This ain’t good:
“LOS ANGELES — One day after Democrats claimed victory in a closely watched Pennsylvania special election, a potential disaster reared up in California.
In a state that’s central to the battle for control of the House, Democrats emerged from a filing deadline late Wednesday resigned to the possibility that no Democratic candidate will appear on the November ballot in several key House races.
California’s unusual, top-two primary system — in which the top two vote-getters advance to the general election regardless of party affiliation — had raised the prospect of a nightmare scenario in several districts where crowded fields of Democratic candidates might splinter their party’s share of the vote, enabling two Republicans to finish atop the field in the June primary.
In response, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee and state party leaders had spent weeks running up to the deadline working to cull large fields of Democrats in targeted contests.”
Districts that could end up with two Rs in the general election include Issa’s and Dana Rohrabacher’s.
”For Republicans, the prospect of Democrats stumbling in the primary presents a rare opportunity in a heavily Democratic state. Jim Brulte, chairman of the California Republican Party, said GOP leaders in the state “think we have a shot to do it [shut out Democrats in the June primary] in a couple of races.”
To Cali Democrats I offer this quote from Dickens to Ponder:
(parens mine)
“I see him (or her) winning it so well, that my name is made illustrious there by the light of his (or hers). . . .
It is a far, far better thing that I do, than I have ever done; it is a far, far better rest I go to than I have ever known.”