{"id":10472,"date":"2009-11-12T03:29:04","date_gmt":"2009-11-12T03:29:04","guid":{"rendered":""},"modified":"2009-11-12T03:33:56","modified_gmt":"2009-11-12T03:33:56","slug":"damon-dunn-wants-to-run-the-states-elections-now-that-hes-voted-once","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/calitics.com\/index.php\/2009\/11\/12\/damon-dunn-wants-to-run-the-states-elections-now-that-hes-voted-once\/","title":{"rendered":"Damon Dunn Wants To Run the State&#8217;s Elections Now That He&#8217;s Voted Once"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Damon Dunn and I have a lot in common. We both grew up in Texas, in the DFW Metroplex. We both are in our early thirties, and we both <a href=\"http:\/\/jacksonville.com\/tu-online\/stories\/090199\/jag_1c1cuts.html\">went undrafted out of college<\/a>. Sure, he caught <a href=\"http:\/\/sports.espn.go.com\/nfl\/players\/stats?playerId=2481\">4 passes in the NFL<\/a> and <a href=\"http:\/\/www.all-xfl.com\/losangelesxtreme\/team\/roster\/DamonDunn.htm\">8 in the XFL<\/a> and I never played a lick of organized football in my life. But, I think I might be ready.<\/p>\n<p>After all, Damon Dunn is now running for Secretary of State. After voting once. <\/p>\n<blockquote><p>Orange County businessman Damon Dunn &#8212; a wealthy former NFL player who has never run for statewide office &#8212; formally kicked off his campaign for California Secretary of State today with some big GOP backing. But here&#8217;s the twist: even as he seeks the job of chief state elections officer, Dunn told the Chronicle today that he has only voted once in his lifetime &#8212; in May 2009.<\/p>\n<p>Dunn, 33, says he&#8217;s a real estate developer in Irvine and puts his net worth in the &#8220;multi-millionaire&#8221; category. (<a href=\"http:\/\/www.sfgate.com\/cgi-bin\/blogs\/nov05election\/detail?blogid=14&#038;entry_id=51442#ixzz0WbkYAjQJ\">SF Gate Blogs 11\/11\/09<\/a>)<br \/>\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Apparently, qualifications are overrated; money is all that matters these days. Now, I&#8217;m not saying that everybody who ever runs for statewide office needs to spend time in the Legislature. Hardly, as it isn&#8217;t like that is the only source, or even a good source, of information on the issues facing the state. Yet, you would think that if somebody wanted to run for election to be the state&#8217;s chief voting officer, he might have voted more than once in his life.<\/p>\n<p>Debra Bowen has spent years fighting for election reform, working to make the process more transparent and open. &nbsp;She has taken political risk in the name of good elections. And, you know, she has voted in many elections.<\/p>\n<p>Why would the people of the State of California trade that in for a football player who made a few bucks in the real estate bubble? At any rate, if he gets to be SoS, I get to be the coach of the Raiders. &nbsp;I mean, I&#8217;ve played Madden, and it can&#8217;t really get much worse for the Raiders.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Damon Dunn and I have a lot in common. We both grew up in Texas, in the DFW Metroplex. We both are in our early thirties, and we both <a href=\"http:\/\/jacksonville.com\/tu-online\/stories\/090199\/jag_1c1cuts.html\">went undrafted out of college<\/a>. Sure, he caught <a href=\"http:\/\/sports.espn.go.com\/nfl\/players\/stats?playerId=2481\">4 passes in the NFL<\/a> and <a href=\"http:\/\/www.all-xfl.com\/losangelesxtreme\/team\/roster\/DamonDunn.htm\">8 in the XFL<\/a> and I never played a lick of organized football in my life. But, I think I might be ready.<\/p>\n<p>After all, Damon Dunn is now running for Secretary of State. After voting once. <\/p>\n<blockquote><p>Orange County businessman Damon Dunn &#8212; a wealthy former NFL player who has never run for statewide office &#8212; formally kicked off his campaign for California Secretary of State today with some big GOP backing. But here&#8217;s the twist: even as he seeks the job of chief state elections officer, Dunn told the Chronicle today that he has only voted once in his lifetime &#8212; in May 2009.<\/p>\n<p>Dunn, 33, says he&#8217;s a real estate developer in Irvine and puts his net worth in the &#8220;multi-millionaire&#8221; category. (<a href=\"http:\/\/www.sfgate.com\/cgi-bin\/blogs\/nov05election\/detail?blogid=14&#038;entry_id=51442#ixzz0WbkYAjQJ\">SF Gate Blogs 11\/11\/09<\/a>)<br \/>\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Apparently, qualifications are overrated; money is all that matters these days. Now, I&#8217;m not saying that everybody who ever runs for statewide office needs to spend time in the Legislature. Hardly, as it isn&#8217;t like that is the only source, or even a good source, of information on the issues facing the state. Yet, you would think that if somebody wanted to run for election to be the state&#8217;s chief voting officer, he might have voted more than once in his life.<\/p>\n<p>Debra Bowen has spent years fighting for election reform, working to make the process more transparent and open. &nbsp;She has taken political risk in the name of good elections. And, you know, she has voted in many elections.<\/p>\n<p>Why would the people of the State of California trade that in for a football player who made a few bucks in the real estate bubble? At any rate, if he gets to be SoS, I get to be the coach of the Raiders. &nbsp;I mean, I&#8217;ve played Madden, and it can&#8217;t really get much worse for the Raiders.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[],"tags":[645,8042,125,567],"class_list":["post-10472","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","tag-645","tag-8042","tag-125","tag-567"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6Pvhz-2IU","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/calitics.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10472","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/calitics.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/calitics.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/calitics.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/calitics.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10472"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/calitics.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10472\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/calitics.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10472"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/calitics.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10472"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/calitics.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10472"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}