Norman Solomon came oh so close! The Secretary of State has links to the county results. Norman came in third, just barely under the Republican Roberts, who despite the draw of a more conservative Republican late entry, slipped under the radar to take second.
Norman came in second in Marin, Sonoma, and Mendocino (by a wide margin), but lost in all the other counties including Humboldt. I wonder if he hadn’t sent out those hit pieces on Stacey Lawson, which definitely lost him some votes, whether he would be planning his campaign against Huffman right now. It may also be that “rural/urban” culture divide in which even old lefties in Sohum who have listened to him for years on Democracy Now were more easily able to relate to the local appeal of Susan Adams. The precinct analysis may tell the story.
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June 6, 2012 at 10:26 am
HUUFC
Free health care for all? Soloman was out of touch with reality. Hey Norm there’s no money!
June 6, 2012 at 10:32 am
PD
Seriously Eric those mailers probably bumped him over the top everywhere else where the PC police don’t roam.
June 6, 2012 at 10:38 am
Eric Kirk
You don’t think there are PC police in Marin County?
June 6, 2012 at 10:44 am
PD
Sure, every county/town has some. But they are not as vocal in Marin in my experience and the other counties have more media sources that kind of dilutes the power. I think it sucked that people made such a big deal of it here. Talk about unrealistic. It was truthful even if the images were tacky.
June 6, 2012 at 10:46 am
PD
And it was nothing in comparison to what the Adams campaign was doing to here anyhow. Double standard attacking. That sucked too.
June 6, 2012 at 11:18 am
Eric Kirk
Well, Adams had the sense to keep it in Marin County, where apparently they didn’t hold it against him so much.
It’s not like we haven’t seen nasty campaigns up here. I just think that people expected more from Norman. I think he got some bad advice, and in took it in the heat of battle. It may not be fair that he was held to higher expectations, but we have now learned that the voters decide what’s fair.
The information is true. But it was also irrelevant. It turns out that Stacey was the least of his worries. But that’s just Monday morning quarterbacking on my part. I didn’t anticipate it either, not seriously.
June 6, 2012 at 12:06 pm
PD
All good points Eric.
June 6, 2012 at 12:18 pm
PD
The sexist crappola still makes me gag. You got people saying they wanted Estelle because she was tough and would strong arm people and known to some for being overly pushy, and aggressive. And then slamming Clif (who got my vote) for being too soft or laid back. Then the topic about Norman is he is inflexible, mean, and serious. Give me a break. It doesn’t get more double standard sexist than that. No wonder we’ll get Huffman the Blue-Dog wannabe… and nothing will get done. Whats happening is intense and serious. And we wanna send some nice warm fuzzy person into a war zone. Yikes.
June 6, 2012 at 3:57 pm
Eric Kirk
But wait!
This campaign is not over.
Here’s the latest: The race for 2nd place — between Norman and Republican Dan Roberts — is extremely close. We will have greater clarity by Friday. This is not unusual in California elections nowadays, due to the large number of votes-by-mail. Tens of thousands of vote-by-mail ballots have not been counted — including many from Marin and Sonoma counties, Democratic Party strongholds.
At this point, with 12 candidates in the race, Republican Roberts is at 15.3% and Norman is at 14.2%. They are separated by only 1,379 votes, after numbers trended in our direction all night. (At the beginning of vote-counting, Roberts was 4% ahead of Norman; the gap has shrunk to 1.1%.)
Democrat Jared Huffman is in first with 37%. Roberts and Norman are fighting for 2nd in this top-two primary at roughly 15%, and Democrat Stacey Lawson is in 4th place with about 10%.
This is NOT a recount. The original vote count is simply not finished, and second place is too close to call. We are monitoring the counting of the votes-by-mail in various counties.
I am so proud of what we have achieved. Our campaign has inspired progressive activists and leaders nationwide.
We pledge to fight on until every vote is counted. As we get new numbers, we will keep you posted.
I want to thank everyone for waging one of the strongest grassroots campaigns for Congress anywhere in the country.
Onward,
Dan Mullen
Campaign Manager
The race has been designated “close” by the Secretary of State.
http://vote.sos.ca.gov/returns/close-contests/
June 6, 2012 at 4:24 pm
pathetic actually
yeah, but basically all of the uncounted ballots are ABSENTEE votes, not routinely thought of as the friend of lefties, and likely to be more conservative. not to be a cynic or nuthin. go norman!
June 6, 2012 at 4:29 pm
Eric Kirk
Absentee’s cast on the same day tend to follow the same trend as ballot box votes. But the only county where he has a very large lead is Mendocino, and I doubt he’ll pick up 1300 votes there.
June 7, 2012 at 11:33 am
alley
Too bad about the funky mailer from Solomon. I was all set to vote for him, but that ridiculous mailer re: Stacy Lawson was too disgustingly over the top for what I thought was a classy guy. I still was considering voting for him as late as when I stepped into the voting booth, but just couldn’t do it.
June 7, 2012 at 11:46 am
Eric Kirk
I hear you. My wife felt the same way.
I voted for him just because I’ve spoken to him enough to know that it doesn’t reflect him. Bad advice and bad judgment. But I hear you, and I think if he hadn’t sent those fliers out he would be cleanly in second place.
It’s not out of the ordinary, but we all expect better of Norman.
June 7, 2012 at 11:49 am
Class
Yeah too bad the guy didn’t take pac moolah from corporations then he could have just had a PAC do it for him like everyone else. But no he had to be honest and put his name on it. Unclassy like.
June 7, 2012 at 8:28 pm
Eric Kirk
There is definitely a chance Norman will pull this out
http://lostcoastoutpost.com/2012/jun/7/hold-there-dan-roberts-stormin-norman-solomon-stil/
June 8, 2012 at 5:05 pm
pathetic actually
well, i haven’t heard the phat lady singin’ yet, but i do think it’s going to be a bit closer than on election night. let’s hope the outstanding absentees are a bit more liberal than those cast already, or else solomon won’t be able to catch up. there’s thousands of uncounted votes in marin and sonoma, but norman only outpolled roberts by a couple of percentage points there. fortunately there’s only a few hundreds of outstanding votes in humboldt, del norte and trinity, where roberts outdistanced solomon by a wide margin. solomon won handily in mendo, where whose uncounted votes should give him his biggest boost in final calculations. considering roberts’ celebration on election night, it might be fitting if he actually turned up number three.
and before solomon supporters get too giddy about a possible shift in the ballots, keep in mind that a “victory” just gets him into a november runoff with jared huffman, who outpolled him way more than 2-1 on tuesday. the mainstream demos are not going to support solomon against huffman in the fall, and i have to wonder where solomon will come up with the resources to battle the guy with the big bucks. should be a more interesting than usual campaign, though.