Now that several people have fallen in love with the latest "not an incumbent" candidate for City Council, Jon Hatami, I wish to correct the record and rechannel people's thinking about this or ANY City Council election.
Several posters have rejoiced that "someone is running against Laurie Ender." The fact of the matter is that ANY challenger in the two seat at large rate is actually running against Bob Kellar. Here is why.
Everyone that reads this blog knows by now that an incumbent has only been unseated TWICE in the entire history of the City (Klajic unseated founding council member Koontz in 1990 and Clyde Smyth unseating Klajic in 1994.), but looking behind the numbers, has anyone even come close to unseating TWO incumbents?
The answer is an unqualified no. In 1990, Klajic actually came first as a newcomer, but the fourth place finisher was well behind the third place finisher. In 1994 the victorious Smyth still finished over 400 votes behind the second place finisher and over 1,600 votes behind the first place finisher. In the painfully "close" election of 2010 Dave Gauny still finished 250 votes and 350 votes behind second and first place. While this may not seem like much, it is a 500 basis point swing in the total votes cast for each of the top four candidates.
So let us look at the case of Bob Kellar. Bob came second to gain his first term on the Santa Clarita City Council in 2000 with 4,844 votes, beating Marsha McLean handily by more than 600 votes, but losing to Cameron Smyth, the first place finisher, by about the same amount. In 2004 he was reelected with 5,777 votes but this time finishing nearly 1,400 votes behind Smyth. In 2008 he again came second when newcomer Laurie Ender came first in her first run for the Council, something that one has to go back to 1994 to see.
In other words, Bob's support is standing relatively still (but sufficient) while the more ambitious politicians like Smyth and Ender tend to increase their total votes with every election. Extrapolating the Smyth performance would put Ender at around 8,000 votes this time around, something that a first time challenger could just never reasonably hope to get.
So I humbly submit that if Jon Hatami is running against anyone, he is running against Bob Kellar. Dave Gauny understood this, which is why he is not running this time.
A Little Lesson in Santa Clarita Election Results
Several posters have rejoiced that "someone is running against Laurie Ender." The fact of the matter is that ANY challenger in the two seat at large rate is actually running against Bob Kellar. Here is why.
Everyone that reads this blog knows by now that an incumbent has only been unseated TWICE in the entire history of the City (Klajic unseated founding council member Koontz in 1990 and Clyde Smyth unseating Klajic in 1994.), but looking behind the numbers, has anyone even come close to unseating TWO incumbents?
The answer is an unqualified no. In 1990, Klajic actually came first as a newcomer, but the fourth place finisher was well behind the third place finisher. In 1994 the victorious Smyth still finished over 400 votes behind the second place finisher and over 1,600 votes behind the first place finisher. In the painfully "close" election of 2010 Dave Gauny still finished 250 votes and 350 votes behind second and first place. While this may not seem like much, it is a 500 basis point swing in the total votes cast for each of the top four candidates.
So let us look at the case of Bob Kellar. Bob came second to gain his first term on the Santa Clarita City Council in 2000 with 4,844 votes, beating Marsha McLean handily by more than 600 votes, but losing to Cameron Smyth, the first place finisher, by about the same amount. In 2004 he was reelected with 5,777 votes but this time finishing nearly 1,400 votes behind Smyth. In 2008 he again came second when newcomer Laurie Ender came first in her first run for the Council, something that one has to go back to 1994 to see.
In other words, Bob's support is standing relatively still (but sufficient) while the more ambitious politicians like Smyth and Ender tend to increase their total votes with every election. Extrapolating the Smyth performance would put Ender at around 8,000 votes this time around, something that a first time challenger could just never reasonably hope to get.
So I humbly submit that if Jon Hatami is running against anyone, he is running against Bob Kellar. Dave Gauny understood this, which is why he is not running this time.