All the votes were counted weeks ago in the District 2 county supervisor race, but the total campaign finance numbers have only recently become available. One thing is clear above all: A staggeringly high amount of money was spent in an election in which a staggeringly low number of people actually voted. But why would the county’s Democratic Party spend so much money on one candidate when there were two viable Democrats on the ballot, especially with so many important races coming up next year?

Voters in Santa Clara County’s District 2 will choose a new county supervisor Tuesday, when Teresa Alvarado and Cindy Chavez face off in a special election. The two Democrats are vying to replace the seat vacated by George Shirakawa, Jr., who resigned amid scandal in March.

We dodged the end of the world on Dec. 21, but now—due to Republican intransigence—we’re heading off the fiscal cliff on Jan. 1. The icon of the Republican Party is no longer an elephant; it is a lemming.

The San Jose City Lights production of “44 plays for 44 Presidents” is terrific for political hacks, history majors and local political wannabes. It is engaging, poignant and most people will learn something new of the Presidency. But—**spoiler alert**—the ending does encourage everyone to register and vote. In the spirit of democracy, I respectfully disagree.

A couple weeks back, I received some troubling news from the California Moderate Party. After three years of toiling in the weeds of The Golden State’s political fringes, Ash Roughani finally decided to throw in the towel on his latest effort to establish a genuine, grassroots third party. As a Democratic activist, it would seem odd for me to lament the loss of what could only have amounted to another siphon of progressive votes at a time when the left is so fractured that we can’t capitalize on our own victories. But the failure of the Moderate Party is just another symptom of the slow death of the political party system as a whole.

By Greg Larson

It appears that Democrats won all nine statewide races and retain significant majorities in the California legislative and congressional delegations. But as evidenced below, the statewide ballot measures paint a completely different picture, one that suggests the Democratic Party itself is increasingly out of touch with the policy preferences of the California electorate.