MyDD :: CA-42 - We have a write in candidate! SPREAD THE WORD QUICKLY!

CA-42 - We have a write in candidate! SPREAD THE WORD QUICKLY!

by BENAWU, Mon May 29, 2006 at 05:07:11 PM EST

Bumped from the diaries -- Jonathan... In case you don't know much about Gary Miller, check out this post from some time back.

Like many in the progressive blogosphere I was disgruntled (shitty actually) that write in filing had closed in California and we didn't have a starter in CA-42. I even diaried about it.

So imagine my shock when I scrolled through the Kos diaries and found this unloved and unlamented bombshell. Yep we have a starter and his name is Mark Hull-Richter!!!!

Being a bit skeptical about these things I wandered over to the Californian Secretary of State site to have a gander at the list of Certified Write In candidates and yep Mark is listed.

Below for more...........

Like most of you I know nothing about Mark but so what he is running to get enough write in votes in the primary on June 6th to get on the ballot in November.

His is a steeper challenge than either Tony Barr, Charles Dertinger or Charlie Wilson, but if they could do it so too can Mark Hull-Richter!

Yes he is leaving his run mighty late and yes it is a cheap and nasty campaign website and yes that is one hell of a name to write in and yes he needs 2461 write in votes to get on the ballot in November!!!!

Mark however has three things going in his favour.
1)    He is running
2)    The progressive blogosphere knows he is running and can get behind him (no not financially).
3)    Most importantly he has filed to receive write in votes under a wide variety of spellings of his name go check the Certified Write In list and you will see what I mean.

So come on you lot ring write and email friends and family in CA-42 or better still email Mark and offer an hour or two to ring registered Dems in the district to remind them to vote on Tuesday 6th June and to write in Mark-Hull Richter for the 42nd.

This is the 50 State Strategy in action guys GO TO IT!

Brought to you by the gang from the 50 State Page and of course Barry Welsh. Don't forget the Welsh campaign meet up in Indianapolis on June 24th.

424 Races filled with a target of 431!

Tags: House, House Districts, House Elections 2006, 2006, CA-42 (all tags)

Permalink :: 16 Comments :: Post a Comment

Re: CA-42 - SPREAD THE WORD QUICKLY! (none / 0)

Oh yeh and beg to get this on the front page; we need to ACT now. Better still if you are a front pager yourself promote it or post it under your own name I don't care!

by BENAWU on Mon May 29, 2006 at 08:40:51 AM EST

Re: CA-42 - We have a write in candidate! SPREAD T (none / 0)

Mark sounds like he'd make a really great congressman. What happened to Lewis Myer? The DCCC seems to think he's running against Miller. Or did he drop out already?

by DownWithTyranny on Mon May 29, 2006 at 09:16:20 AM EST

Re: CA-42 - We have a write in candidate! SPREAD T (none / 0)

He didn't file. To quote RBH the DCCC was on bad fanta with that one he was never running. I remember looking for his website and it had been shutdown and stomped on and that was before christmas!

by BENAWU on Mon May 29, 2006 at 09:25:59 AM EST
[ Parent ]

bright (none / 0)

If nothing else, he's smart. Knowing that he has a difficult name, and knowing that there is no margin of error in a write-in, he anticipated people messing up. That's certainly a positive for him. When is the primary?

by JeffGilson on Mon May 29, 2006 at 10:33:37 AM EST

Re: bright (none / 0)

In nine days. He needs 2641 votes.

Good luck.

...just a red meat eatin' Democratic Dawg at PolCampaign

by BigDog on Mon May 29, 2006 at 02:23:39 PM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: bright (none / 0)

Geez, some of those names aren't even close. Can you really just register yourself as ANY name or what?

by Lucas O'Connor on Mon May 29, 2006 at 03:02:04 PM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: bright (none / 0)

I can see an argument for all of them actually...Hull could easily be misheard as Paul. and seeing how write in candidates usually spread the word like a game of "telephone", you'd expect someone in the chain to botch the pronunciation.

by JordanLFW on Mon May 29, 2006 at 05:47:51 PM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: bright (none / 0)

Perhaps, but I'm curious as to who's in charge of deciding what name is "close enough"...Not that I mind in this particular case, but the implications are interesting.

by Lucas O'Connor on Mon May 29, 2006 at 08:42:14 PM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: CA-42 - SPREAD THE WORD QUICKLY! (none / 0)

Dunno Lucas I guess so.

by BENAWU on Mon May 29, 2006 at 04:54:59 PM EST

Re: CA-42 - We have a write in candidate! (none / 0)

Has someone done a basic backround check or talked to the guy? Can we make sure he's not like an ex-kkk member or something before we start campaigning for someone no one has heard of before?

A Dem on the ballot is awesome but lets not forget to police ourselves.

by js noble on Mon May 29, 2006 at 06:25:19 PM EST

Re: CA-42 - We have a write in candidate! (none / 0)

Google looks good. He has a couple blogs that haven't been updated for a few years too. This is cool- I'm glad someone stood up.

by js noble on Mon May 29, 2006 at 06:31:00 PM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: CA-42 - We have a write in candidate! (none / 0)

Mark is a long-time Internet activist. Let's help him all we can!

Carolyn Kay
MakeThemAccountable.com

by Caro on Tue May 30, 2006 at 06:38:59 AM EST

Re: CA-42 - write in candidate! (none / 0)

And time to put another $10 in Barry Welsh's campaign box. His 50-State Strategy page has been helping us so much... his website is top-tier, even if his chances of defeating a powerful incumbent are not.

((But wouldn't it be GREAT to see Mike Pence go down in flames in a Democratic landslide??))

by Christopher Walker on Tue May 30, 2006 at 11:20:52 AM EST

Re: CA-42 - We have a write in candidate! SPREAD T (3.00 / 1)

First, thanks to benawu for making this appear, and also to Carolyn Kay who told me about it.

I am a liberal Democrat as you can probably tell from my web page, http://MarkHRforCongress.net. It's not the best, but it was what I could do quickly and easily by myself.

No, I'm not an ex-kkk member. Their positions are so anathema to everything I believe in that the stress would have killed me.

The reason for all the "aka"s is that, as you've noted, my name is easy to misspell, so I tried to include most of the ones that were reasonably close if you're not listening carefully. I don't know if there are limits - the SoS might not accept "John Smith" for "Mark Hull-Richter" but I didn't try that anyway - the space on the form isn't that large and I'm amazed they could read my handwriting that well!

Please drop by and take a look at my web page. If you happen not to be as broke as I am, there is a donation link (okay, three or four, actually), but word of mouth and net will help, too.

Wish me luck!

I'll try to drop by occasionally, but as you may guess, I don't have a lot of time, and I'm still working full time....

mhr

by mhrichter on Tue May 30, 2006 at 12:42:46 PM EST

Re: CA-42 - We have a write in candidate! SPREAD T (none / 0)

Thanks for running Mark! Any chance you can get the ActBlue folks to add you onto their page? Might help with fundraising as well.

I'm not familiar with California balloting process. I know I was thinking, when Chris mentioned he was buying stamps to help people get the name correctly on the ballot, that some sort of rub-on transfer or temporary tattoo situation might be a better choice. Then you could clip them off and hand them out to people as they were going into the voting area. You'd have to make sure they didn't mess with the ballots to avoid problems with elections officials.

by Jamison on Tue May 30, 2006 at 04:08:43 PM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: CA-42 - We have a write in candidate! (none / 0)

At the 2004 CA Dem Convention a Progressive Caucus was listed as one of the caucuses. I checked it out. Most caucus meetings get 10-100 people, there was 200-300 people crammed into a meeting room for a group that didn't even officially exist!

I talked to Mark afterwards, and he is just looking to do the right thing for the country, which clearly puts him on our side of the fence.

If you can vote for him, DO IT! If you can't, help him out any way you can.

Duckman GR
The Left Coaster

by Duckman GR on Tue May 30, 2006 at 01:43:03 PM EST

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