In a nutshell, pundits say, no.
First there's the "near-impossibility" of a Central Valley resident building the name ID and fundraising base needed to take statewide office, said Vic Pollard, The Californian's former Sacramento bureau chief.
Then there's his most formidable primary opponent so far, Pollard said, Los Angeles City Councilwoman Janice Hahn.
She's a member of one of the best-known political families in Southern California. Hahn's father, Kenneth Hahn, was a legendary Los Angeles County supervisor while her brother James Hahn was L.A. mayor from 2001-2005.
There are a lot of voters and lots of money in Southern California, Pollard said.
"I would not be surprised if (Florez) drops out, unless he's got a longer-term goal in mind that would not be jeopardized by a loss for lieutenant governor," Pollard said.
He said he hasn't seen Hahn put up any money and he's raised $1.3 million on the road -- and shortly will reach $2 million.
Florez said name identification didn't help Hahn when she lost to Steve Kuykendall for Congress -- and he hasn't lost a race yet.
"I represent a Senate district with 800,000 people and she represents a sliver of the city of Los Angeles," Florez said. "Plus I will win the Latino seats (areas) on the L.A. City Council."
Pretty cheeky/racist of him to assume that he'll take the latino vote without any latino So Cal endorsements. Maybe he forgot about the overwhelming win by Judy Chu over Gil Cedillo to get the democratic nod for Representative in a 50% latino area. Hahn will get an overwhelming number of endorsements from So Cal latino politicos, men and women, like Villaraigosa, all the latino city council members, Sup. Molina, Solis, UFW founder Dolores Huerta, etc. Florez already lost credibility by making such a overt statement. No one will back someone who can't make intelligent observations.
Racial politics is politics at its worst. Imagine if Janice Hahn said she has the white vote because she's white and he's Latino. She'd be tarred and feathered.
Typical Dean Florez style (he's a mega-egoist) but he's courted Huerta's support before. He may represent a district with 800,000 people, but he doesn't have the support of the whole district and a lot of us don't think very highly of him at all. He hasn't started talking out of both sides of his face yet (which he is wont to do) so it will be interesting to see how he spins this.
In politics we'd like to believe that people vote for the person because of their substance or character and not because of their race. Ms. Hahn shouldn't have a problem winning the office of lieutenant governor, but I also hope she doesn't consider the guy mearly a pushover or irrelevent. I'd like to know what any of the two candidates plan to do if elected because my understanding is that the office of LG is pretty much ceremonial.