Tim Donnelly is an extremely long-shot candidate to be California governor. The primary election is June 3, 2014 and then the top two vote getters (i.e., Jerry Brown and either Donnelly or Neel Kashkari) will face off in the general election in November.

Earlier I wrote how Tim Donnelly is a waste of time. But, it goes beyond even that: even though Donnelly himself might oppose massive or at least illegal immigration, he's in effect helping its supporters.

To help illustrate that, read "In 2006 speech, Tim Donnelly compared illegal immigration to war/Donnelly, a GOP candidate for governor, exhorted Californians in 2006 to join his fight to stop illegal immigration, which he described as an insurgency" (link, excerpts at [1]) as if you're an average California resident who doesn't know much about Donnelly. Some in Donnelly's target market will have trouble reading the article in that way: "the LAT is a librul rag and who cares what they write?" Here's the problem: lots of people do care what they write and are swayed by it. Likewise with the rest of the state and national establishment media: that's where most people get their news and it impacts their opinions.

If Donnelly were a different candidate entirely, he could do something about that. Newspapers might buy ink by the barrel, but Donnelly has enough money and enough of a base of supporters that he could fight back in effective, mainstream ways. Given his target market that's a bit of a stretch, but given Donnelly himself it's almost completely impossible.

One tangible thing Donnelly could do is to discredit the article's author, Seema Mehta and force the L.A. Times Reader's Rep to acknowledge how Mehta lied. That would send a message to the pro-illegal immigration establishment, but Donnelly has neither the will nor the ability to do that. Discrediting reporters over immigration would greatly help reduce the chances of amnesty, but Donnelly ends up helping those reporters instead of discrediting them.

Another thing Donnelly could do is to concentrate on the immigration issue rather than stock libertarian-leaning Republican issues:

On the campaign trail these days, Donnelly, a second-term assemblyman from Twin Peaks in San Bernardino County, rarely mentions his time as a border activist.

Instead, he focuses on the state's economy, the drought, what he calls overreaching government and the high-speed rail project that Democratic Gov. Jerry Brown champions.

When Donnelly brings up immigration, it's to promise a better business climate - one he says will lead to long lines of U-Hauls on the freeways as people flock to California from Texas and other states for well-paying jobs fostered by reduced government and lowered taxes.

In the 2006 speech, Donnelly painted an alarming picture of illegal immigrants' effect on the United States. They have caused the destruction of schools, the bankruptcy of hospitals forced to provide them free medical care and led the government to abandon its citizens, he said, asserting that the country was on the brink of a battle similar to the Civil War.

Donnelly is playing his role in the establishment media's campaign in support of massive/illegal immigration. The L.A. Times is using him to push their agenda, but Donnelly can't do much about it. He's in effect serving their interests, not the interests of those who oppose massive/illegal immigration.

With Donnelly you get the worst of both worlds: someone who pushes fringe, less important economic ideas but who mostly ignores the mainstream and more important immigration issue and who serves as a lightning rod for the pro-illegal immigration establishment.

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[1] It starts out like this:

Comparing illegal immigration to a war that threatened the United States' future, GOP gubernatorial candidate Tim Donnelly once exhorted citizens to rise and join his fight to stop people from crossing the border, according to audio of a speech he gave in 2006.

"I am a descendant of Jim Bowie, who died at the Alamo," Donnelly, then a leader in the Minuteman border-patrol group, said at a rally in Temecula that year. "It is rumored that he took a dozen Mexican soldiers to their deaths before they finally killed him. How many of you will rise up and take his place on that wall?"

He was speaking to about 200 people at a Save Our Nation event on March 25, 2006, held on the same day 500,000 people rallied in support of immigrant rights in Los Angeles, an event Donnelly noted.

"We are in a war. You may not want to accept it, but the other side has declared war on us," Donnelly said, railing against those marching with Mexican flags...