Former California Lieutenant Governor Abel Maldonado has filed paperwork to run for Congress in 2012, according to this news story.
Ballot Access News
Edited By Richard Winger
Former California Lieutenant Governor Abel Maldonado has filed paperwork to run for Congress in 2012, according to this news story.
Here’s hoping it will be a long run off a short pier.
hmmm wonder what seat he’ll try to win? maybe he’ll run as a libertarian…
I sure hope that this jerk never gets elected to anything ever again.
Somehow I think his future is behind him.
Is Dis-Abel still a Republican? If so, I hope he finishes third behind two Democrats.
Will M be deemed THE person who got the U.S.A. on the road to REAL Democracy — via the top 2 primary in CA — i.e. the coming PANIC among the party hack robots in the 2012 gerrymander districts ???
Stay tuned. Takes a while for history to sort things out.
P.R. and App.V. — possibly starting in CA.
Interesting that someone no one outside of California has ever heard of can generate 6 comments (not counting my own) in 17 hours. Might be a record of some sort for this website. Reading Maldonado’s press release (the 4th paragraph) I was in absolute awe of the number of cliches he crammed into so short a statement which says, in essence, absolutely nothing.
# 7 M got a lot of attention earlier on this blog in connection with the Prop 14 machinations — top 2 primary in CA.
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Let’s call it what it really is – the top ONE masquerading as two. Establishment Democrats and Republicans offer no real choice, and under top “two” that’s the ONE choice you will have (with practically no exceptions) in each and every race on the November ballot. You don’t even get a protest vote, much less the ability to come from a distant third place to win, as Ventura did.
#10: I don’t understand why the promoters of that system don’t push instead for a “top three” or a “top four,” which would at least give the voters more choices in the final, deciding election.
#6: Occasionally, our faith in self-government is reaffirmed, as with the outcome of California’s 2010 race for lieutenant governor, in which Gavin Newsom pulverized Dis-Abel Maldonado. The last stats I saw had Dis-Abel getting a massive 39.4%.
#5 Seeing Maldonado hoisted on his own petard would be priceless!
#11/10 Both California and Washington have the initiative. If voters wanted more choices they can vote for it.
#11/6 Lieutenant Governor Maldonado did better in his election efforts than the Republican candidates for Secretary of State, Controller, Treasurer, and Insurance Commissioner. He did have less than the gubernatorial and senatorial candidates, but they were running against career politicians, and spend somewhat more on their campaigns. The AG candidate Steve Cooley did the best of any Republican Candidate.
I suspect that the redistricting commission will draw a district more favorable to Maldonado, perhaps limited to Santa Barbara and San Luis Obispo counties. The current district is a real narrow coastal strip.
#13: A number of voters in Washington state evidently thought that I-872 would bring back the blanket primary.
The only ballot measures for a nonpartisan system (aka “open primary”) that Washington and California have had have been the “top two.” When Dis-Abel Maldonado wrote the CA legislative bill, he made it a “top two.” I’m wondering how many, if any, people in those two states even know that a “top three” or a “top four” is available.
The power of incumbency didn’t help Dis-Abel much, did it?
“Somewhat more”?? Last I heard, Meg Whitman spent $143 million of her own money on her gubernatorial campaign.
Both California and Washington have the initiative.
This is true. However, prevailing with an initiative has a lot to do with who raises more money, and the side that wants to limit and eliminate real political choices from the election that matters to most people (November) raises far more money from big corporate sources that want to lock in the establishment and shield it from competition. It will be far better if the courts throw out top one (which is what “top two” really is – one party with two faces and not even token opposition).
Maldonado did better in his election efforts than the Republican candidates for Secretary of State, Controller, Treasurer, and Insurance Commissioner.
How many of those were incumbents?
#14 You could have the top M advance, where M is the smallest number of candidates whose share of the vote is greater than M/(M+1). So if the top 2 had 2/3 of the vote only they would advance, or the top 3 if they had 3/4 of the votes etc. Repeat with as many rounds as are necessary.
#15 The Washington Grange raised more money?
Maldonado had been appointed Lieutenant Governor, after the previous one had quit to take a job outside California. The senate delayed confirming him so that he was only in office for a few months before the election. Gavin Newsom was the popular twice-elected mayor of San Francisco.
The California Top-One-Masquerading-As-Two raised a lot of money from corporate far cats.
@17 and the Libertarian candidate in the race did much better than most Libertarians in statewide races, for good reason.
How many incumbent monsters in 60 percent plus one party gerrymander districts are sweating bullets due to M — waiting for the top 2 primary in the latest and greatest coming gerrymander districts in CA ???
i.e. going to be having REAL competition in the 2012 general election.
P.R. and nonpartisan App.V.
#16: Each round of voting almost always has a lower turnout than the round that preceded it. The turnout in Georgia’s December 2008 runoff for US senator, e. g., was 54% of the November turnout.
#18: As I recall, Schwarzenegger contributed some $2 million from his campaign fund to the “top two open primary” effort, and the CEO of Netflix donated $257,000.
#21/16 Those 46% who didn’t show up for the runoff probably were voting for President and happened to see the senate race.
Besides, under an Open Primary, the partisan primaries would have been replaced by the open primary, and the Top 2 would have been in November.
#21/18 Money well spent.
#22: You were talking in #16 about having “as many rounds as are necessary.”
Chambliss and Vernon Jones had 2/3 of the vote cast in the primaries
But let’s say that it have been an Open Primary and the Libertarian had received some votes. Then Jim Martin would have qualified for the primary runoff.
Chambliss and either Jones or Martin would have qualified for the general election.