Was it really necessary? The top two are able to have a run off. Why not just have the highest Republican and highest Democrat in separate primaries run off against each other like the other 49 states. When this new procedures was announced, I thought it must have been a joke of some sort.

The state that originated the "jungle primary"? Louisiana. Hardly a model anyone would wish to replicate. Except Abel Maldonado, who exacted this pound of flesh in exchange for his vote for a Dem budget.

The whole thing just doesn't make sense. First of all, California is a pretty Democratic State so the majority of elections are going to be Democratic wins. The rest of the state might be purple in some areas but they could easily be fought for by getting a bigger "GOTV" program rather than risking a fairly safe seat with the "weird" situation where now you have two Republicans to choose from. It is really unfair to the red areas and purple areas of California to have to possibly choose between two Republicans and hell I will say the same for Republicans having to choose between to Democrats just for the heck of it. I mean they must have REALLY been desperate for that vote.

And so far I understand very little about it.

So for the hypothetical race of Trophy Polisher, if one Dem gets 24% and another gets 26%, does the Republican still get to run? And then that Republican could crush them by getting 30% - right? Even though clearly 50% of the ballots were cast for the Democratic party?

i am not even sure I understand what is going on...

Any citations or links would help.

The entire thing is stupid. We had 3 or 4 districts where the choices were between candidates from the same party. So I guess if you're a dem and your choice is between 2 Repuke morons to rep you you're probably just going to stay home, which means you won't vote on the props, which means reduced turnout. Thankfully, most of the top two races where in locked areas already, Alameda isn't going to send a Republican to the house or Senate, so it makes sense that they're be picking between two democrats. Or the Dem and a Green. The real problem I have with it is that not nearly as many people vote in the primaries, which means all the candidates that come out tend to be more extremist and conservative, the new model exacerbates that issue.

I voted NO!!!

Remember, ten percent of them voted for Leland Yee.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/10406606

Alas, the courts failed to bail us out this time.

tv ad voters.

I was amazed at the democrats who thought it was a great idea. I ran for the assembly in '10, when 'top 2' was on the ballot. I told anyone who would listen to vote NO because it meant a candidate had to raise money for 2 campaigns - the primary and the general. The CA Democratic Party also stopped paying filing fees for candidates. If I had to raise money for filing fees too, I could not run. Top 2 considerably narrowed the candidate field.

Tell me more. It's possible I may even have met whoever beat you; I sometimes get asked to do leg visits with random legislators from outside Silicon Valley.

But Padilla easily placed second, beating out Leland Yee.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/10406606

and she is the privatization queen. She managed to privatize the commercial trash pick up while no one was looking and tried to do the same with residential. The union got its shit together, got a petition to add it to the ballot on a special election (a couple of years ago) and managed to defeat it. She's as right wing as they come and has big ambitions. She wants to run for Congress but those positions are sewn up in the Valley by other RWNJ's (other than Costa who is a Blue Dog -- only slight better than a RWNJ). She's got Big Republican Valley Money behind her. Let's hope Perez hangs on.

if the other repuke gets over for second, should we vote for him? Leave it blank? Or march on Sac?

Last edited Thu Jun 5, 2014, 09:21 AM - Edit history (1)

I write in my own name. A true progressive, independent thinker, not to mention stunningly beautimous.

ETA: Most people in this forum don't know much, if anything, about the San Joaquin Valley and what they do know is usually dead wrong. Consequently, they're likely not to know anything about Swearengen and as a resident, I feel it important to inform when I can. Not everyone reads every thread in this or other groups/forums so YOU may have seen the earlier reference(s) but that doesn't mean everyone did.

as it is a runoff.

seeing as how we don't yet know who the frontrunners will be. If it's two Republicans, one is not obligated to vote for either. The outcome is the same.

By less than a thousand votes.

...the LA Times had a glowing endorsement of Swearengin.

I wonder how many people voted for her because of that.