Not surprised that Harley was endorsed. Good guy. But Hans is a brilliant man whom I have heard speak several times. I do not live in the district but I would love to see Rohrabacher gone.
Don’t fuck this up guys…
If needed make him a “deal deal”…
In the future, in competitive seats like this, CA Dems may need to hold some kind of informal pre-primary of their own – some way for local voters to weigh in, with the idea of getting the losers of the pre-primary to drop out before the real jungle primary. Essentially that’s what’s happening now, but it’s a patchwork of little fights for endorsements from self-appointed groups and the D-trip. That’s ok – they’re doing the best they can – but next time CA dems could consider a more formal and open pre-primary.
If history is any predictor, They will screw it up. At times they can’t get out of their own way. How the F@@k did they screw up the Presidential election? That was to be a slam dunk and look what we ended up with.
The jungle primary idea seems to only work under very limited circumstances.
If you’re going to troll, use a lighter touch. This borders on parody.
No election to succeed a two term president of your own party is a “slam dunk.” Ever. It is one of the most difficult feats in American politics. The ten percent who pay no goddamn attention but insist on voting anyway based on their uninformed feelings–who, unfortunately, are the decisive factor in most elections–are primed to switch and and the candidate’s job is talking them out of it.
Has the Kremlin announced yet which candidate they’re backing in the GOP primary?
We democrats created this stupid law. We should repeal it immediately. It serves neither side.
They didn’t screw it up, the voters did. But you’re one of those who blames everybody else. Look in the mirror.
We appreciate the DCCC following our lead and standing with Harley Rouda and grassroots organizations like Indivisible.
See DCCC, this is how it’s done. Work with the locals, get input, see who gets behind you and try to win over those who disagree. Not waltz in and blackmail the locals you decided can’t win.
Oh, all of them, Charlie?
I live in the district. We have gotten calls from both Rohrabacher and Baugh and all their adds are whiny hatefests. I support Rouda and think he has a chance. This is a very red district but Hillary won it by 2 points. We can do this, but it isn’t going to be easy if the R’s vote. Go Dems.
Yes, voters deserve blame, but to say the Dems didn’t screw it up is laughable.
To borrow a line from General Pickett, I’ve always thought the Russians had something to do with it.
Don’t blame this on jungle primaries. I realize the article promotes that view, but the article is wrong. The only way Rohrbacher can retain this seat is by beating both Dem candidates in the primary and then beating the most popular Dem in the final vote. The jungle primary stacks the odds against the GOP here.
Think if we had party-only primaries. In that case, one and only one Dem could make it onto the ballot. That’s not a better scenario. It’s a worse scenario. If the hardliners prevail, then we’d have a hardliner running against an incumbent, with no way for citizens to vote for the alternative except by having changed their party affiliation early enough to cram the primary. IOW, the exact same worry about selecting a Dem hardliner would still be just as great, but then it would be a far greater risk because it would be impossible for both Dems to make it onto the final ballot.
Any way you look at it, the jungle primary is better for us.
We tend to exaggerate that “history tells us” meme, simply because mostly it’s not “history” that the memer is actually pointing to, it’s some mix of convenience and emotion in the storage and then retrieval of memory.
I think it’s likely that were these two gleamingly white central northern European descended human apes to be tested for a IQ along academic and social dimensions there’d to be conflicting results: Kierstad highly likely to win the former, Rouda the latter.
If this were a contest over who’s best suited to lead an effort to come up with some goal or solution in the biomechanisms, I have no doubt I’d pick Kierstan. I’m guessing here, but I suspect he’d be way more interesting to listen to discussing his work and how it links in with the related work of others.
But … no: it’s a contest to determine who’s best suited to take on Dana Rohrabacher, an aging charismatic Dirtbag Trojan oddball hackadoodle. Not sayin’ Kierstan’s any of those, but ASSUMING the Fightin’ California 48th is trending to middle of the penguin herd socially responsibly anxiety ridden, and away from flat-out flat-Earth sunny-side up obliviously paranoid, Rouda presents the clearer contrast.
California’s unusual top-two all-party “jungle primary” means that the two candidates of any party who finish at the top in the June 5 primary advance to the general election
Unless the law has changed, this is incorrect. Californians can vote for up to two candidates during the jungle primary, regardless of party. That’s what makes it a jungle primary. Regardless of their top preference, it’s very unlikely any Dem will cast their second vote in the primary for Rohrabacher. It’s quite possible, we’ll have two D’s on the final ballot and no Rs – as happened in the 2016 Senate election. In fact, I’ll go out on a limb here and say that’s likely.
Although I agree with your overall comment and the observation about references to history, this part’s incorrect. It’s a contest to select any two candidates to appear on the final ballot. A jungle primary means there’s no requirement that one of those candidates have an R next to her or his name. Could just as easily (perhaps more easily) be two Ds.