Talk:1998–99 California special elections

	Politics portal This article is within the scope of WikiProject Politics, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of politics on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.PoliticsWikipedia:WikiProject PoliticsTemplate:WikiProject Politicspolitics articles
???	This article has not yet received a rating on the project's importance scale.
	This article is supported by American politics task force.

Elections and Referendums

This article is within the scope of WikiProject Elections and Referendums, an ongoing effort to improve the quality of, expand upon and create new articles relating to elections, electoral reform and other aspects of democratic decision-making. For more information, visit our project page.Elections and ReferendumsWikipedia:WikiProject Elections and ReferendumsTemplate:WikiProject Elections and ReferendumsElections and Referendums articles

California

	California portal This article is within the scope of WikiProject California, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of the U.S. state of California on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.CaliforniaWikipedia:WikiProject CaliforniaTemplate:WikiProject CaliforniaCalifornia articles
???	This article has not yet received a rating on the project's importance scale.

[Untitled][edit]

03:08, 19 May 2006 (UTC) I would rename this page - special election musical chairs, the MADNESS nomenclature smacks of partisanship.

Hank chapot 03:28, 19 May 2006 (UTC) I renamed this page because madness is a faux clinical term, and though pertinent, is really not that understandable.[reply]

I agree that "special election madness" is not a good term, but as most of the article refers to a specific series of events, rather than the general practice of manipulating special elections, "manipulation" is not a good title either. "Musical chairs" is a common phrase in editorials and articles about both the 1998-99 events in Oakland and similar occurrences elsewhere, so I changed the title, and fixed the double-redirects. Argyriou 06:15, 28 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

User:Paulhogarth 13:32, 05 Jun 2006

Someone made the change from Frank Russo to John Russo, believing that there was a mistake. It's not a mistake, and they are not the same person. Frank Russo is an Oakland lawyer who ran for the State Assembly in the February 1999 special election. John Russo is the current Oakland City Attorney who is currently (June 2006) running for the State Assembly -- ironically in the same district. They are not the same person (although they are both Democrats), and it was a source of some confusion when I walked precincts for Frank.

POV[edit]

Even if everything alleged in this article is true, then the article's language must be changed to present it in a neutral point of view.—Markles 20:17, 6 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I've done some cleanup of the POV. It's not so easy, because the article is written in a journalistic style which demands adjectives and makes POV rather easy to insert and hard to remove. But I'm way too lazy to rewrite the whole article in a non-journo style. Argyriou 17:10, 7 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Writing Style[edit]

The writing on this page reads more like an informal narration then a reference article. It should be written. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.21.183.34 (talk) 05:28, 4 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I can't see why this series of local elections from a decade ago merits any sort of article. In themselves, these events were a minor part of the careers of several local politicians, only one of whom went on to be a signifigant figure in the state of California. The only justification for this article perhaps would be if it lived up to its billing as a general article on the politics and consequences of multiple special elections. However, except for a one-sentence definition it is entirely about a single "example". I don't see any real context or relevance to any larger issue which would merit an article. chiwito (talk) 06:34, 28 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I think this is a notable article because it illustrates the concept very well. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 164.67.59.68 (talk) 23:30, 3 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Two problems[edit]

There is no reference provided to support the contention that "Special election musical chairs" is actually a term used by editorialists.
The whole article, despite it's many subsections, is about just one example of this phenomenon. Surely there are more examples that could be found?

Snori (talk) 02:05, 15 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]

There has just been another example of this, in California’s Assembly district 1. The election on Nov. 5 2019 was the fifth in a series of elections begun a year ago.