(The following story was published in LA Weekly.)
Waiting for a Miracle
Can Marianne Williamson take on Henry Waxman — and transform Washington, D.C.? Readers loved Hillel Aron’s profile of Williamson (“It Takes a Miracle,” Jan. 17), even if some found him unduly skeptical about her chances.
Writes CityKat, “This article is a fairly accurate picture of who Ms. Williamson is. If you’ve read her books or heard her speak, you know she has a brilliant mind. I don’t think it is fair to say, ‘Few think she has a chance.’ It depends on who you talk to. If you look at the quality and intelligence of people in elected office, I would think Williamson would be a breath of fresh air, welcomed with open arms.”
Gene Rothman agrees. “Kudos for the informative story on Marianne Williamson. I heard her once give the keynote address at an event sponsored by the Southern California Committee for a Parliament for the World’s Religions. I expected her to be motivating, engaging, brave and intelligent, and so she was…”
🙂
Obviously Williamson’s candidacy scared him, so he decided to retire.
Well, I guess that means there will be multiple Democrats, with two of them ending up in the top two.
There’s surprising news this morning that Waxman will not be running for re-election in November. This race is suddenly going to be even more interesting to watch!
Is there any indication about that one way or the other?
The big question is whether Bill Bloomfield will run again. In 2012 he was the only independent candidate in any of the three top-two states who managed to place 2nd in the June primary in races that had at least one Democrat and one Republican. Bloomfield outspent Waxman in 2012; he is a multi-millionaire. As the original article about Marianne Williamson noted, Waxman is much more worried about Bloomfield than he is about Williamson.
You may be forgetting all the other Democrats and Republicans that might be running.
The Top Two primary system gives her a much better chance if the Republicans run a weak candidate and come in third. Since she is getting a lot of press now she has a good chance of getting a lot of people to come out in June. And no she would not be better off as a Green Party candidate. As an independent she can have a more diverse coalition.
Yes, but you wish that of all candidates, as far as I can tell 🙂
Would like to have seen her run as a Green Party candidate. Think that would have improved her chances. She is a first time candidate, and her inexperience is glaring. Not a good thing. Let’s hope she learns what is necessary. And two years from now comes back to run as a Green Party candidate.
Off hand, I would guess she is less tied in with the corporate-government collusion, police-prison-industrial, imperialist-military-industrial, big pharma, big banking, big insurance power grid than Waxman is. Of course, I could be wrong. At the very least, we at least know she is less tied in with the duopoly.
How are her poltics substantially different from Waxman’s? From what I’ve seen she’s proposing a kind of warmed-over liberalism that probably isn’t far from Waxman’s approach.
It would be nice to see someone give Waxman a real challenge, although I’m npt optimistic on that score.
The road is even harder with the Top Two Incumbent Protection elections but if no one wages the battle it can never be won. Good luck to her. Hope she can bring a professional party hack down.
I don’t believe Waxman is well thought of in the Los Angeles area. Almost anybody would be better than him.
Given the surprising amount of press she’s been receiving, she has at least a shot of making it out of the top two primary. After that, beating Waxman will be an uphill battle, but I’ll be pulling for her!
I’d be surprised if she got more than a quarter of the vote. That being said, while I ideologically disagree with her on quite a bit, I REALLY hate Waxman, so I’d like to see her win.
No, she can’t.