Butler Wins Tough Battle With Mintz

The atmosphere Tuesday night at candidate Betsy Butler's postelection party at Memphis on the Beach in Manhattan Beach was positive and congenial, but the race for the Assembly's 53rd District's seat turned into a tense nail-biter. 

The district traditionally votes solidly Democratic, but like a lot of Democrats in this contentious midterm election, Butler found herself in a tighter than expected contest. 

For most of the evening, Butler trailed her opponent, Republican and tea party supporter , by a small margin of about 500 votes. 

As of 2 a.m. Wednesday, with 81 percent of the precincts reporting, the election was deemed still too close to call, but Butler had managed to pick up the slack and inch ahead of Mintz by about 1,000 votes.

Two hours later, Butler had 50.3 percent with 59,222 votes, trumping Mintz, who had 43.1 percent with 50,839 votes.

It's hard to understand why the race without considering the influence of the , since the 27-year-old Mintz actually founded the South Bay chapter of the group.  

The tea party movement has been attributed with helping Republicans take back control of the House of Representatives. Much ado has been made in the media about tea party activists riding a wave of voter anger in a successful populist uprising against big government and incumbent politicians.

Mintz positioned himself as one of the new breed of anti-establishment upstarts and described Butler as yet another career politician who needed to be sent a message.

Indeed, Butler fits the profile of Democrats targeted by the tea party with her extensive background in state and national politics. She was even born in Sacramento. 

What lessons does Butler take from the rout of Democrats in the House, and her own tough fight for her Assembly seat?

Butler believes the Democratic Party should stick to its agenda. She emphasizes, though, that it is important to work with tea partyers, despite their anti-government stance.

She believes that, as the daughter of a Republican father and a staunchly Democratic mother, she has the experience to bring diametrically opposing viewpoints together. 

Although this election may seem to be a referendum against government, Butler points out that the Democrats can prove that in many issues, especially when it comes to the environment, infrastructure, homeland security and education, government has a very important role to play.  

"When someone tries to board a plane with a bomb, and everyone's wondering, where was the government to protect me —everybody hates government until they need it," she said.