Commentary
My friend Lance Christensen’s run for state superintendent of public instruction always was a long shot. He’s an expert on school finances and curriculum, and I got to know him well when he was the chief of staff for state Sen. John Moorlach and I was press secretary. Christensen was going up against not just incumbent Tony Thurmond, but the state’s most powerful political force, the California Teachers Association (CTA).
Despite that, Christensen garnered 37 percent of the vote on Nov. 8.
“I gave it a good fight. I ran a hard race,” he told me in an interview. “One of the problems is we have an electoral system that doesn’t build confidence. We can’t count ballots for weeks. This is the case for a lot of school board races right now. A lot of the candidates I supported are on pins and needles finding out if they’re actually going to win or lose. That’s unfortunate. It’s a sad state of affairs that we can’t get a better outcome quicker.”…