Roque "Rocky" De La Fuente Guerra is a San Diego real estate developer with a penchant for litigation. He’s been in a nasty lawsuit with that city for ages (a record for California) and finally got a settlement for tens of millions of dollars.
So what’s he doing with all that money? Running for President.
The question is why. Now this is something you can ask about any of the “real candidates”, I mean Hillary, for example would be much better off as co-president of the Clinton foundation, where she would make a fortune and everyone would love her. George Pataki and Jim Gilmore….I guess they...aw to heck with it….
But we’re talking about Rocky De La Fuente, who nobody’s heard of outside of San Diego, is getting almost no coverage, and is on the ballot in 20 states.
Getting on the ballot in 20 states is remarkable, especially when most of them make ballot access damn hard to get. Take North Carolina, for example: You need TEN THOUSAND signatures, all of them certified, to get on the ballot if you’re not on the state committee’s official list. It’s almost that much in Massachusetts. He’s on the ballot there, too...and get this: Martin O’Malley’s only on the ballot in 18 states. There was a bit of a scandal when O’Malley failed to get on the ballot in Ohio, and Rocky did. Wow.
Now having enough organization to do what he did means that he’s got the money and organization to have radio ads and a halfway decent GOTV strategy as well, which means that in a number of the southern states where a relict “dixiecrat” wing still exists in the party, then he might just get enough protest votes to earn delegates, he may even do better than O’Malley, and if he does that, he might demand to get into the final debates in March.
But the DNC claims the right to determine who is allowed to run and who isn’t, look at Larry Lessing (who only got on one ballot, Georgia, before he withdrew), who could have been a contender, but was forbidden do do so by Debbie Shultz.
Meanwhile, it looks like Rocky’s going to do better than half the Republican field, and O’Malley.
Something to look forward to.
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