CA SD-01 / CA AD-04 Update: Machinations continue (The Barbara Alby Factor)

AD-04 Notes: 

John Allard. Take good note of that name.

Conservative Roseville City Councilmember who has a nice base of support in Roseville. Allard worked for Iconic State Senator Tim Leslie in a past life. Locals really like him and John appears to have the inside track for AD-04 IF Ted Gaines should defeat Roger Niello (and any other customers) in the SD-01 Special.

SD-01 / AD-04 Quick Side Note –

Ted Gaines will be on the Ballot twice for the NOV 2 election. He will be on the GOP Primary ballot for SD-01 and on the AD-04 General election ballot. The bizarre circumstance was created by Senator Cox’ passing and the timing of the special election.

The Quick note brings up another reality. The angry voter — for the first time in a long time, GOP Primaries / Elections are being affected by emotional voters who in their rage elected a progressive liberal Democrat supervisor in Roseville for example.

SD-01 Update:

You can rest assured that Rage will lead a few people to file late for whatever office they think they can screw up the race for. When Donald Thompson can get nearly 15% of the vote with little more than signs in the AD-05 primary… it could be a feeding frenzy.

And then there is Ted Gaines. Conventional wisdom says that he should walk away with this race… yet Roger Niello has outraised him, endorsements are coming few and far-between and his apparent weakness has former Assemblymember Barbara Alby taking a long look at the race.

THE ALBY FACTOR

Barbara Alby has long been knocked for an apparent inability to raise money. This was created after Former Congressman Doug Ose launched a misleading and devastating attack against her in the 1998 GOP Congressional Primary. Alby was never able to garner the resources to respond.

Alby is viewed as a spoiler by many.

Could she spoil it for Ted Gaines? Alby is a noted Conservative activist and was the target of the liberals when she occupied office in the State GOP. Ted Gaines thinks that Alby could syphon votes off of him – to that end, Gaines has been almost single-mindedly focused on calling donors trying to shut out Alby. Gaines has told several that another $200K will seal the deal. (He has $330k right now)

Gaines appears to have forgotten to call activists.

Could Alby spoil it for Niello? If you compare scorecards – you will find little or no difference between Alby, Gaines and Niello on the overall rating. (More on that soon) So the thinking there would be Alby taking from Niello’s Sacramento base.

No. The most likely third candidate in the primary is someone whose campaign will be based on voter rage – who will say that Niello is a tax-raiser and Gaines is a marshmallow. Period.

I just can not see a class woman like Barbara Alby entering the race to finish third again (like with her recently concluded BOE primary).

Folks – if Roger Niello had not made that one vote, he’d be in the driver’s seat running away with this thing – as it is, Niello is the favorite.

Now whose fault is that?