POSTED: June 5, 12:04 PM ET | By Jillian Rayfield

 

Orly Taitz stands on the steps  of the Federal Courthouse in Columbus, Georgia.

AP Photo/The Columbus, Ga.  Ledger-Enquirer, Robin Trimarchi

In 2010, California voters approved an overhaul of the state’s  primary  system in an attempt to bring more moderates into the state’s political races.  But when the votes are tallied from today’s primary election, the GOP candidate  chosen to go up against Sen. Dianne Feinstein in the fall could turn out to be  none other than Orly Taitz, queen of the birther movement and nobody’s idea of a  moderate. It’s safe to say this isn’t what the voters had in mind.

Under the 2010 reforms California shifted to a system where candidates from  both parties face off and the two with the most votes advance to the general  election. In theory, you could wind up with two Republicans – or two  Democrats – taking the top two spots and going on to compete in the fall. Today,  though, Feinstein will come out top. The big question is, who will come in  second?

Now, it’s quite possible that a totally legitimate moderate Republican will  emerge as the Republican candidate (there are a few – just a few – in  the 23-person, 14-Republican field). But the extremely limited polling on the  race shows that there’s also the jokes-on-them likelihood that Taitz, running as  a Republican, could take the #2 spot behind Feinstein. None of the other 23  potential candidates, Taitz included, polled higher than 2 percent in April, but  Taitz  leads the pack, probably on name recognition alone. Also a possibility: that  the Republicans don’t get a candidate in there at all.

Establishment Republicans didn’t really put up a candidate this year to  challenge Feinstein, a powerful incumbent with a considerable war chest. Nor did  any self-funded 1%-er come forward like last cycle (when Carly Fiorina ran for  Senate against Barbara Boxer, and Meg Whitman ran for Governor against Jerry  Brown, in both cases unsuccessfully, as it turned out). So instead, Republicans  have the likes of Taitz and others like right-wing “Surfing”  Rabbi Nachum Shifren to choose from.

Taitz says that her platform is not only about proving the president is not  an American (though her numerous unsuccessful lawsuits over the years indicate  otherwise), but you can practically hear the gleeful laughter coming from the  Feinstein campaign. “If [Republicans] think the embarrassment over Donald Trump  is bad, having the  woman who brought all these lawsuits would be even worse,”  Bill Carrick, Feinstein’s chief campaign adviser, told the San  Francisco Chronicle.

As Chris Thompson wrote  here yesterday, since the 90s the Republican party in California has been  basically self-destructing. “Two  decades of immigration and changing  demographics have steadily  eroded  the Republican base in the Golden State,”  Thompson wrote. “But rather than adapt to  this  new reality, the state party  lurched deep into the far-right  swamplands  of American politics. As the state  grew more socially  liberal, the  last of the Republicans doubled down on  conservatism, and  sank into  irrelevancy.”

If things go Taitz’s way tonight, you can bet this won’t change anytime  soon.