The contest to see who has the best political animal picture ends tomorrow with the winner getting the top post on my blog on election day. There is a poll below but the final judgment will be made by a couple of little children.

Here is Shawn Stern's email that came with his entry:

Hi Brian,
Here is a photo of my 8 month old 85lbs mastiff/pitbull mix puppy "Plato". I adopted him from just 6 days before the shelter was going to kill him. He is gentle with both my cats and loves everyone. He us a great campaigner too!!!

Knowing Shawn I am not surprised he named his dog Plato.

Before you vote click on continue reading to see all of the dogs.

The Santa Barbara Democratic Party is pressuring candidates to sign a clean campaign pledge. You can view the pledge by clicking on continue reading. So far in the CA 24 Democratic Primary Tim Allison has signed the pledge but Shawn Stern and Marie Pane have not.

After you read the pledge post a comment with your thoughts if the other candidates should sign it. You don't have to register to comment but keep it classy.

I predict Stern and Panec will pledge to sign it by this Monday.

UPDATE: I was totally wrong on that prediction.

Democrat Shawn Stern has pledged not to raise money to win the nomination of his party to take on Rep. Elton Gallegly. Instead he is suggesting better ways that his supporters can spend their money locally. Watch the video for details.

Shawn, are we getting to see letters to the editor soon?

Shawn Stern recently spoke at a progressive club meeting at Thousand Oaks High School and earned some coverage from their high school newspaper. Obviously many of the students won't be able to vote but club members are planning to get involved with campaigns. I am glad that candidates want to involve young people in the process and it would be great if all of the candidates found ways to meet with young people.

Here is a quote from the article:

It is rare for anyone other than Progressive Club members to walk through the doorway of D-6 at lunchtime on Thursdays, yet this particular Thursday was different. On Feb. 2, Shawn Stern, 32-year-old UCLA graduate, shared Robert Haar's history classroom with Club members.

Here is the rest of the the article from their high school newspaper.

Shawn Stern has pledged not to raise money in the primary against the other Democrats. To be competitive he is going to need to earn media coverage constantly. The other Democrats aren't getting their name mentioned often in East County newspapers at this time so we will see how his strategy pays off.

Democrat Shawn Stern is running a novel campaign. He has pledged not to raise money for his primary campaign. To do so he is going to need to be creative to get his message out.

Last week he went to Rep. Gallegly's office to ask when the next town hall meeting was scheduled. If you are a frequent reader of this blog you know I have been a big critic of Gallegly's choice to not hold regular town hall meetings. Usually when I call they say they don't have his schedule or that they don't know of any future town hall meetings. After Gallegly's staff town Shawn Stern they didn't have anything on the calendar he went outside and officially announced he is running for congress.

Watch the video and then post a comment as feedback to his campaign. You don't need to register to comment but keep it classy.

Tim Allison is currently the frontrunner for the Democratic nomination judged by the money he has raised and the endorsements he has been announcing. Tim is running a traditional Democratic Primary campaign by getting endorsements from labor unions and focusing on the election in June.

I have not chosen who I will support for the Democratic nomination yet but I will support someone that shows us what type of general election campaign they will run by the way they campaign in the primary.

Democrats cannot afford to wait until after Labor Day to start getting attention from the press. They need to start offering voters an alternative to Gallegly now before it is too late.

I like what I see in Shawn's video. His campaign seems quixotic as of now but I am interested to see if he can turn his online supporters into activists that share his posts with others, write letters to newspapers, and show up to events.

Shawn,

1. Are you planning to post the answers to questions asked of you from your website Ask Shawn Stern ?

2. Will we see any letters from your supporters this week mentioning the themes of your announcement speech? If you aren't going to raise money you are going to need to get your message out to people that are highly likely to vote in a primary.

Democrat Shawn Stern is planning a whole different type of campaign that he says will demonstrate what type of Member of Congress he would be. He isn't raising money. You read that correctly. He isn't making phone calls and his website doesn't even have a donate now button. He won't take your money even if you offered it to him.

Instead he is trying to show that he would be much more accessible than Rep. Gallegly has been. He has put up a new website where people can ask him questions that he will address in an upcoming online press conference. I submitted a question asking if he would vote to remove Don't Ask, Don't Tell (DADT) and I asked him if he held Lincoln or Washington in higher regard. Go ask him your own question @ :

This week he is planning a press conference outside of Rep. Elton Gallegly's office where he is going to explain this claim:

"Mr. Gallegly has held no town hall meetings, no press conferences, and is unavailable to the people in our community. It's the job of a Congressman to listen to his community, and then stand for us in Washington. We have not seen that from him."

Click on continue reading for his press release.

Shawn,

Running a campaign without money on the surface seems like a bad plan. But we will see what type of media coverage, how many letters to the editor, and what level of buzz among activists that you can generate without significant financial contributions. I think the plan is flawed but the next few weeks will be a test of your strategy.

Moorpark Professor Marie Panec sent out a press release showing she is officially running and included the themes of her campaign. I have heard she has built up an organization of dedicated students to help her win the primary campaign.

She stands out from her opponents in the primary because she is already an elected official. She is currently a School Board Member in the highly regard Oak Park School District.

Click on continue reading for her press release.

I spoke with candidate Shawn Stern tonight and he is planning a big week ahead. I will post more on his campaign tomorrow.

The field for candidates seems to be set so I removed some of the choices from the poll. Previous polls included Ventura County Supervisor Steve Bennett, Moorpark Council Member Keith Millhouse ( if he switched parties), and California Superintendendt of Education Jack O'Connell.

Although the races for Sheriff , the Democratic nomination in the 35th State Assembly District and for Supervisor from Thousand Oaks will likely generate the most excitement I plan to cover the congressional primary often and with great detail. I don't know which of the three candidates I am going to vote for yet and that makes it interesting to me too.

( Here is Tim Allison saying discussing his support for Barack Obama.)

The 24th Congressional District Primary is now between Tim Allison, Marie Panec, and Shawn Stern. Tim Allison has by far been campaigning the hardest of the three by adding staff members, attending events, and announcing endorsements. Marie Panec is running quietly for the time being but with the June primary election fast approaching she has lost ground to Tim Allison. Shawn Stern has a large Facebook presence and a great website but I don't see how he is going to attract attention from primary voters if something doesn't change.

If Shawn Stern or Marie Panec wins the primary can we expect them to run with the needed intensity for general election campaign?

Click on continue reading for the latest press release announcing more endorsements for Tim Allison.

You can go to their websites to see their endorsements for yourself:

Tim Allison

Marie Panec

Shawn Stern doesn't have his endorsements listed but I will post a link when he does.

Democratic congressional candidate Tim Allison has announced he has added more staff to his campaign. His first task is to win the nomination of his party. His declared opponents include 2008 nominee Marta Jorgensen , Moorpark professor Marie Panec, and environmentalist Shawn Stern.

The other three candidates haven't been very energetic lately as far as I have seen. If he gets passed them he will be facing Rep. Gallegly who was first elected in 1986. Gallegly must feel very confident that a Democratic challenger isn't going to threaten him because he hasn't been holding town hall meetings, even as all of the other Members of Congress ( McKeon (R), Sherman (D), Capps (D) ) from this area have been holding events.

Will this be the time Democrats will unite behind a challenger and run a great grassroots campaign? I'm not convinced yet.

Tim, thanks for having your campaign email me the HTML for a fanbox. I am impressed with the way web 2.0 technologies make it easier for people to connect with campaigns.

Shawn Stern is running for the Democratic nomination for the 24th district. The current office holder is Rep. Elton Gallegly. For any Democrat to make a significant showing against him it is going to take innovative campaign techniques. Shawn Stern took me up on the offer to put his Facebook Fanbox on my page. His Fanbox allows him to update us when he updates his Facebook page and to recruit people to become supporters.

This district was carried by Barack Obama in the last election. If you want Rep. Elton Gallegly to be responsive to their concerns show some support for his potential opponents. I would like it if Rep. Gallegly started holding town hall forums. The representatives from the surrounding area ( Sherman, Capps, and McKeon) all hold public and scheduled town hall forums.

This is not an endorsement of Shawn Stern. If your campaign would like me to post a fanbox send me a message.

I have more videos and pictures to post later this week. If you have videos of pictures from today you want posted send them to me.

Former State Assembly candidate Ferial Masry has news regarding her intentions:

Candidate for Sheriff Geoff Dean (R) worked the crowd. Here he is speaking to Ventura City Council Members Brian Brennan and Ed Summers. I expect Geoff Dean's list of endorsements will be updated with new bipartisan additions soon.

I ran into a friend of this blog Denis O'Leary of Oxnard. Denis has been a long time activist for a variety of progressive causes.

State Assembly candidate Susan Jordan gave a speech that outlined her life story and the causes she supports. Her opponent Das Williams was there too. I will post his picture later. Das, if you have pictures from today you want posted send them in.

Here are a bunch of polls related to the labor day picnic and candidates that were there.

Click here for the news story from The Star.

Candidate Shawn Stern, who is running for the nomination of the Democratic Party in CA 24, hasn't been public much in his campaign recently but he recently attended a fundraiser for the DCCC and took some pictures with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi:

To all the candidates running for office: Your news doesn't have to be big to get a post on my blog. Send in your events, pictures, and announcements that you want posted.

Shawn, let me know what Thursday night you want to be interviewed.