There has been a lot of discussion in recent weeks about the effects of term-limits, as efforts are underway to create an additional election next February for an earlier California Presidential primary that some cynics believe is only taking place so that current legislative leaders can have one more crack at trying to relax term-limits before they themselves are forced to retire from office. Well, one impact of our current limits of three two-year terms in the State’s lower house is that, on the GOP side, well over a third of the seats held by the GOP will be "open seats" next year.
Over the next few weeks, I will be attempting to take a closer look, well over a year out, at how the races are shaping up in these open GOP seats. Of course, the challenge of looking at the action in the seats this early is that one never knows who might get into the races later, and what the final field of candidates might look like. That said, there is a lot going on, and we’ll start our FlashReport preview of upcoming GOP open-seat primaries with a look at the 36th Assembly District…
[Note: In no case have I or will I endorse an individual candidate in a contested Republican primary, this is just my attempt to handicap primary races based on information that I have available to me…]
ASSEMBLY DISTRICT 36 (Sharon Runner), Los Angeles/San Bernardino Counties
It seems like only a few years ago, but was actually over a decade ago when, as a State Vice President of the California Republican Assembly, I visited the Antelope Valley, and met George and Sharon Runner at a local meeting of their local CRA unit club. Even back then, you could tell that both of these great people were up and coming leaders in the Republican Party. Fast forward many years later, and George Runner, after serving six years in the State Assembly, is now a State Senator, and Sharon — well, she’s now into her fifth year representing the people of the 36th Assembly District — but will retire at the end of next year due to term-limits.
The District that she represents is an expansive one, taking vast amounts of geographic territory in the northern high-desert parts of both Los Angeles and San Bernardino Counties. The larger cities in the Los Angeles side of the 36th are Palmdale and Lancaster, and Adelanto and Victorville on the San Bernardino Side. A closer look at the district map shows that this district extends so far to the east that it cuddles up to remote Barstow! As you might imagine, this territory is very safe for the Grand Old Party, and the entire ball game for who will follow Sharon Runner into the State Assembly will be decided in a Republican primary a year from June.
Under any circumstances, one could not preview a race in the 36th without talking about the late Pete Knight (pictured to the left), but as you will hear in a moment, Knight’s imprimatur on this particular area of California is especially important. I remember back in the early 90’s when I heard that a former Air Force Colonel who held the world record as the ‘fastest man alive’ for his record flight of a plane at Mach 6.7 (for those curious, that is 4,520 mph) — as a matter of fact, he still holds that record today! Knight is one of the most decorated pilots/astronauts in American history. Retired Colonel William J. "Pete" Knight was elected to what is largely this Assembly District in 1992, serving four years, and then going on to serve in the State Senate until May of 2004 when he passed away. Knight was known for being a strong, principled conservative voice in the legislature, but he was certainly most well known as the author of California’s Proposition 22, the Defense of Marriage Act, which was passed by California voters, making it clear that in the Golden State, marriage would be defined as a union between a man and a woman.
One of the things that you learn in politics is that some things cannot possible be included in a campaign budget because, frankly, you cannot buy them. Name association is one of those things. In Orange County, where I am from, it doesn’t get any better than the Campbell name, made famous by the long political career of former Assemblyman-now-Supervisor Bill Campbell, and piggy-backed by former Assemblyman-turned-Senator and now Congressman John Campbell. Of course, if you were up in the San Gabriel Valley, everyone knows about the Mountjoy name for the father and son who together served decades in the legislature.
If there are two names that carry an amazing level of positive association in the Antelope Valley, it’s Knight and Runner. We talked about the late Senator Knight above, but Pete Knight is so revered that statues of him were erected in Lancaster and Palmdale, and the latter city is home to a High School named after him.
The race for the GOP nomination in Assembly District 36, at this point, is likely to be between two members of the Palmdale City Council, longtime Mayor Jim Ledford and City Councilman Steve Knight, the son of the late Senator.
Steve Knight (pictured to the right) is running to continue the conservative legacy of his father. He’s an Army veteran who has spent the last 18 years as an officer with the Los Angeles Police Department (right now he works in the San Fernando Valley, though his career has taken him to a number of assignments throughout Los Angeles).
Knight already enjoys the strong support of the incumbent of the office he seeks – Assemblywoman Sharon Runner. He’s also endorsed by the State Senator, George Runner. I had a chance to chat with George Runner, about Knight, who was very complimentary. He had a lot of great things to say, best summed up by this quote: "Steve Knight’s the kind of conservative that the high desert deserves. He will do a great job representing our values in the 36th district."
James Ledford (pictured to the left) is serving in his eighth term as Mayor of the high desert community of Palmdale. Generally considered to be a very moderate Republican, (he has famously supported tax increases during his many years in local government), Ledford actually ran a primary challenge campaign against incumbent Sharon Runner last June. Predictably, Runner scored over two-thirds of the GOP vote, and Ledford’s legacy from that run is a lot of ill will from conservatives around the district who felt it was wrong to challenge the incumbent.
Late last week I reached out to both Knight and Ledford, and while I haven’t heard back from Ledford, I did get a chance to talk at-length to Steve Knight (whom I had met briefly at the California Republican Party convention in Sacramento a couple of weeks ago).
We had a chance to talk about his dad, and about his run for the Assembly. I asked Knight what he admired most about his dad, and he told me that his father was, the most honest person that he’d ever known.
"It’s hard to live up to the someone you held in such high esteem," said Knight. "It would be very difficult to measure up to the high standards that he set for this office."
That said, Knight is committed and ready to try. He told me that he and his father saw eye-to-eye on virtually every issue politically, and that he is proud to be a staunch conservative.
I was very impressed with Knight. He is very down-to-earth, humble, and very excited to campaign vigorously around the spacious, sprawling district.
While I do not know if Ledford has advanced his candidacy enough to have retained a campaign consultant (I guess it is possible given the daunting task of taking on a "Knight" that Ledford will choose to demur from the battle), Knight has the well-seasoned and highly respected Matt Rexroad, of Meridian Pacific, as his general consultant. This really comes as no surprise as Rexroad, himself a veteran, spent many years heading up the legislative staff of the late Senator Knight.
Matt and I spent some time talking about this race, and since I know Matt to be a political realist, and not braggadocios in the slightest, it is significant that Matt feels so strongly that Knight is a very strong front-runner to succeed Sharon Runner.
I can’t sum up this primary better than Rexroad, "Steve Knight is the ideal candidate for this seat. He has the perfect background and dedication to win the election in June 2008."
We’ll keep an eye on this race as it develops, but for those of you who are taking notes on such things, our early prediction is that Steve Knight is in a very strong position to win this primary next June, and be sworn into the Assembly in December of 2008 .
[Note: As we will be looking at many more districts, any candidates or consultants are invited to drop me an e-mail if they would like to chat about a particular race before we pen our analysis of a particular primary – Flash]
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