Kaus beats expectations, but not Quintana; Taitz tops 25%

Well, it’s official: Mickey Kaus beat expectations. With 98.2% of precincts reporting in California’s Democratic U.S. Senate primary, he’s at 5.3 percent of the vote — 93,173 votes total — which means Jill Stewart owes somebody dinner, and Mickey himself is presumably “thrilled.”

But Kaus’s success, or perhaps I should say “success,” was overshadowed by the out-of-nowhere 14.2% (250,313 votes) received by fellow lost-cause challenger Brian Quintana (who?!). KQED’s Capital Notes reports:

The junior senator from California ended up winning (as of this writing) about 80% of the Democratic vote in her primary, a primary in which she was generally considered unopposed. The guy who got some national ink for his quixotic challenge to Boxer, blogger Mickey Kaus, wasn’t the one who siphoned off the votes. The surprise runner-up: Hollywood producer Brian Quintana, who snatched almost 15% of the vote. Were those protest votes against Boxer from inside her own ranks? A small storyline, but kind of interesting. And if you’ve never heard of Quintana, you’re not alone.

In a tweet, Kaus “agree[s] Quintana’s strong showing is a story.” I’m curious where the heck those quarter-million votes came from — what was this guy tapping into, that Kaus failed to?

In any event, together, Kaus and Quintana almost held Boxer below 80%, but not quite: she’s at 80.5%. In his concession statement, Kaus references this, without mentioning Quintana by name, or acknowledging that Kaus himself only got about a quarter of the anti-Boxer protest vote:

I congratulate Senator Boxer on her primary victory. But the results send more than one message.

I’m a blogger. I spent about $40,000. I had one part-time aide, a recent college grad who was prepping for his LSATs. We had no headquarters, no pollsters, no highly paid strategists and consultants. We had a couple of laptops and an old Volvo. And we still ripped off more than 100,000 votes from a three term incumbent because there is a large group of voters who are dissatisfied with the prevailing dogma of the Democratic party. …

The pols are leading us down a dead end. This election has shown their weakness. It’s not a good sign when their anointed choice for Senator, a well-known three-term incumbent, loses 20% of the vote in their own primary against a couple of complete unknowns–after two transcontinental trips by President Obama to support her.

It’s a weakness I hope other Common Sense Democrats will exploit, soon.

Meanwhile, in the Republican primary for Secretary of the State, Damon Dunn received 1,056,162 votes (74.3%) to 365,684 (25.7%) for “birther” queen and all-around nutjob Orly Taitz. BUT WHERE IS DUNN’S BIRTH CERTIFICATE?!