A voter casts a ballot at San Francisco City Hall in 2022. California’s top-two primary puts all candidates of all parties on the same ballot.
Santiago Mejia/S.F. Chronicle
“I can always choose, but I must know that if I do not choose, that is still a choice.”
— Jean-Paul Sartre, 1945
If we are our choices, as the French philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre argued, then we Californians are simply too much.
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The latest example is the statewide voting now underway, an event that many mistakenly call “The Election.”
It’s really The Clusterf—.
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Just open your mail ballot. There, you’ll see 61 Californians running for governor.
On my Los Angeles ballot, gubernatorial candidate names run over three columns on one page and an entire fourth column on a second page. As a result, many voters — including your columnist, whose eyesight and patience are diminishing — will struggle to find their preferred candidate on the ballot. It’s also possible that confused voters will spoil their ballots by voting for one candidate in each column or on each page — thus casting multiple votes and invalidating their ballots.
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How to make sense of this 61-candidate field?
You can divide them into two groups.
First are the Eight Flightless Reindeer, better-known contenders who can’t gain much altitude in the polls. If you can’t remember their names, sing along to the tune of a Christmas carol:
You know Xavi and Steyer and Porter and Hilton / Sheriff and Mahan and Villar and Thurmond / But do you Recall—2003! —the most famous reindeer of all? / Arnold!
The second, larger group, consists of 53 candidates. Call them Herbie’s 53, in homage to the Volkswagen Beetle from old Disney movies, which had the number 53 painted on its side.
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All but two of Herbie’s 53 (Eric Swalwell and Betty Yee, who suspended their campaigns after ballots were printed) are unknown — except perhaps to their neighbors. Herbie’s 53 are 16 Democrats, 10 Republicans, 23 independents and four minor party members. Most work in business or real estate, though there’s a mathematician, a physicist and a school bus driver. Their online platforms consist of vague platitudes about “affordability.”
Among the 53, three names stand out.
Barack D. Obama Shaw, who changed his name from Cecil Shaw and ran unsuccessfully for mayor of Alameda.
LivingforGod AndCountry DeMott, an independent from Redding, who promises to form a state militia.
Thunder Paley, a San Jose software engineer whose platform focuses on utilities.
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Why are they on the ballot?
My fellow Californians, it’s your fault.
You voted back in 2010 to adopt this “top two” system, which puts all candidates of all parties on the same ballot. For you’ve failed to correct the problem — despite your columnist’s constant warnings against the perils of the top two system.
What should you do with your ballot? Hard to tell. The Democratic and Republican parties haven’t endorsed a candidate. Major interest groups are confusing people by endorsing multiple candidates. And my unreliable media brethren can’t even label our June election correctly; they call it a primary, even though it is the very opposite of that.
My advice: Start with prayer.
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Recite the 61st Psalm, in honor of our 61 gubernatorial candidates:
“From the end of the earth will I cry unto thee, when my heart is overwhelmed: Lead me to the rock that is higher than I.”
Then, relax. Because elections aren’t democratic anyway. As Yale political scientist Hélène Landemore writes in her new book “Politics Without Politicians,” elections are oligarchic, because only those with tremendous resources — money, media access, party and interest group backing — have any chance of winning.
Since we’re screwed anyway, vote for whoever you want. You’ll probably find at least one decent justification to vote for each of the Eight Reindeer. I made a list, in no particular order.
Antonio Villaraigosa was effective as Los Angeles mayor a generation ago, taking on labor and transforming South L.A. Google Gemini, could you send a time machine to bring 2005 Antonio to us now?
State Superintendent of Public Instruction Tony Thurmond did eventually help reopen the schools in 2021. Only took 14 months.
San Jose Mayor Matt Mahan, 43, is the only reindeer too young for AARP membership.
With Viktor Orban’s defeat, the world no longer has any Trump-loving Hungarians in high office. Republican Steve Hilton, of Hungarian ancestry, would fill that void.
The election of Chad Bianco would lead to Democrats’ recalling him in 2027 — unless Gov. Bianco seizes all the ballots first.
Katie Porter is smart, at least by the standards of Congress. California has never had a woman as governor.
In a time of volatile dictatorship, there’s nothing more reassuringly familiar than a dull, mediocre lawyer like Xavier Becerra.
With billionaire oligarchs backing the Trump dictatorship, Californians need our own billionaire oligarch to help us fight back. That’s Tom Steyer.
Guest opinions in Open Forum and Insight are produced by writers with expertise, personal experience or original insights on a subject of interest to our readers. Their views do not necessarily reflect the opinion of The Chronicle editorial board, which is committed to providing a diversity of ideas to our readership.
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My heart says, Governor Thunder!
My head says there’s another choice, per Sartre: Just leave the ballot blank.
Joe Mathews writes the Connecting California column for Zócalo Public Square.