Why Huffman did so well

Leading environmentalist in Assembly race appealed to more voters

June 14, 2006

By DON BENNETT
ARGUS-COURIER

Now, it is quiet and time for reflection and analysis. The frantic scramble for the 6th Assembly District seat seems to be getting the most attention, so it is a good place to start.

For those of you who spent the past two months in a vacuum, the setting was this. A large field of six candidates contested in the Democratic primary for the right to run for the seat vacated by Joe Nation. Five were from Marin County, one from Sonoma County.

Conventional wisdom figured the race to be between Marin Supervisor Cynthia Murray and Petaluma City Council member Pamela Torliatt -- Murray because of her experience, Torliatt because she was the only Sonoma County candidate in an area that represented about one-third of the vote.

Neither won. The wise folk who profess to know about these things are trying to figure out why a little-known candidate named Jared Huffman romped home in front, at least until the final absentee ballots are cast.

With perfect hindsight, we can see that the clues were there in the tea leaves, but most people -- including this columnist -- were not reading them right. First off, this is a district where environment ranks at the top of the list of priorities. In years past, even elected Republicans from Marin were staunch environmentalists. (Remember State Senator Peter Behr?)

This year, Huffman had the endorsement of the Sierra Club, Sonoma County Conservation Action, and other environmental groups and leaders. Key Sonoma County people that would have been presumed to support Torliatt instead went over to Huffman. (Or, as in the case of SCCA, did a dual endorsement of Torliatt and Huffman, which, under the circumstances, was a kiss-off to Torliatt.)

The Torliatt strategy obviously was to feast on Sonoma County votes to offset her weakness in Marin, where the vote was supposed to be chopped up by the other five candidates. It seemed that the only person in her way was Murray, a candidate with support from the moderate wing of the party.

The Torliatt campaign unleashed a barrage of negative mail against Murray that has seldom if ever been rivaled in local elections for nastiness. The attack, combined with the fact Murray simply did not run a very effective campaign, had the effect of destroying Murray as a candidate. But it didn't seem to do Torliatt much good. Just a few weeks earlier, Torliatt was either leading in the polls or near the lead. She even jumped out to a temporary lead with the early absentee votes election night. After that, it was all Huffman. Why?

Torliatt, by focusing on Sonoma County, seems to have never made an impact in Marin, where she got 13 percent of the vote as of election night, versus 52 percent in southern Sonoma County. Because the environmental leadership essentially hung her out to dry, she could not rack up enough votes here to offset Marin's heavy environmental vote.

I don't subscribe to the contention that there was a voter backlash against Torliatt because of the mailers. The hit pieces were mailed by anonymous Political Action Committees (Murray's camp also sent out anonymous PAC mailers against Torliatt, but were less effective.). The average voters would not automatically assume the hit pieces came from Torliatt's camp. They did the one thing Torliatt's strategists hadn't figured on. The hit pieces were designed to appeal to the staunch environmentalist, so voters took their potential Murray vote and instead cast it for the leading environmentalist in the race, Huffman.

Apparently, her campaign folks forgot they were not in a two-person race. Although Torliatt has always been a consistent vote for the environmental ethic, apparently she hadn't shown enough leadership for the environmental activists, a case of "what have you done for me lately?" She was counting on their support, and it was not there.

(Don Bennett, a business writer and consultant, has been involved with city planning issues dating back to the growth control plan of the early 1970s. A 12-year veteran of the Petaluma Planning Commission, he currently serves on the Sonoma County Planning Commission.)