Pete Constant’s withdrawal from the San Jose mayor’s race sent shockwaves through a desperate California Republican Party. Trying to carve out a niche for itself in the Silicon Valley, Constant was seen as the best hope for the party to make an inroad into San Jose. Now one lucky Democratic candidate could gain considerable support.

The Democratic Central Committee voted last week to speed up its endorsement process, giving the group two more months to rally behind its chosen San Jose mayoral candidate (hint: Dave Cortese). As a result, some candidates who would be up for consideration—but unlikely to win the endorsement—are now saying they didn’t want the committee’s backing in the first place.

Pete Constant, the lone Republican contender in this year’s crowded field for mayor of San Jose, bowed out of the race Tuesday. His exit drops the number of San Jose councilmembers running to succeed Mayor Chuck Reed to four: Rose Herrera, Sam Liccardo, Madison Nguyen and Pierluigi Oliverio. County Supervisor Dave Cortese, who previously served on the council, is also considered a strong contender.

Last month, Fly broke the Earth-shattering news that county supervisor and San Jose mayoral contender Dave Cortese isn’t too fond of Walmart. He refused to mention the store by name in an invite to his campaign kickoff, instead noting that the party was near a “Big Box” store. Crazy, we know. But just when the Internet was nearing recovery, a couple of mayors decided to reignite the fight.

In a near-unanimous vote Thursday, the county’s Democratic Central Committee agreed to move its endorsement decision for the San Jose mayor’s race from April to February. Moving the schedule up a couple months gives the party more time to mobilize a campaign behind its preferred candidate, who many presume to be county Supervisor Dave Cortese.

The county’s Democratic Central Committee will vote Thursday night on whether to advance its endorsement process by a month, and the result could have a dramatic impact on the San Jose mayor’s race.

Sometimes a candidate has to spend money to make money. And, so far, Madison Nguyen has done both at a recent dinner. In her mayoral campaign kickoff event, the vice mayor shelled out about $16,000 at San Jose’s Dynasty Seafood Restaurant. Nguyen felt she owed big hitters a “decent meal” at the very least, and apparently the checks went just right of the soup spoon. Her campaign has already surpassed $100,000 in contributions, less than two weeks into the race, Nguyen said.

There are enough candidates for mayor of San Jose to field a football team with a few water boys, but no one entrant should expect the blessing of Mayor Chuck Reed just yet. With a year left on his final term, the mayor’s five pension reform supporters on the City Council—a.k.a. The B Team—are all vying to drag their files over to the 18th floor’s corner office, and he needs their support to gets things done.

More than a baker’s dozen have declared plans to run for mayor of San Jose next year, but no announcement was more startling than former councilman Forrest Williams’. Out of the spotlight since his failed 2010 county supervisor bid against Mike Wasserman, his announcement last month came out of left-left field considering his past supporters at the South Bay Labor Council are all-in for former vice mayor and present county supe Dave Cortese. Fly isn’t the only one scratching its head over Williams’ kind-of, sort-of run. He said SBLC officials have called to “ask what’s my plan,” which is code for “WTF, Forrest?” There are some theories that 2010 figures into his new effort. A look at disclosure forms shows that Williams and his wife, Dorothy, had to forgive $116,950 they loaned his supervisor campaign. Williams insisted that he forgave only about $50-60K, though, and isn’t running to help pay off old debts.

Despite calling it “a humanitarian issue,” Santa Clara County Supervisor Dave Cortese said he doesn’t want to assign blame to the the county’s Department of Family and Children’s Services, which has failed to answer thousands of calls to the local child abuse hotline—the public’s first point of contact with welfare services.

Two minutes shy of deadline to place it on the Nov. 19 City Council agenda, Councilmember Pierluigi Oliverio logged a request for the city to revisit the discussion about where to place a softball complex paid for by the remaining balance of a $228 million pool of bond funds. That and more at Wednesday’s Rules and Open Government Committee.

Just when a debate over Santa Clara County’s civil detainer policy was getting stale, straight-laced Supervisor Joe Simitian delivered a bombshell by admitting he was arrested as a kid. The former state senator declined to share any more details except to say that he was locked up for “47-and-a-half hours” in Juvenile Hall on suspicion of some crime, cleared and then released. A details man, Simitian may be the only person to ever make the distinction between being in jail for 47-and-a-half hours and 48. “I’m going to ask you about that later,” joked fellow Supervisor Cindy Chavez. Maybe it was an attempt to relate, but Simitian’s youthful brush with the law hardly compares to the plight of undocumented immigrants who face deportation if charged with a crime.

Former San Jose Councilmember Forrest Williams plans to run for mayor of San Jose, leaving a little less elbow room in an already crowded field. In a bid to succeed Mayor Chuck Reed, Williams will face off against Santa Clara County Supervisor David Cortese, Vice Mayor Madison Nguyen and councilmembers Pete Constant, Sam Liccardo and Pierluigi Oliverio, amongst others.

Dave Cortese’s announcement this week that he is running for mayor of San Jose, more or less, sets the field for next year’s race. Campaign fundraising can’t officially start until December, but endorsements are right around the corner. In fact, the South Bay Labor Council has taken an unusually quick approach to finishing its endorsement process for mayor. Today, questionnaires for the SBLC’s Committee on Political Education (COPE) were due today. San Jose Inside has attained a copy of that questionnaire.

Dave Cortese made a long-expected announcement Wednesday that he will run for mayor of San Jose in 2014. The District 3 county supervisor, who made an unsuccessful run in 2006 while serving as a San Jose councilmember, plans to file papers with the Registrar of Voters on Wednesday afternoon.

San Jose Inside takes a quick look at what some of the candidates for the 2014 mayor’s race in San Jose have been up to and what political insiders are saying.