Anybody planning on running for office in 2010?

[bigtoe416]

I'm considering running against my state assemblyman Ammiano. I'm to the point where if I can't make any change in this state then I'm going to leave. Figure I owe it to California to try to save itself since I've lived here my entire life.

Is anybody else thinking or planning on running for any office? If not, how come? If you are, I'd highly recommend registering to vote now in the party you want to run as. I think you need to have belonged to your party for 3 months before your declaration of candidacy is submitted, which is in March.

Here is the calendar of deadlines for 2010 elections: http://www.sos.ca.gov/elections/2010...-key-dates.htm

[oldrifle]

I was thinking about it but I'm not really sure if I have the stomach for politics.

[bwiese]

I'm considering running against my state assemblyman Ammiano. I'm to the point where if I can't make any change in this state then I'm going to leave. Figure I owe it to California to try to save itself since I've lived here my entire life.

Please save your money & time.

You don't have a chance.

[Untamed1972]

I was thinking more along the lines of running FROM the office

[nicki]

Running for office.

The districts are set so that they are either solidly Republican or solidly Democrat. There are only a few "swing districts".

The reality is picking off a incumbent will be extremely difficult unless that incumbent does something to piss off huge numbers of the voters.

People don't like change unless the current politicians are so bad that they scream for it. McCain lost the election because basically many people percieved he would be another term of BUSH.

Obama won because the perception was that he would change things, that he would get us out of Iraq, that he would bring peace and prosperity.

As someone who was involved in "guerilla political campaigns" in the early 90's, it is not that difficult to get onto the ballot, but then the question becomes, what next.

The one thing we have going for us here in California is that we have term limits, that means one third of the legislature and one fourth of the state senate changes every election cycle.

We will need to find or develop our candidates for primaries in both the Democrat and Republican primaries because if we are to get into state politics, this is the model we need to develop.

The reality is usually the people who are running for Assembly and Senate offices usually have already held other office, like city councils, county board of supervisors, mayors etc.

That means long term, we have to look at the people who run for local office.

Of course we can run candidates to bleed resources or to make statements and there may be some merit in doing that, but these actions would have to be weighed in on a case by case basis.

Politicians don't like to ruffle feathers, many politicians who vote anti gun do so because when a bill sits in front of them, they have to do something.

The leaders on gun legislation, both pro and anti are few.

It is great you want to do something, so I suggest to you or anyone else reading this post that you honestly look at what your results would be and if you feel that the end results would justify the use of resources, go for it.

Nicki

[bigtoe416]

Calguns has what, 30k members?

How many of us want things to be different in this state? All of us.
How many have ran for office? To my knowledge, nobody.

Why not? Because we'll lose? Fine, lets say we get 100 people running for state positions in all various districts, and we go out there and we talk to people about all of our rights and how the state is going broke and how things don't have to be this way. People go out and vote and we all lose.

What change have we made if we all failed? We've brought up the issues we feel are important to people who normally wouldn't think of them. We've planted a seed of thought that may grow into something more. A bunch of people will start caring more about their rights and how ridiculous our state government is. It's still a net positive.

Lets say one person out of the 100 wins. Amazing! Now we have a man (or woman) on the inside who can disrupt business as usual. We'll have a person who can stand up during a debate on rights issues and speak our position loudly and clearly. Maybe he can sway a few legislators to not vote for bad bills. Maybe his arguments will be heard by thousands of people, which will get even more people to think about their lost rights. Those people may end up becoming more active in these civil rights issues.

Even if everybody loses, maybe the legislature will open their eyes when the numbers of people running against them has skyrocketed. Maybe they'll start to listen to the thousands of people who call in to oppose AB962. Maybe they'll stop ignoring bills like AB357. Maybe we won't have to wait ten years to get something close to 'shall issue.'

I'm not suggesting that if I run that I will win, or that any of us will. I'm just suggesting that if we're not happy with our government, then why should we sit around and vote for these guys who are screwing us?

Lets stop looking for leaders and start looking at ourselves. At best, we take over our state and save it from its coming demise. At worst we end up talking about our various lost civil rights to people who didn't care about that before.

[Doug L]

I'm considering running against my state assemblyman Ammiano. I'm to the point where if I can't make any change in this state then I'm going to leave.

2008 general election results for the 13th. assembly district were:

Tom Ammiano...............DEM...........162,977.....83 .4%
Harmeet K.Dhillon..........REP.............32,552.....16.6 %

Assuming you'd run as a Republican, then, needless to say, you'd have an uphill fight.

But...if you think you'd have a better chance, and if you like a challenge, and have a bunch of money available...go for it!

To the detriment of California, the corrupt politicans (both parties) have gerrymandered all of the distrists to guarantee their own re-elections.

Figure I owe it to California to try to save itself since I've lived here my entire life.

I admire your positive attitude.

Is anybody else thinking or planning on running for any office?.

Based upon the results of the 2008 election, these are the districts where it should be easiest to defeat the incumbent Democrat.

10th Assembly District

Alyson L. Huber.........DEM......46.7%
Jack Sieglock............REP.......46.4%
Janice M. Bonser........LIB.........6.9%

Counties: Amador, El Dorado, Sacramento, San Joaquin

15th Assembly District
Joan Buchanan.........DEM.......52.3%
Abram Wilson............REP.......47.7%

Counties: Alameda, Contra Costa, Sacramento, San Joaquin

80th Assembly District

Manuel Perez..........DEM........52.7%
Gary Jeandron.........REP.........47.3%

Counties: Imperial, Riverside