It’s  the Great Fear that is just eating away at the poor folks at Politico. It was first expressed by that periodical in December when they suddenly realized that with so many Democrats (and none clearly in the lead) that in the open primary for governor of California that it was possible that with only  two Republicans in that race, that both of them could end up in first and second place due to the Democrats splitting up the rest of the votes among themselves.

A couple of months later in February that fear not only did not go away but intensified with poor Politico going full delusional to the extent of pretending that if they only concentrated on the top two Democrat candidates while absurdly ignoring the two GOP candidates whom many polls are showing in the first and second spot, thus qualifying to run against each other in the general election, that maybe the problem would just go away. The result of completely ignoring the Republican candidates who could both qualify for the general election earned Politico some well deserved mockery.

And now we are back with Round 3 of the California open gubernatorial primary Great Fear by Politico with this Monday entry by Jeremy White,”Eight Democrats and no front-runner: California’s governor race is a mess.” Notice that Republicans are again ignored in the title but in what can best be described as a modified limited hangout (to avoid more mockery?) the Republican candidates who are currently leading in several polls are very briefly mentioned once and only once in a paragraph buried deep, deep near the end of the story:

In the same remarks, Newsom also claimed to have not paid attention to the race or to the catastrophic scenario keeping Democrats awake at night, in which Democrats diffuse the primary vote so much that two leading Republicans, former Fox News host Steve Hilton and Riverside County Sheriff Chad Bianco, slip into the top two, ensuring a GOP governor.

And that was it. Both Republicans made their quick cameos never to be seen again in White’s Kvetchfest over the Democrats splitting their precious votes every which way that could lead to a Republicans only general election contest in November.

Top Democrats passing on their state’s preeminent job. New candidates streaming in late. And a Republican upset threat so serious that the state Democratic Party pleaded with a fractured field to consolidate — and was promptly told to go pound sand.

Welcome to California’s most muddled gubernatorial race in a generation.

And welcome to some of the most entertaining Politico angst in a long time over the possible outcome of this race.