Lame campaigns

Pub date June 5, 2006
WriterTim Redmond
SectionPolitics Blog

By Tim Redmond

The polls have the Democratic primary for governor way too close to call, with some showing Westly moving up and some suggesting that Angelides has the momentum — and all of them showing that almost a third of the voters haven’t made up their minds the day before election day. Randy Shaw at BeyondChron predicts an Angelides win because the hard-core Democrats are most likely to go to the polls. Markos at DailyKosgives a nod to the possibiity that negative campaigning has turned a lot of voters off, but he goes further, saying that both sides have run lousy campaigns.
The constant internal warfare matters in this race a lot more than the nastiness in the Reilly-Ma contest. The candidate who takes the Democratic Assembly primary in SF is the sure winner in November; the Republicans don’t have a chance (although if the winner is Ma, I’m voting for Barry Hermanson. But either Westly or Angelides will have to unite the party and fight an ugly battle against Arnold in the fall, and this shit won’t help a bit.