CA: McClintock concedes controller's race to Democrat Westly

SJ Mercury News ^ | 11/18/02 | Ann E. Marimow

[NormsRevenge]

Never mind, I saw Las Vegas in your post after I hit reply. :-) Its a little too hot there for me.

[carlo3b]

Westly led McClintock by about 21,000....

Ernest F. Vance ...American Independent ...93,828..... 1.3%
J. Carlos Aguirre....... Natural Law ............176,144..... 2.4%
......Hmmmmmmmmm

[Citizen of the Savage Nation]

There's 2 sides to that coin, though. The Green candidate took over 400k votes, and even still McClintock lost. With such strong Green support here, its a damn shame we can't make more of it.

[CounterCounterCulture]

Sucks

'Nuff said.

[BibChr]

#*&!

)c8<

[Holden Magroin]

California Republicans need to quit pretending that they made progress in this year's elections. The only reason these races looked cloes was because the Green candidates took away so many votes from the Democrats. In reality, California is becoming more and more liberal because conservatives have either moved or died, and liberal immigrants have replaced them. If Republicans are banking on Arnold to ride to the rescue in '06, forget it. By then, Hispanics, most of whom are liberal, will be an even greater chunk of the electorate, and they'll vote overwhelmingly for Bustamante over Arnold.

[seanc623]

There's 2 sides to that coin, though. The Green candidate took over 400k votes, and even still McClintock lost. With such strong Green support here, its a damn shame we can't make more of it.

True enough; this has got to feel like deja vu for poor Tom. I believe he lost his '94 race for this same office by an equally slim margin.

I propose that the GOP use a new strategy; let's go to the third parties who are similar to us (Libertarian, Constitution, Reform) and persuade them not to run a candidate against us.

It worked to a point for Tom this time and last with the Libertarians who declined to run a candidate both times and helped him considerably. If he could have convinced the American Independents to do the same he'd probably be Controller today.