Dems See A way To Getting Congress {House} Back

California Democrats, while acknowledging their solidly blue state will not be a presidential election battleground, this weekend marshaled forces for another critical 2012 battle: maximizing the Golden State's role as a powerhouse fundraiser to fuel the re-election of Barack Obama and return Rep. Nancy Pelosi to the speakership of the House of Representatives.
Pelosi, speaking to reporters at the annual state party convention that drew 3,000 Democratic activists to San Diego, repeatedly predicted California will be a lynchpin in her "Drive for 25" campaign, the 2012 Democratic effort to win back control of the House by taking at least 25 seats.
Pelosi - who was speaker until 2010 when Democrats lost control of the House after a Tea Party-driven tidal wave - predicted Democrats in her home state will gain 3 or 4 seats toward the goal.
"We've got to do everything we can to win those battleground counties ... to get Nancy Pelosi back where she belongs," said Democratic Lt. Gov. Gavin Newsom, echoing a crowd of party officials, including Sen. Dianne Feinstein.
With just nine months until the 2012 election, the mood of California's Democratic elected officials and party activists dramatized what appeared to be a growing confidence that Tea Party politics may be on the wane. Polls suggest a lack of enthusiasm for the GOP presidential candidates, and Obama's job approval ratings have buoyed.Party leaders - including state Chair John Burton and Pelosi - acknowledged that California, where Democrats hold a 14 percentage point advantage over Republicans in voter registration, is more likely to be a political cash-cow than a decider of the 2012 presidential election.
But state Attorney General Kamala Harris brought down the house with a passionate case that California's economic challenges and issues will resonate with average Americans as they consider the GOP agenda. Because, she argued, the state's storied educational institutions, working people and its middle class represent the most stunning example of what should be considered "too big to fail."
"In these elections, pundits like to discount the relevance of California," Harris said. "But I say to them, if you really want to know what this election is all about, come west, come to the Golden State."
There, she said, those pundits will find "a forest of foreclosure signs" with more than a million families drowning in the housing crisis.
The former San Francisco District Attorney predicted that California communities like Stockton, a leader in foreclosures, will represent "the scene of the crime" that may well come back to haunt Republicans in 2012.
"They may have placed bets on Wall Street, but we paid the price on Market Street ... and Main Street," she said.
Alice Germond, the secretary of the Democratic National Committee, told applauding delegates that "all across the country, there's buyers' remorse" with the Tea Party and a GOP agenda that won gains in the last elections.
"This is not 2010," she said. Polls show "a lack of enthusiasm for Republican candidates ... and who can blame them?"
Both state Chair Burton and Gov. Jerry Brown exhorted state activists to fire up their fundraising and outreach to extend the party's strength by winning a two-thirds supermajority in both the California Senate and Assembly - the margin needed to pass new taxes without Republican approval.
"The bigger the victory of President Obama and the bigger the turnout among Democrats, the better it is for (races) down the ticket," said Burton. "We've got a shot at the two-thirds needed."
In a measure of Democrats' upbeat mood, Brown - who was expected to push for support for his coming tax initiative on the November ballot - avoided a nasty fight Saturday with fellow Democrats on the matter.
The governor spoke about Democratic accomplishments in California and never mentioned the controversial issue of raising taxes, or the competition he now faces from at least two Democratically-aligned groups supporting competing tax measures.
Instead, he told Democrats they would "get your marching orders soon enough" on the November elections. He declined to say what those orders would be.

Carla Marinucci is a San Francisco Chronicle staff reporter. cmarinucci@sfchronicle.com