One question. Has any district ever anywhere had 21 candidates? If so please feel free to enlighten me.
CA-33 does. Or better did, since 3 have dropped out.
Sandra Fluke almost threw her hat in the ring too. She eventually decide to run for California Senate in the overlapping 26th CA Senate district. Here is her website. I had the pleasure and honor to meet her last week and I may diary about her campaign soon.
CA-33 is Congressman Henry Waxman's old district (sort of because of redistricting in 2010). Waxman announced his retirement in January after 39 years in Congress.
This is the district map;
I lived there over 15 years, now I live on the wrong side of Beverly Hills just outside. This district includes part of Hollywood, Beverly Hills, the Peoples Republic of Santa Monica, UCLA, Pacific Palisades, Malibu, and the cities of the South Bay all the way to Palos Verdes. This is an upscale district to say the least. But, trust me, there are lots of regular people.
Of the voting age population, 78.1% are white, 9.9% Asian, 3.1% African Americans and 8.9% Latino. Most of the Asian population concentrates near Palos Verdes. I became aware of this when I helped in the Paul Butterfield campaign for CA Senate in an overlapping district. The African Americans and Latinos are scattered.
The district is s progressive as they come. Still there are 3 Republican candidates plus one that quit and one Libertarian. There is also a Green Party candidate.
Only 2 candidates get to go on to November after the June 3 primary.
So who?
IMO there are 5 candidates with good chances.
Wendy Greuel is running a strong campaign. She benefits from the fact that she had a strong organization when she ran last year for Mayor of Los Angeles against Eric Garcetti. She lost but not by much. (53.92% vs 46.07%). Then again only 337,492 Angelenos voted in that election. Her campaign is focusing on specific issues, women's rights and fracking for example. I met her during the mayoral campaign and she struck me as a very impressive politician.
Ted Lieu seems to be getting more "official" Democratic party support than the other candidates. And interestingly, he may get libertarian support given that he is the anti-mass surveillance bill. I went to a recent event attended by libertarians and they were talking about Lieu. But his campaign doesn't seem as strong as Greuel's IMO.
Matt Miller is a very popular radio personality as the host of "Left, Right and Center" in KCRW. If his audience comes out on June 3, he has a chance.
David Kanuth is a very smart and eloquent candidate who has worked as a public defender in Los Angeles. I had the pleasure to meet him recently at a Drinking Liberally event and was very impressed. He has already raised $800,000 for his campaign. This is very significant. And he has agreed to speak at the next LA Kossack meeting on April 26 downtown LA at the Casey's Irish Pub at 2PM. Be there or be square LA Kossacks.
Marianne Williamson is running as an independent. She actually threw in her hat before Henry Waxman announced his retirement. All others did so afterwards. She is running a very strong campaign and she has money and boots on the ground. As she always reminds us, she is a life long Democrat and will caucus with Democrats. I met Marianne two years ago and was impressed with her political stance (I thought she was going to speak about spirituality since she is famous for that). At the time she organized a campaign to get more women involved in politics that I diaried about. If she can get only those in the district that follow her on Facebook to vote on June 3, she has a very good chance. Her big issue is getting money out of politics but she speaks eloquently about everything. Very progressive. She is my choice and I support her. And she has agreed to speak at the LA Kossack meeting on May 24.
CA-33 is a happening place and a trend setter to say the least. Love to hear your thoughts.