So Republican Sen. Abel Maldonado won't be running unopposed for reelection after all.
Maldonado represents one of California's few genuine swing districts, but the Democratic Party failed to field a candidate in time for the primary.
A local Democrat named Dennis Morris tried to make the ballot as a write-in. Maldonado countered by himself running as a write-in Democrat. (He claimed that was so his mom, a Democrat, could vote for him.)
The strategy worked as Morris failed to win enough write-in votes in the June 3 primary.
Enter Jim Fitzgerald, a Democrat-turned-independent.
"I think I could do a better job than Abel," Fitzgerald said in an interview. "Being an independent, I can go in the middle and take the best of both sides."
Fitzgerald, a 30-year veteran worker at UPS, began collecting signatures (he needed more than 13,533 valid ones) to qualify against Maldonado as an independent on the November ballot.
Fitzgerald said it became clear that he couldn't collect enough signatures working alone. He went to a local temp agency and hired workers to collect signatures on his behalf.
Roughly $30,000 later, he turned in more than 21,000 signatures, he said.
And, lo and behold, local officials certified him for the ballot late Friday.
As for campaign issues, Fitzgerald pledges that his first bill "will require all new government passenger vehicles purchased by the state to be hybrids or electric cars."
Fitzgerald says he won't be taking campaign contributions over $20 and plans to use his Web site and meetings with local residents to run a "grassroots campaign."
Though Fitzgerald is not expected to mount a serious challenge to Maldonado, he has already at least gotten the attention of the Santa Maria Republican.
In an interview last week, Maldonado said he scheduled a fundraiser this month after it became clear Fitzgerald was likely to make the ballot.
"I wasn't running a fundraiser and then, all of a sudden, I have somebody who is gathering signatures," Maldonado said. "So I decided to hold a fundraiser to raise some resources."
Maldonado had more than $827,000 in the bank at the end of June, according to campaign filings.
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