Column: In California’s marquee Senate race, voters stick with what they know
Adam Schiff got the November opponent he wanted. Steve Garvey was set up to be knocked down. And by year’s end, California will very likely have a new U.S. senator in the mold of its past one, Dianne Feinstein, whose former seat Democrat Schiff is vying to fill. The voters spoke Tuesday in the state’s marquee election and what they said was: We’ll stick with what we know. By choosing Schiff, a Burbank congressman who was the most moderate of the major Democratic candidates — and thus most Feinstein-like — they rejected the leftward swerve promised by two more liberal alternatives, Reps. Katie Porter of Irvine and Barbara Lee of Oakland. By advancing the Republican Garvey to November’s general election, voters set up a conventional match between candidates of opposing parties and philosophies, rather than an atypical Democrat-on-Democrat runoff turning on personal temperament and differences of political degree. And by elevating Garvey over Porter, they also effectively settled the Senate contest with eight months still to go before the general election. There are no certainties in life. The same goes for politics. However, barring an
