CALIFORNIA FOCUS
FOR RELEASE: TUESDAY, APRIL 5, 2016, OR THEREAFTER
FOR RELEASE: TUESDAY, APRIL 5, 2016, OR THEREAFTER
BY THOMAS D. ELIAS
“THIS
SENATE RACE JUST GOT BETTER”
For many months, California’s ongoing
race to replace retiring four-term U.S. Sen. Barbara Boxer has bored most
voters to the point they’ve virtually ignored it.
The
casual assumption has been that Democrat Kamala Harris, currently state
attorney general and formerly district attorney of San Francisco, would win in
a cakewalk, given she’s raised millions of dollars more than her leading rival
in the polls, Democratic Congresswoman Loretta Sanchez of Orange County.
The
probability has been strong for an all-Democrat November runoff election , as
the two Republicans in the race, former state GOP chairmen George (Duf)
Sundheim and Tom Del Beccaro, register well under 10 percent in the latest
polls and have had little success raising campaign money.
Enter
Ron Unz, 54, a Silicon Valley entrepreneur who has been out politics since his
1998 Proposition 227 eliminated most bilingual education programs in California
public schools. But as an individual candidate in 1994 at age 32, he won 35
percent of the Republican primary vote against then-incumbent Gov. Pete Wilson.
“It’s
a very unusual election cycle,” Unz understated in an interview the other day.
The other two sort-of significant Republicans in the race have very low poll
standings and I think I can shake things up by focusing on controversial
issues.”
Anyone
watching closely might have gotten a hint that Unz was up to something a week
before he officially filed his candidacy papers at the March 16 deadline. “Is
the Republican Party just too stupid to survive?” he asked in a blog post that
railed against likely GOP presidential nominee Donald Trump and blasted the
party for continuing to insist wars in Iraq and Afghanistan were good, honest
ideas.
But
most of all, he says he got in because of his party’s legislative support for a
November ballot proposition that would virtually negate Proposition 227 by
letting parents of English learner students choose whether or not to put their
kids in bilingual education. “227 has been a very good thing,” he said. “Kids
have learned English better and faster through immersion. I found it hard to
believe most Republicans in the Legislature voted to for this new measure.”
Some
might say that Unz’ entry further ensures that Republicans won’t even have a
Senate candidate on the November ballot. It’s true that if the three GOP
candidates now running all stay in, Republican votes could splinter, assuring a
Harris-Sanchez all-Democrat runoff this fall.
But
if Unz takes off, the others might not be major factors at all and California
could end up with a truly independent U.S. senator.
Unz
would need money to do that, but said he’s unable to put more than $100,000 of
his own cash into the race. “I’m just not wealthy enough to write
multi-million-dollar checks for a campaign that might well lose, like some
people,” he said. Meanwhile, he insists he will take no donations over $99.
There
is, however, the possibility that if his candidacy somehow catches on, he might
reach a little deeper into his pockets, as he did in spending more than
$500,000 on 227. At the time, he still had a financial analytics software
firm, later sold to the Moody’s investment rating service. “I did OK with that,
but not like some,” he said.
“Some
people may be attracted to my ideas,” Unz openly hoped, saying he figures to
buy very little media advertising. “Maybe a little radio,” he allowed. Even
that would be more than Sundheim or Del Beccaro seemingly can afford.
If
Unz takes off, it might be because California Republicans want to assure they
at least have someone on the fall ballot. It could also happen if the 45
percent of likely voters in the undecided column in the latest polls glom onto
him as an anti-establishment hope. One thing for sure: Unz has never been an
establishment anything.
If he should beat out the two other
Republicans now running, the blame should go to the GOP establishment
itself, for not developing candidates with sufficient popular appeal to make a
respectable Senate run. And things don’t look much better for Republicans two
years from now, when both the governor’s office and another Senate seat will be
up for grabs.
-30-
Email Thomas Elias at tdelias@aol.com. His book, "The Burzynski Breakthrough: The Most Promising Cancer Treatment and the Government’s Campaign to Squelch It," is now available in a soft cover fourth edition. For more Elias columns, go to www.californiafocus.net
Email Thomas Elias at tdelias@aol.com. His book, "The Burzynski Breakthrough: The Most Promising Cancer Treatment and the Government’s Campaign to Squelch It," is now available in a soft cover fourth edition. For more Elias columns, go to www.californiafocus.net
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