With all of the focus on the donnybrook between Insurance Commissioner Steve Poizner and Meg Whitman and the anemically funded Tom Campbell) for the GOP nomination for Governor, little attention it seems is being paid to the Republican primary for Lieutenant Governor.  Maybe that’s because, at least as of today, there isn’t one.  State Senator Jeff Denham, who achieved celebrity status within Republican ranks when he successfully fended off an attempted recall election orchestrated by former Senate President Don Perata, continues to have the Republican field all to himself.

Denham has recently racked up two new endorsements – one being the Ventura County Republican Party (which inexplicably has decided to weigh in on the primary elections – unusual for a GOP County Committee) and the other being the California Small Business Owners Association (who also endorsed Poizner). 

Denham has been working hard at fundraising, and has nearly $1.1 million cash on hand – which is only a fraction of what he will need to win a general election, but represents a significant discouraging factor to other potential serious challengers that Denham could face in a primary.  Another huge leg-up for Denham – he has secured placement on virtually all of the “slate” mailers that will hit Republican and Decline-To-State voters in the days before the primary.  Denham also enjoys the endorsements of virtually all of the California’s GOP state legislators.  According to the Denham campaign, they have more prominent endorsements in the queue to be announcing the coming weeks.

Of course, no update on the 2010 Lt. Governor’s race would be complete without at least touching on the fact that the current occupant of the job, John Garamendi, is a very viable candidate in the special election in the 10th Congressional District, where the Democrat primary winner has a huge leg up over the Republican in that district gerrymandered to elect a liberal.

If Garamendi is elected, the Governor would put forward to the legislature the name of a replacement.  If the Governor nominates a Republicans for the position, unless it is someone who is a placeholder, it is likely that they will not be confirmed by Democrats (not even the appointment of tax-increase supporting GOPers like Tom Campbell, Dave Cogdill or Abel Maldonado).  Since this is “post-partisan” Arnold, I guess he could appoint a Democrat (we’ve heard names like Fabian Nunez, John Burton, and even his own Chief of Staff Susan Kennedy bantered around).  Of course, all of this only matters if Garamendi wins the Congressional special election primary early next month…

The 2010 primaries are still almost a year out, and so it is certainly no “sure thing” that Denham will make it all of the way without generating a primary opponent.  But the aggressive campaign that he has been waging is a great example of how to best try to achieve that goal.

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This entry was posted on Monday, August 10th, 2009 at 12:00 am and is filed under Blog Posts.