Dead Woman Wins Election
You know it has to be a huge blow to your ego if you cannot even beat someone who has died in an election. Here in California in the 28th Senate District, Jenny Oropeza won her election to the California State Senate by a 22 point margin. A landslide. The only problem is that Jenny died two weeks ago from complications of a blood clot that she got back in May. Because her death happened so close to the election it was too late to change the ballots. Her opponent, John Stammreich must be feeling awful. Are you such a horrible candidate that people would rather vote for someone who died. My guess is though that most people did not know Jenny had died.
A special election will be held to determine a winner.
28 comments:
A dead politician can't lie. Sounds like a good deal to me. And a huge step up from the criminals in the state senate in calif
It's happened before: http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2010/04/dead-man-elected-mayor-tn-town/
way to pay attention California
And it happened here in Missouri. In 2000 Mel Carnahan was killed in a plane crash weeks before the state Senate election. He won over John Ashcroft, even though Ashcroft was the frontrunner and the incumbent. His seat was given to his widow, Jean, and John Ashcroft became the US Attorney General. I think the whole "dead man winning" was kind of overshadowed due to the whole "who won?" issue of the Bush/Gore presidential vote.
lol @ canadachick
Think what would happen if Prop 19 passed.
@canadachick
It's not the whole of California that votes in this district, just a small slice of the population.
We paid attention. Somebody tried to buy the governorship for $150 million dollars and we said no.
Jenny was much beloved in Long Beach. I wonder how much of her win is attributed to early mail-in voting?
Indeed Melody the First. Thank goodness the "Buy It Now" button seemed to have been disabled for Meg.
Wait and see what Jerry will cost you.
@Mr Pink, I'm old enough to remember Jerry Brown's first two terms. He was a superb governor who was famous for being very frugal. In fact, he gave up the Governors mansion and lived in an apartment. He also drove his own old car.
People may also have voted for her as a placeholder for someone else who is like minded. It's not my area so I don't know which party she belongs to, but I wouldn't necessary vote for the other side just because my party's choice was dead.
Oy vey, I am just glad it's over.
The Meg/Jerry/Barbara/Carly commercials were killing me. It's over, now take down the signs from every street corner, ditch bank, fence, billboard, and front lawn and let's move on.
I'm with ya, califblondy. The television spots were on overload. I was watching everything on DVR just so I could FF through political ads.
@Melody
Last night when I was watching the returns I laughed and snorted so much at how much that lady (forgot her name, Meg something?) spent of her own money on her campaign and lost. Broke bitch.
Sue, I remember that election. At least the local news continued to cover it.
I wouldn't be surprised if people voted for Jenny as a sympathy vote.
In the Netherlands, the extreme-right-wing LPF party won 17 percent of the seats in its House Of Representatives after its leader, Pim Fortuyn was assassinated nine days before the 2002 election. That was much more than anticipated. The party lost most of its popularity by the next year.
So....California can elect a potential zombie, but they're deathly afraid of a little green plant?
Way to go, Cali. You guys are geniuses.
Go figure. A bunch of dumb-dumbs voting based on completely uninformed reasoning!
@Sue (in MO) - I remember that well!
@Sue Ellen Mishkey - Meg Whitman. Former eBay CEO. She is always a ranked in Forbes millionaire/billionaire categories, so I don't think she is broke. But I agree that self funding seems insane....
I agree with Paisley. I wouldn't have either.
@MCH
No matter how rich you are, that's gotta hurt. Isn't California broke? She could have donated that money instead. She might have won on that alone.
I read today that Meg spent about 10% of her personal wealth on the election, so she's got plenty left. Still, this woman pretty much tried to buy the election. I'm not sure Jerry will be much better, but I've had just about enough of no-experience business types promising fixes for California. Arnold for the last 8 years or however long it's been has been quite enough, thank youv ery much.
I won't say that I voted for the little green plant just in case my Mum comes in here...
I was one of those people who voted for Mel Carnahan, Sue (in MO). Like many people here, I really loved the guy and was devastated when he was killed. I also loathed his Christofascist opponent, John Ashcroft, so I had no qualms about voting for the dead guy.
The vote so that the Political party can retain the votes.
@Sue Ellen, that was part of the joy -- she spent all that money for nothing. No wonder she ran Ebay.
I live in Cali, spent 4 years working in the state assembly. Jenny was very popular and beloved in her area and her senate district. That district was drawn in such a way that it is a very safe Democratic seat, the real battle is always in the primary. I would bet that while some of the voters had no idea she had passed and just voted based on party affiliation, there were many that knew she had passed and voted for her in order to force a special election and keep the seat for the Democrats.
We knew she passed, but didn't want to automatically elect the Republican by default. It's better to have a special election. Jenny Oropeza was a very good representative who actually did good work and will be greatly missed in her district.
Thanks for the explanation FS and Jillian - different system here in Canada!
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