The race for Congress in CA-3 is getting hot. The incumbent Dan Lungren and the challenger Ami Bera debated Tuesday on KQED radio and you could almost hear the fireworks bursting over the airwaves. For the most part, Lungren was trying to run out the clock and stuck to stock talking points throughout much of the debate. He was pummelled continuously by the newcomer Bera, a physician by training, who had to feel he was breaking his Hippocratic Oath with all the blood he was drawing.

Lungren tried to deflect Bera’s punches, but suffered immeasurably. He tried to cover up when Bera said Lundgren was beholden to special interests, but the punches landed– Lungren’s campaign is funded by big corporations, pharmaceutical companies, big banks, and health insurance companies. Lundgren tried to absorb the blows when Bera called out Karl Rove’s organization, American Crossroads, and their $700,000 contribution to Lungren’s campaign, but he was rocked. And Lungren could only grunt in pain when he was nailed for his work for Bear Stearns during the time he was a Washington D. C. lobbyist. It is a fact that Lundgren worked as a lobbyist from the late 1990’s until he returned to the House in 2005 despite his pleas to the contrary.

When it came to issues, Lungren was consistent with his mentor Newt Gingrich; he’s for tax-cuts for the rich and is against projects like high speed rail for California. He called this kind of job creation ”silliness”. Bera on the other hand, would focus on creating clean energy jobs and closing tax loophills to corporations who ship jobs overseas. He vowed to clean up Wall Street and supported building the bullet train.

Lungren made a point of saying that he’s never advocated privatizing social security. This seems like a very reckless thing to do given his record. Lungren upped the ante, challenging Bera to come up with a single time Lungren had said he wants to privatize social security. Dan Lungren shouldn’t have done this;

The truth is harsh isn’t it? At best, Lungren is loose with the facts, at worse, he’s trying to pull the wool over the eyes of the voters of CA-3.