Hat-tip to Matt Cunningham over at Red County for pointing out this bit of news regarding the OC Treasurer-Tax Collector race.
A little further down, I saw a familiar name — Keith Rodenhuis, Deputy Treasurer, County of Orange — and did a complete double take, since his jumping in is like a bolt out of the blue. I’ve known Keith for a few years, and think highly of him — and didn’t know he had ambitions for elected office, let alone his boss’s job.
This certainly puts an interesting wrinkle on the race, with less than 24 hours until filing closes. I realize politicos may snicker given that Keith is Street’s number 2, but…Street’s denouement is due to his stewardship of the End of the Road Trust, not his record as OCÂ Treasurer — which has been, on balance, a good one.
Plus, Keith has a killer ballot title in an expensive county-wide race. Street had the slates pretty much locked up — and if he arranges with the vendors to release them to Keith, then Mr. Rodenhuis will be in a pretty commanding position to at the very least make it into a run-off.
Stay tuned…