2010 Gubernatorial Election
Three of Lockyer's predecessors as State Treasurer - Jesse Unruh, Kathleen Brown, and Phil Angelides - had lost gubernatorial campaigns, and Democratic pundits considered the Treasurer's job a much "smaller bully pulpit" which did not provide a good spring-board to higher office.
Despite persistent rumors that Lockyer, who had earlier accumulated a $10 million political war chest, might be a "dark horse" possibility for Governor in 2010, he expressed no interest in mounting a campaign to succeed Schwarzenegger. When asked about the possibility, Lockyer stated that he saw no chance of winning a primary election battle with former Governor Jerry Brown (his successor as Attorney General), who eventually emerged as the unchallenged Democratic nominee and went on to win the general election. Lockyer also said he preferred spending time with his family. "You kill yourself being a Governor", he joked, "and then maybe you get a new aqueduct named after you".
In an article probing Schwarzenegger's political unpopularity in his final months in office, George Skelton, after quoting Lockyer's reflection on the fickle electorate ("Our state voters have very high expectations of what government can do. And their haste to criticize is very high") opined that Lockyer "might have been governor himself if he were more ambitious and photogenic, and sometimes less blunt".
Having faced no opposition in the Democratic Primary, Lockyer, using the attention-getting campaign slogan, "Straight Talk, No Bull#*+!" was re-elected for a final term as State Treasurer in the November 2010 Election, defeating a Republican State Senator from Orange County, and receiving more votes that year than any elected official in the United States. He was endorsed by the Sacramento Bee, Oakland Tribune, San Francisco Chronicle, Los Angeles Times, and the San Jose Mercury News, which concluded that "the Hayward Democrat has done well at a number of jobs over several decades, from the Legislature to attorney general. But as state treasurer for the past four years, he has really shone, maturing to near-statesman stature..."
Unable to run for a third term as Treasurer due to term limits, Lockyer has expressed a tentative interest in running for State Controller in 2014.
Read more about this topic: Bill Lockyer
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