Updated 1:41 p.m. with Taitz's reaction at end of post.
In the 24 hours before polls opened yesterday, national media outlets went abuzz with what they thought to be a scoop: Laguna Niguel birther leader Orly Taitz might win in her race to be the Republican nominee for California Secretary of State.
]
That didn't happen. Taitz lost with 25.7% of the vote versus opponent Damon Dunn's 74.3%. We hope you're not surprised.
The source of the Taitz-might-win hype seems to have been this Politico story here, a remarkable piece of journalism in how devoid of facts it was. Sure, anything can happen in down-ballot races–search for “Steve Rocco” on our own website for an example–but it's not like the Secretary of State race is immune to the actual laws of politics. The Politico piece characterized Dunn's campaign as “less-then-stellar,” ignoring a bevy of reasons why Dunn shouldn't have been worried: He'd been running longer than Taitz, had racked up more establishment and tea-party endorsements than Taitz, had an actual war chest, and has a fairly magnetic personality with a compelling personal story and not even a whiff of paranoid insanity.
Of course, you could argue that it's pretty significant that Taitz came away with a larger vote percentage in her race than heavy-hitting, money-spending, bona fide state-wide candidates like Tom Campbell or Chuck DeVore. Her ballot count wasn't far off from Steve Poizner's. Not bad for someone campaigning on a completely debunked conspiracy theory and fielding no TV ads–unless you count the Rachel Maddow segments bashing her.
We'll offer one piece of prognostication more rooted in facts than Politico's: Taitz is not finished. Failure will never stop her from continuing her quest against reality.
UPDATE: As a commenter points out, Taitz is already, of course, implying she lost because of a conspiracy/fraud/coup. “I researched electrons results,” Taitz, who we just found out is a physicist in addition to a dentist and all those other things, wrote on her blog today. “All the candidates, who were strong against illegal immigration were kept at around 25%…” She mentions the OC sheriff's race, saying that tea-party candidate Bill Hunt seemed to enjoy more popular support while incumbent Sheriff Sandra Hutchens, last night's winner, “barely even campaigned, as if she knew that she will make it no matter what.” In another post, she writes that she has until June 16 to contest the election results.
Previously, she'd been claiming that her opponent Damon Dunn was unqualified to run because he was a registered Democrat within a year of pulling papers, an accusation which simply is not true.
