According to the Democratic Party analysis of Steve Glazer’s victory in Senate District 7, Glazer ran a “cynical” campaign appealing to Republicans and, “We know that low turnout elections favor Republicans. When Democratic voters show up and vote, Democrats win.”
I suppose one way to interpret that analysis is that those who only pay attention part time to politics or are not engaged in public affairs and don’t bother to vote in important off-year elections vote for Democrats when they do vote. Some might argue that is a formula for our government’s dysfunction, but that would be cynical and the Democratic analysis already used that term in describing Steve Glazer’s campaign. Both approaches couldn’t be cynical, could they?
There has been plenty of analysis dealing with the results of the highly contested special election and its meaning.
John Wildermuth in the San Francisco Chronicle wrote, “The complaints about Glazer’s efforts to appeal to Republicans and independent voters ignore the changes taking place in California elections with the advent of the top-two primary system…”
Just maybe something is changing in the state politics because of the top-two primary. Steve Greenhut of U-T San Diego got that sense when looking at both the all Democratic Glazer-Bonilla senate contest and the Moorlach-Wagner all Republican race in Orange County in March. Greenhut noted that the issue of union support played a big role in both contests with the benefactor of union support losing. He wrote, “Two races might not make a trend, but something definitely is brewing.”
The analysis on this site by Tony Quinn suggested, “This result shows there’s room for independent Democrats who don’t have to cower to labor.”
Of course, the Democratic Party saw it differently. The party’s Executive Director Shawnda Westly said in a statement, “We will not back down from races like this in the future, and Democrats will go to bat for our endorsed candidates who put the needs of working and middle class families first.”
However, the Democratic Party doesn’t have first call on the interests of working people. That became clear in Glazer’s victory. He spoke up for the working people who were troubled and disadvantaged by the BART strikes while the party chose to support the BART union members.
Since others have taken a shot at analyzing the result, I’ll take mine, too.
Steve Glazer is cut from the same mold as his long time friend and mentor, Gov. Jerry Brown. Glazer is a Democrat but he is attuned to fiscal problems and aware that spending taxpayers’ money irresponsibly is a road to political purgatory. Given Brown’s approval ratings, it appears in present-day California, the voters are satisfied with that positioning. Glazer was in the right place, politically speaking, at the right time.