In the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is king. That saying’s so old even H.G. Wells skewered it, in the classic science fiction story, The Country of the Blind^•. The blind seek to cure the protagonist of his affliction with sight, and their greatest doctor says that the cure is simple: remove his eyes.

“And then he will be sane?”

“Then he will be perfectly sane, and a quite admirable citizen.”

We’re going to get a test of that here in San Diego. Nick Popaditch is going to run for the House of Representatives in the 53^rd district. Redistricting moved him from the 51^st to my district, and I’ll be proud to vote for him. It also pits him against Susan Davis as well as against whoever else chooses to run, given the new primary rules here.

Even under normal circumstances this would not be easy. First, he would have to get through the dysfunctional party politics here; then he would have to go against Susan Davis in an area that almost never goes Republican. Since Susan Davis got redistricted back for the 2002 elections, she has never taken less than 62% of the vote. Part of that is, hopefully, that the Republicans have never run anyone of note or skill against her. The district did go, barely, to Schwarzenegger in 2006—53.4%. However, it went 57.8% to Jerry Brown in 2010.

Of course, all that is up in the air for two reasons: first, redistricting has changed nearly ever district—mostly in the Democrats’ favor; and second, we’re in a new primary system here, where, regardless of party, the top two candidates in the primaries go on to the general. If Bob Filner, who is now also in the 53^rd after redistricting, were to choose to run against Susan Davis, it’s almost guaranteed that the general would be between those two Democrats. Fortunately, it looks like Filner will be trying for Mayor.¹

On the plus side, Popaditch is a charismatic speaker, and appears principled and intelligent. He claims to have looked at what they did wrong in 2010 and learned from it, and knows what to do differently this time around.

I also learned about tactics, because I’m a marine, and I look at things tactically. And so I looked at, I looked at where did we make our errors. And I realized that as Republicans and independents, we focus on winning the debate, we focus on being right, we focus on winning the issues.

Democrats focus on winning elections.

Simple, they register more voters.

Certainly, it looked like he beat the hell out of Filner at their debate in 2010. However hard it would have been to win in 2010, I’d say he’s got an even tougher fight ahead of him in 2012.

At the Independence Caucus this morning, Popaditch talked about “0400 moments”.

When you’re cold, you’re tired, you’re wet, you’re wounded. You’re up against adversity, you’re hungry, you’re up against the wall. The guy who believes in semper fi then, the guy who follows it then, that’s the real deal guy, that’s who you want to be.

And I thought, okay, that makes a lot of sense. So I spent my time looking for those 0400 moments, always trying to be up for them, and I always thought they would always be in a military capacity, I always thought they were going to be at that 0400 time when I was wounded or whatever.

And it turns out, I would find out in my life, those 0400 moments don’t come when you’re looking for them. They never come where you think they’re gonna be.

The entire thing, including a very interesting talk by Alaska’s Joe Miller—who endorsed Popaditch as a “fantastic candidate”—should be available online soon.