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Dan Schnur is shaking up contest by running as Independent California Secretary of State candidate.  According to the Ballot Access News post titled, “Dan Schnur, Former Campaign Consultant and Advisor to California Republican Politicians, Will Run for Secretary of State as an Independent” by election expert Richard Winger, Schur has a real chance to win:

(Schnur) was active in Republican Party politics in California in the past, and became a registered independent in 2011. He will be the first independent candidate for Secretary of State in the history of government-printed ballots in California, which began in 1891. 

Schnur has been a supporter of Proposition 14, the top-two system, ever since it passed in 2010. I have tried to communicate with Mr. Schnur over the past year about the deficiencies of Proposition 14, including the point that Proposition 14 and its implementing legislation deprived independent candidates of the ability to have “independent” on the ballot. He and other independent candidates must have “no party preference” on the ballot, which is less appealing than “independent.” Research from around the U.S. was published in the August 1, 2013 B.A.N., showing that independent candidates who have the label “independent” do better than independent candidates who use other terms, such as “no party preference”, “non-partisan”, “unaffiliated”, or no label at all.

Also, there is growing buzz that Schnur’s candidacy could lead a resurgence of independent moderate candidates in the biggest state in the country. According to an article in the L.A. Times:

Schnur says his race could be a bellwether for state politics. “If this campaign succeeds, I think you’ll see viable no-party-preference candidates running for legislative offices in two years and top-of-the ticket statewide offices two years after that,” he said. Schnur spent five years as a spokesman for Gov. Pete Wilson before serving as communications director for U.S. Sen. John McCain’s 2000 presidential bid. He also was briefly a campaign manager for Richard Riordan’s 2002 run for governor and did the same for Peter Ueberroth, who sought the job during the 2003 recall campaign. For the past decade, Schnur has spent most of his time teaching.

Also, analysis of Schnur’s past reveals a person with some expertise in the subject of elections. According to the Daily Trojan, he has included some real reforms for California in his proposals including a focus on:

1. Reforming campaign fundraising
2. Increasing participation among younger voters
3. Increasing participation among underrepresented minorities
4. Bolstering California’s political center

According to Schnur, “if Californians elect the first independent non-party-preference statewide candidate in modern political history, legislators of both parties will understand that voters are sending them a message.” Here is Schnur’s full biography from the University of South Carolina’s Jesse M. Unruh Institute of Politics (Unruh being hilariously an anagram of Schnur). According to their website “the Unruh institute is dedicated to bridging the academic study of politics with practical experience in the field.”:

Dan Schnur is the Director of the Jesse M. Unruh Institute of Politics at the University of Southern California, where he works to motivate students to become active in the world of politics and encourage public officials to participate in the daily life of USC. Schnur also serves as the Poll Director for the USC Dana and David Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences/Los Angeles Times and the USC Sol Price School of Public Policy/Los Angeles Times polls.

For years, Dan was one of California’s leading political and media strategists, whose record includes work on four presidential and three gubernatorial campaigns. Schnur served as the national Director of Communications for the 2000 presidential campaign of U.S. Senator John McCain and spent five years as chief media spokesman for California Governor Pete Wilson.

In 2010, Dan was appointed as Chairman of the California Fair Political Practices Commission, a position he held through that year’s elections and until spring of 2011. Schnur’s term as Chairman inspired him to launch Fixing California, an organization dedicated to campaign finance and political reform (fixingca.com). He also served as the Co-Chairman of the Voices of Reform project, a bi-partisan statewide organization devoted to making state government more responsive to the needs of California voters.

In addition to his position at USC, Schnur is an Adjunct Instructor at the University of California at Berkeley’s Institute of Governmental Studies. Schnur has also held the post of Visiting Fellow at the John F. Kennedy School of Government’s Institute of Politics at Harvard University and taught an advanced course in political campaign communications at George Washington University’s Graduate School of Political Management. In addition, he was the founder of the Center for Campaign Leadership, a non-partisan effort to equip young people with the skills essential for professional involvement in political campaigns.