Speier is favored to win Lantos seat

Former State Sen. Jackie Speier is the front runner to replace the late Tom Lantos in Congress
When voters head to the polls on April 8 to fill the U.S. Congress seat formerly occupied by Tom Lantos, the fourteen-term San Mateo Democrat who passed away in February, it is a pretty safe bet they will select former State Senator Jackie Speier.

“Jackie Speier is assumed to win, and she probably will,” said Barry Hermanson, a Green Party candidate who is running against Speier for the seat.

As Jim Ross, a Bay Area-based Democratic strategist, put it, “if the sun rises on April 8th, Jackie Speier will replace Tom Lantos.”

Speier, who served two terms in the state Senate after holding seats in the California Assembly and the San Mateo County Board of Supervisors, faces token opposition for the seat. But she seems intent on making sure all the bases are covered.

That means rounding up a slate of endorsements that reads like a list of California and San Francisco Bay Area power brokers, including U.S. Senators Dianne Feinstein and Barbara Boxer, San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom, and former State Senator John Burton.

It also means revving up a well-oiled political machine. Running the Speier campaign is Alex Tourk, the well-regarded former campaign manager and Deputy Chief of Staff to Newsom who is a veteran of San Francisco politics.

With Tourk in the driver’s seat, says Ross, “you know they won't make any mistakes on the ground.”

Last month Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger announced the April 8 Special Election date. If Speier or another candidate fails to win 50% of the votes cast, a Runoff Election will be held on June 3 to determine the winner of the seat.

That likely explains why the Speier campaign is quick to argue that the former State Senator is prepared to offer the district representation in Washington – something it does not have at the moment.

For now, Tourk says the Speier campaign is focusing its efforts on the ground, making sure that voters are aware a special election is taking place. He said the campaign was not looking at airing television advertisements in the expensive San Francisco media market at this point, but said that Speier was holding daily neighborhood coffees with voters.

“We’re running hard and running strong,” Tourk said. “And we’re taking nothing for granted.”

Lantos, 80, passed away on February 11, a month after being diagnosed with cancer of the esophagus. A native of Hungary and a Holocaust survivor, Lantos served twenty-six years in the U.S. House and served as chairman of the Armed Services Committee. In January, after his diagnosis, Lantos said that he would not be running for reelection, opening the door for Speier who at that point had indicated an interest in challenging the incumbent Lantos.

Michelle McMurry, a Democrat and health policy director who works at the Aspen Institute and is running for the seat, called Lantos “a towering figure in California politics,” and was quick to point out that Speier was planning on running against him.

In an interview, Tourk acknowledged that Speier had formed an exploratory committee and “was taking a very hard look” at entering the race.

Also running are Republicans Greg Conlon, a former Public Utilities Commissioner, and Mike Moloney, whose challenges to Lantos in 2002 and 2006 led to lopsided defeats. In an interview, Moloney said that Speier was “a great State Senator” but a foreign policy “lightweight” and a “clone of Nancy Pelosi,” who, he said, had failed to stand up to George Bush on the lead up to the war in Iraq.

Hermanson said that he wanted to make sure Speier was challenged on spending issues that were critical to the state.

“I have no doubt that she will be successful (in her campaign),” Hermanson said of Speier. “But I want her to represent us.”