In 1988 as a student at UCLA, I was elected for the first time to the Los Angeles County Republican Central Committee. At that time the 60th district included part of West Covina and El Monte. Anyone remember Assemblywoman Sally Tanner?
At that time one of the local Republicans was getting to run for Rio Hondo Community College Board. The candidate was Elizabeth Van Note (still active, but lives is San Luis Obispo). I remember the meeting because the goal was in 1989 to knock off the incumbent.
One of the reasons was the incumbent was a left wing Democrat, but also a savvy politician that would go places if we didn’t end it now. A lot of effort was put into that race. It was the first time I ever hears such reasoning for a non-partisan race. It made sense. Democrats move on to do bad things in higher office. Stop them now!
Unfortunately, our efforts failed. It was a tough district and beating an incumbent is hard. The incumbent did go on as predicted to Assembly, State Senate, and Congress. And by the way congratulations to the new Labor Secretary Hilda Solis.
And who says non-partisan elections don’t matter?