As Yogi Berra would have put it, this seems like Déjà vu all over again.
In 1986, California's über-liberal Democratic Senator Alan Cranston seemed vulnerable. But of the 12 or so Republican candidates, 11 were conservative, and only one, Rep. Ed Zschau, was liberal. Although conservatives dominated the California GOP at the time, the 11 conservatives split up the vote, and Zschau (as in Mao) won with about a third of the votes. Because there was no runoff, Zschau got the nomination.
This placed conservatives in a dilemma. Much as they hated Cranston, Zschau's voting record was very similar--for one thing, he was pro-abortion and rabidly anti-military. Another factor was that Cranston, due to his age, would likely serve only one more term, whereas Zschau, being young, would likely become a liberal fixture in the Senate--like Clifford Case (R-NJ) or Jake "the snake" Javits (R-NY)--and being a Republican, he would face no serious GOP challenger. We conservatives found ourselves screwed either way. I wound up voting third party, and a friend whose views are to the right of my own voted for Cranston.
In the end, Cranston narrowly won.
Barbara Boxer and Diane Feinstein thank you. You should add that Republicans have never stood a better chance in California since. About 26 years ago. Hey lets do this on a national level, that way we can also lose them all for a quarter of a century. It seems we are determined to bite off our nose in order to spite our face. I have a better idea, why don’t we just win this November with whoever wins the nomination and then take it from there.