Max Rafferty

CA Blue Book 2000

Date	Party	Office	Votes	Result
11-06-1962	Nonpartisan	Superintendent of Public Instruction	2681651	Win
06-07-1966	Nonpartisan	Superintendent of Public Instruction	2925401	Win
11-05-1968	Republican	Senate3	3329148	Loss
11-03-1970	Nonpartisan	Superintendent of Public Instruction	2757616	Loss

Candidate Biography:

Maxwell L. Rafferty Jr.
Born: May 9, 1917 in New Orleans, Louisiana
Married: ???? (m. 1940, div. 1943) Frances Longman (m. 1944)
Children: Three
Died: June 13, 1982 in Troy, Alabama

1940-1948: Teacher, Trona Unified School District
1948-1951: Principal, Big Bear High School
1951-1955: Superintendent, Saticoy School District
1955-1961: Superintendent, Needles School District
1961-1962: Superintendent, La Canada School District

• QUOTABLE: "The first duty of a nation's schools is to preserve that nation." (1961)
• Rafferty died after the car he was driving slipped off a narrow road on "an earthen dam and into a pond". 
• An interesting historic note is that the victory party for Rafferty's 1968 Primary campaign for US Senate was held at the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles, in the same building and on the same night as the celebration for Robert Kennedy's victory in the California primary for President. Sirhan Sirhan, who killed Kennedy that night, reported that he had first gone to the victory party for Thomas H. Kuchel, "but there wasn't very much going on" so he went across the street to the Ambassador. Once there, Sirhan got drunk at the Rafferty party and was escorted out by a guard [according to Life Magazine]. Sirhan left, retrieved his .22 revolver, and returned to the Kennedy party.

Source: California Blue Book (1963), (1967)