Each season around this time, polls like Field and others publish early voter preference results and the pundits proclaim that political campaigns have started. In truth, these campaigns have been going for some time, albeit somewhat “under the media radar,” and so it is with the campaigns of incumbent Dan Lungren and challenger Ami Bera in the area’s 3rd congressional district. .

As reapportioned in 2001, the 3rd district resembles an ungainly beast, stretching from part of Solano County in the west, south around downtown Sacramento and into the city’s eastern suburbs and on west, incorporating all of Amador, Calaveras and Alpine Counties, extending to the Nevada border in the Sierra mountains.

Lungren has served 3 terms from the 3rd district, his margin of victory over the last three elections declining from 27% to 21% to 5%, and while Bush won in the district in 2004 with 58%, Obama won in 2008 with 49%. While still considered “conservative,” registrations of the 407,000 district voters in 2009 were nearly equal: 37.7% Democrat, 39.6% Republican – a difference of just 7,000 – and the remainder, the typical one of every four, “declining to state” or in other parties (http://www.sos.ca.gov/elections/ror/ror-pages/15day-stwdsp-09/ror-050409.htm).

Consequently, Lungren’s seat is viewed by Democrats as being vulnerable this time around and considered as key by Republicans, points made by a number of recent political analyses (http://beraforcongress.com/).

Hailing from Long Beach, Lungren is a career politician, serving 10 years in Congress from southern California, one-time Attorney General of California, unsuccessful gubernatorial candidate in 1998, and among the major authors of sentencing laws like “Megan’s” and “Three Strikes” (http://lungren.house.gov/) which according to some observers have led to a clogged and expensive California prison system that contributes to the State’s budget imbalance. He spent the past year voting against Obama administration proposals such as the economic stimulus, health care and financial regulatory reform and the prior four years regularly supporting - 95% of the time - Republican proposals, confirming his general posture as standard conservative – no new taxes, “allowing” businesses to grow, tough on crime, no government run health option, and the like (http://www.danlungren.com/).

Dr. Bera, on the other hand, is something of an unknown quantity and a newcomer to politics. A first generation American, he is a trained physician, educator and public servant who has worked for local public and private health agencies for nearly two decades to improve the availability, quality and affordability of health in this region, engaging in duties that have ranged from volunteer to health professional to teacher to board member. He’s directed care management for Mercy Healthcare, served as Chief Medical Officer for Sacramento County and been Dean of Admissions for the UC Davis Medical School. His Web site (http://beraforcongress.com/) might be construed as suggesting he’s generally a moderate, but his approach – as with most new candidates – is far more complex. When announcing his campaign last month, he said he was running because of his daughter, for future generations, to make a difference toward a “secure and sustainable future.”

To better his name-recognition and deliver his message, Dr. Bera has begun a number of “coffee chats” and other face-to-face engagements around the district. Thus far, Lungren has seen fit to rely on a few town halls, some of which are phone-based. Both candidates recognize the value of social networking, incorporating Facebook, Twitter and the like in their media materials.

All this heats up in the coming months as interest in- and out-of the district runs high and both political parties sense the race’s importance – Democrats bent on increasing their margin in the House and Republicans, fresh from Scott Brown’s Senate victory in Massachusetts, hoping to protect their House seats and close that same margin.

How the 3rd district’s high stakes will affect the candidates’ campaign financing is anyone’s guess at this point what with last week’s Supreme Court ruling in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, No. 08-205, to allow – for the first time in a century – unlimited corporate funding of campaigns. Based on traditional patterns, it’s likely that Lungren will rely more on large corporate donors, Dr. Bera more on small, individual supporters, the more-populist approach implemented so well by the 2008 Obama campaign.

In any case, it will be a long, but important and exciting race: the career politician with standard conservative credentials and mostly predictable values exemplifying the recent status quo running against a newcomer who is generally more progressive, but advocates a departure from some of the standard liberal doctrine – supporting, for example, a “small, but smart government,” and a responsible, reliable, sustainable and forward-looking free market. And it will be interesting to see how the candidates’ positions differ on such specific issues as the economy and area jobs, health care, security, education, water, energy, the environment, foreign policy, financial regulation and the like. Stay tuned.

Chuck McIntyre
Sacramento economist, some of whose writing is at http://www.newsreview.com/sacramento/chuck_mcintyre/author.