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POLITICAL PALAVER — Show no surprise when Auburn’s Mike Holmes makes it official within the next month that he’ll be seeking to knock off Congressman John Taylor Doolittle in next June’s primary election. No more of that exploratory committee hoopla for Capt. Holmes. There’s been quite a show of interest in his candidacy in recent weeks — notably from Placer, Nevada and Butte counties — and it’s been so encouraging that Holmes and his advisors figure that he’d better quit playing around and go for the real thing. After all, only a guy who’s announced that his candidacy is for real can start asking for campaign contributions. Mike wasn’t fazed a bit with the recent announcement of a young Roseville chap, Eric Egland, that he’ll take a whack at JTD next June. Egland said in an interview with the Bee’s David Whitney, "If John Doolittle is the nominee, we will surrender our conservative voice in Washington, D.C. for a generation." Holmes told Whitney that he views Egland, who says he’s a security consultant, as a one-issue fellow, with the one issue being support of the war in Iraq.
At Gentleman Mike’s invitation, Egland was the speaker at the the
Navy League’s July meeting. "He’s a pleasant young man who needs to
develop a broader background on other issues important to the voters of
the 4th Congressional District," Holmes told Whitney. Meantime,
Doolittle’s campaign handlers signaled a "more the merrier" attitude
toward competition in the primary, meaning that if JTD, Holmes and
Egland were the candidates, the two challengers would split the
anti-Doolittle Republican vote and the nine-term incumbent would win
the nomination — and, in my book, they’re probably right. Doolittle
avers that he’ll still be going for a 10th term in 2008 despite the
tensions thrust upon him and his sweet wife Julie by the U.S.
Department of Justice’s political corruption investigation. Julie and
John vociferously deny any wrongdoing, and I remain convinced that they
truly believe this. Democrat Charlie Brown, virtually assured of his
party’s nomination, is said to be tickled by all the GOP congressional
intrigues. His associates say he’ll take on whomever wins the GOP
nomination, although he’d prefer that it be JTD, who beat him by a mere
three percentage points last November.
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