Super victors deserve kudos

Hail to the winners and woe to the losers of Super Tuesday’s

election.

The winners are many: The virtually assured elections to the state

Senate and Assembly for local Republicans, an incumbent congressman

handily beating back a challenge from a political rival, more money

from Sacramento for local governments and schools and a new

electronic voting booth being used for the first time with nary a

glitch.

In the race for the 35th District state Senate seat being vacated

by state Sen. Ross Johnson, Assemblyman John Campbell ran a spirited

campaign against fellow Assemblyman Ken Maddox and Dana Point Mayor

Joe Snyder. It wasn’t really a fair fight.

Campbell’s war chest of $1 million dwarfed Maddox’s, who had about

half that amount. Campbell far overshadowed both Maddox and Snyder in

name recognition and garnered one of the biggest prizes of all -- an

endorsement by popular Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger.

Campbell, who has served Newport-Mesa well in the Assembly, will

take on Democrat Rita Siebert next November in what is most surely

going to be another Republican landslide in this GOP stronghold.

Chuck DeVore, who was the No. 1 pick to replace Campbell in his

70th District Assembly seat, also looks to have a similar future

ahead of him.

DeVore survived an at times heated battle between rival

Republicans Cristi Cristich of Corona del Mar, Don Wagner, Chonchol

Gupta and Marianne Zippi and Long Pham of Newport Beach. The race got

ugly at times, with Cristich having to apologize to Rep. Chris Cox

for implying on a flier that he had endorsed her over DeVore.

Like Campbell, DeVore looks to have an easy race against Democrat

Carl Mariz in November.

Also on Tuesday, Van Tran defeated Garden Grove Councilman Mark

Leyes in the race to be the Republican candidate for the 68th

Assembly District, vacated by Ken Maddox, which encompasses Costa

Mesa. Tran would also be the odds-on favorite to defeat Democrat Al

Snook next election day.

In December, Dana Rohrabacher might not have been sleeping too

easily when his political foe Robert Dornan took out papers to run

against the longtime incumbent Republican from Huntington Beach.

Dornan had threatened such moves before and now he was making good on

that threat.

But come March, Dornan never really showed up for the fight and

Rohrabacher crushed the former, but still feisty, congressman by a

60% margin. Rohrabacher takes on Democrat Jim Brandt in November.

City and school officials were breathing a sigh of relief

Wednesday with the victory of two statewide bond measures,

Propositions 55 and 57. Proposition 55 would ensure additional money

to enhance Newport-Mesa’s Measure A improvement funds and Proposition

57, the $15-billion borrowing plan touted by Gov. Schwarzenegger,

should keep cities from having to make deep cuts to services.

The only loser to mention today, also care of the Registrar’s

office, is democracy itself, as a woeful 34% of the voters reportedly

cast ballots in this primary election compared to 48% four years ago.

With hanging chads finally a thing of the past, maybe voter

turnout is the next big issue for election officials to tackle --

hopefully in time for November.