In 2002, GUS ALZONA won over 42% of the statewide
Maryland primary elections vote!
A historical
perspective: Gus Alzona stunned his critics
While spending
less than $500 on a seventy-two day campaign, Gus Alzona - not your typical
Republican candidate - won over 42% of the statewide vote in the 2002
Maryland Gubernatorial Primary Election. Alzona achieved both the highest
percentage and total number of votes that any Asian Pacific American has ever
received statewide in the history of Maryland.
During that historic,
first-time bid for the state's second highest public office - Comptroller of
Maryland - Gus Alzona (42.3%) received more than twice the percentage of
votes current Lt. Governor Michael Steele (21%) did during his own (1998)
attempt for the same statewide office, though neither of them won those
particular elections. If Alzona had won that race he would have faced former
Baltimore mayor and two-term Maryland governor, incumbent Comptroller William
Donald Schaefer (D). As it turned out, the political establishment supported
Alzona's opponent (Gene Zarwell) a white male who described Schaefer as his
"mentor" and then went on to lose to Schaefer anyway.
Gus Alzona, a former
elected Republican Party official (Central Committee 1998-2002), was a
"sacrificial lamb" candidate for public office when no other credible
candidates would volunteer to carry the Party's banner in past Maryland
elections. For his loyal service to the Party, certain hypocritical media
outlets, the establishment and racist bigots have falsely and pejoratively
stereotyped him as a "frequent candidate."