catholic Church during her time in SF?
Funny how she failed to prosecute any priests during her tenure.
She was in charge in 2010 when the SF Crime Lab scandal occurred. There were warnings to her office that one person was erratic and stealing drugs from evidence lockers. Kamala did nothing and failed to let defense attorneys know that their clients were being convicted based on the testimony and evidential expertise of someone who was a cocaine addict and stealing the very same drugs she was supposed to be testing for use in court! Amazing leadership!
Her run for President kicked off with numbers that put her on par with Warren and Bernie Sanders. Her performance in the debates and her inability to give coherent answers on health care sunk her campaign.
So, the most powerful, corrupt politician in Sacramento (Willie Brown) boosted her career in California politics. He even admitted that!
By all means, vote for her and tell anybody that is less than impressed by her record that we are ‘Haters’. California has wrecked itself because useful idiots continue to put the incompetent and corrupt into state office.
For that, I can thank you.
> Glenn, I voted different times for Kamala because she is bright and had the skills for the positions she was running for . . .
A lot of commentators in the Twitterverse seem to think that Kamala’s “value add” for the Dem ticket is simple to be a snarling attack dog to give some red meat to the lunatic Dem base and protect poor old hapless Joe.
At the end of the campaign — after Trump wins — Kamala will have gained a reputation as a vicious, unhinged partisan — unable to say anything positive about a two-term president, the people we elected him, or their country.
In other words, the role that the Democrat have assigned to Kamala will destroy her politically.
Willie the Horn Dog Brown was right: Kamala should NOT have agreed to accept the Vice President slot.
If you REALLY cared about Kamala, you would be angry at what the Democrat Party wise guys are doing to her.