CA Election

[BarTopDancer]

I decided to start a thread for this since rather than post in the Random Throughts thread...

So, the CA election is quickly coming upon us. And I don't care. I used to be soooo excited about going to vote, did my research, made educated votes for everything. And now? I just don't care. Jadedness and apathy have taken over.

I know we have at least two people running for office, and a prop that Martin Sheen wants you to vote for and other people don't. I'm sure there is much more to the election. It's major, we're electing a new Governor, or re-electing the Governator.

Is CA really better now that A-hnold has taken the reigns? I think he stopped the damage that Davis was doing to the Community Colleges, but other than that I'm not sure. Are we worse for it? I doubt it.

Educate me. Educate each other. I know the apathy and jadeness isn't unique to me. Can we make a difference? Do our votes really matter?

[scaeagles]

I know nothing of CA politics, bt I think your special election coming up tomorrow is interesting. The corrupt republican Duke Cunningham is being replaced.

I read that the democrat candidate - can't remember her name - said to a latino audience something to the effect that they don't need to be legal citizens to vote.

Yikes.

[Alex]

That's what she said but she clearly meant to say that you don't need papers to help out with a campaign (not necessarily lightyears better but still).

I really don't care about much in this election either. I'm inclined to vote for Schwarzenegger this time around (I didn't in the recall election) since I don't think he has done anything terrible since getting elected and has at least pushed for reform on some important issues that I don't think will be addressed by either Westley or Angelides.

I oppose the referendum and proposition process so I vote no on all of those out of principal. I don't vote on positions where I have no qualifications to decide who is better for the job (I have no idea what BART Commissioner #3 or Water Quality Board Trustee #5 do) and now that I am out in the suburbs and really don't care about local politics this creates quite a few positions where I won't be voting.

I will be filing an absentee ballot for Arizona, however, so that I can have my chance at the $1,000,000.

[Not Afraid]

I put my absentee ballot in the mail. I'm done with this election, the mailings. the phone calls. Done.

The race I'm most interested in is the run-off election for Lond Beach Mayor.

[Ghoulish Delight]

We had 8 messages on our machine when we got home. 7 were campaign recordings.

I have no idea what's going on in this election. As such, I probably won't vote. I know, I'm a horrible citizen, but I'd rather not vote than vote uninformed.

[Alex]

When Lani and I moved we gave up the landline and just use our cell phones. This has made election season much more tolerable.

[alphabassettgrrl]

I haven't been able to find information on the candidates. I need to search on-line but the information book they sent is about useless.

Mid-term elections generally don't bring much excitement from anybody who's not actually running.

[SzczerbiakManiac]

I'm thrilled I won't have to hear any more mud-slinging commercials after tomorrow!


Well, at least until the next election.

[€uroMeinke]

My Ballot's in the mail

[BarTopDancer]

Oh crap. It's tomorrow? Shows you how much I don't care.

Oh well. I doubt I'll be voting since I can't make an educated vote.

[€uroMeinke]

Oh crap. It's tomorrow? Shows you how much I don't care.

Oh well. I doubt I'll be voting since I can't make an educated vote.

It's not like your vote really counts or anything...

[BarTopDancer]

My top two issues are pro-choice and pro-gay rights (marriage).

So far I know that Westly is pro-choice.

[€uroMeinke]

I'm a "Decline to State" so I didn't get to vote for any of the prospective candidates

[Promo-Man]

I voted today. Also got my neighbor to go vote too. If you don't vote, you can't complain.

Well I guest you can always complain but you shouldn't

[BarTopDancer]

I'm a "Decline to State" so I didn't get to vote for any of the prospective candidates

I thought we got ballots for what party we wanted? I got something from the Dems and it says we welcome you.

[mousepod]

I'm a registered Libertarian, so most of my choices were 1 of 1 or write-in - but I was glad to be able to vote for some of our local stupid propositions.

(did I just say stupid? why, yes, yes I did.)

[scaeagles]

I saw that the Republican candidate won in the former Duke Cunningham district. I found this to be interesting. I have absolutely no idea what the campaign issues were there, except perhaps illegal immigration.

This would lead me to believe that illegal immigration trumps political corruption as a campaign issue. The "culture of corruption" campaign would seem to have a foot hold there for obvious reasons.

Either that, or the dem candidate was really bad.

[Not Afraid]

It seems Bob Foster is our new mayor! YAY!

[Moonliner]

I saw that the Republican candidate won in the former Duke Cunningham district. I found this to be interesting. I have absolutely no idea what the campaign issues were there, except perhaps illegal immigration.

This would lead me to believe that illegal immigration trumps political corruption as a campaign issue. The "culture of corruption" campaign would seem to have a foot hold there for obvious reasons.

Either that, or the dem candidate was really bad.

From what I saw the Republican candidate won a squeaker in a staunch 2-to-1 Republican district.

[Ghoulish Delight]

Either that, or the dem candidate was really bad.The Democratic candidate was a political newcomer, with only local school board experience, and managed to nearly defeat the Republican in a VERY Republican district against a strong Republican candidate.

[scaeagles]

I didn't claim to know anything about CA politics or the makeup of the district. Was just hypothesizing.

I do recall watching a few talking head shows - like Chris Matthews - and there was a lot of talking about how the dem was going to win. I wonder if this is a disappointment or a moral victory for the dems. Of course, it will be portrayed as a moral victory regardless of what the true feelings are.

[Ghoulish Delight]

I didn't claim to know anything about CA politics or the makeup of the district. Was just hypothesizing.And we were just responding to your hypothesis with a bit more background information.

[Alex]

And since it was a special election, the two candidates will immediately begin going at it all over again since the term the republican just won ends in November.

[scaeagles]

I do appreciate it. Really. Does anyone know the turnout?

Alex, will the same dem be running against him or will there be some sort of dem primary?

[Alex]

Since yesterday's election was the Democratic primary as well, I don't know for sure. I only know that the news story I saw this morning said the two would immediately go at it again. I don't know if this is an established fact or just an assumption.

[Alex]

For the Duke Cunningham special election, the turnout was 35.42% (http://www.ss.ca.gov/elections/Special/cd50/elections_cd50_genresults.htm). California's other special election to replace John Campbell had only 24.21% turnout.

The R received 60,319 and the D received 55,587. The local party registrations are about 40% D and 60% R so the D overperformed a bit (getting 45%) while the R underperformed quite a bit (getting 49%). An independent candidate received almost 4% of the vote. However, he is a Republican who campaigned on the single-ticket issue of strong border enforcement. So, combining the independent and the official R candidate it looks like about 5% of voters jumped from R designation to a D vote.

[Alex]

Responding to myself responding to myself. Just read an article in the Washington Post that mentions that the democratic candidate essentially got the same percentage of the vote in that district as Kerry did in 2004.

So the supposed Republican tilt of that district may not be as strong has the media hyped.

[scaeagles]

A little more info -

SF Gate article from April (http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2006/04/27/EDGNSGUC751.DTL)

But June 6 is California's primary election day. While the 50th will elect either Busby or Bilbray to a six-month term, Democratic voters also will nominate Busby to be on the November ballot seeking a full term.

I did some turnout research....when Cunningham won in 2004, 215,000+ votes were cast in that district with him geting 58%. Yesterday, only 123,500+ were cast. Significantly less. One thing I cannot find is what the turnout was for democrats and republicans separately.

[SacTown Chronic]

Oops - meant to hit the preview button.