re: #34 KGxvi

We have a blanket primary out here where the top two vote getters move on to the general, so I’m not sure it’s necessarily a problem in the way that it traditionally is in party primaries. Also, interestingly, according to wikipedia at least, pretty much every Republican incumbent in California has multiple challengers already, while most Democratic incumbents don’t even have one challenger yet. Then again, as I’ve said recently, the CAGOP is a complete shitshow.

If there are too many sensible alternatives, they can knock each other out, leaving the field to the top 2 crazy candidates. It doesn’t always end as well as the primary race for the California Senate, especially in a district that has repeatedly voted Republican. It’s analogous to what happened in the Republican primary for the state legislature in my state district many years ago. The 2 sensible women who shared similar views each received about 32% of the vote, while the male religious fanatic won about 36% (numbers aren’t precisely right — but you get the idea). He would have been trounced if only one of the women ran. If, for example, the 7 D candidates each get about 10% of the vote, Rohrabacher (Russia) could get 15% and the Libertarian 15%, leaving the Dems out in the cold, even though if 2 ran, they could each have gotten 35%.