new definition of spoiler candidates
Jon Cox returns, like a bad penny
or maybe just a perennial candidate…
… hot rodding his way from out of Illinois…
… he made just enough of a showing in the 2008 Republican presidential nominating fight to… um… make an appearance at the strangest of all of the debates — a 2nd tier conservative Christian confab where the front runners didn’t show up (except Huckabee, I suppose) — so they had a few empty chairs pulled out and made a show of questioning the empty chairs and letting the camera focus on them for 3 or 5 minutes… (or, thereabouts)…
And having popped his way into California…
where, if he had his way, the state would have a really, really, really big legislator…
He wasn’t a Trump supporting Republican, but now… Trump as a Republican has need for him… and since, stupidly enough, he is the Republican front runner for Governor in California, and should a Republican fail to get in the top two vote getters, this doesn’t so much strip Republicans of any chance of winning the governors’ seat — that remains at zero — as it deflates their chances down-ticket, where the path for a Democratic pick up of the House is in winning a bunch of suburban California districts. … they’re in that mutual embrace of necessity…
So now Trump and Democratic front runner Gavin Newsom both are working hard to get him nominated… asserting his Trump bonafides for the Republican electorate…
… with the second name in the Democrat in the field propping up John Cox’s main Republican rival and trashing Cox as a closeted Democrat and 13 time political loser so enough Republicans will not vote for Cox so he can win the second spot in the big California race… and who… wait… back up…
who the heck is running second to John Cox in the Republican field?
As State Assemblyman he also serves communities such as Westminster, Laguna Beach, and other local towns.
He did win something at some point. That’s a plus.
He is an avid surfer and participated with 65 other people in a world-record-setting ride for the most number of riders on a single surfboard.
Color for the campaign ads, I suppose. The man is not given any chance of getting into the top two, I see, and is serving as the oddest type of spoiler in what’s either California’s probably stupid election system, or an election system that hasn’t sorted itself out yet. He comes in fourth, but will his fourth place divert enough votes from the would be second place candidate to drop him into third place to allow someone jonsing for second place to bolt up from third place to second place, and allow a closely ideologically matched but potentially more competitive — while jettisoning a third of the state’s party preferences — general election contest?