Monday, February 02, 2009

638 Days to Go

Just when you thought you’d have a chance to recover from the election fatigue bought on by the past presidential election marathon, jockeying for the countywide elections in 2010 has already begun.

Yesterday, in the The Sun, Larry Carson reported in this story that fundraising for next campaign is well underway. “County Executive Ken Ulman, a Democrat, has raised roughly $250,000 each of his first two years in office…His sizable financial head start is also likely to discourage some would-be challengers to his expected re-election bid.”

This got me thinking just who might challenge Ken in 2010. Will Steve Adler take another run at the office? Steve ran against Jim Robey for County Executive when Jim was up reelection in 2002 and did quite well despite Jim’s popularity.

Jim won his state senate seat in close race with Sandy Schrader. Sandy could potentially give Ken a run for his money.

Who else has a shot?

Joan Athen perhaps? Joan has been active in local Republican politics. She recently became unemployed when her politically appointed job in the Bush administration came to an end.

Greg Fox perhaps? Greg is the lone Republican on the County Council.

Republican State Senator Alan Kittleman thinks that “a candidate could run on a fiscal responsibility platform by criticizing the growth in government spending. “

I don’t know about that. Government spending money like a drunken sailor seems to be very popular these days.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Why do you think Sandy Schrader lost that last election?

Not likely Greg will run for CE. What's Steve Adler's history? Has he been on the council?

Alan Kittleman does seem to know his constituency. Politicians are fond of describing Independents as fiscally conservative, as well as the group who's been deciding elections of late. But then the R's spent so much while in office, the Independent vote scattered.

Can't figure out the R strategy, but Kittleman is absolutely correct.

wordbones said...

Anon 2:49,

I think Sandy lost to Jim for a couple of reasons. First, Jim was a very popular County Executive and the county exec will always have a higher local profile than a state senator. Second, it was a bad year for Republicans. Still, I recall that it was a close race.

Sandy is smart and personable. She has a strong network to draw support from too. I think she'd be a great choice for the Republicans but I still think it would be a hard uphill battle against Ken and I don't know if she is up for that.

-wb