Almost, not quite, for sure next time

At about 8:15 p.m. Tuesday night, I was getting ready to break the

confidentiality of one of my sources and announce to the world who

has suggested that state Sen. John Campbell would win more than 50%

of the vote in the primary, held to fill the House seat former Rep.

Chris Cox vacated in early August.

And then the returns from the day’s voting started creeping in,

and Campbell’s hold on the seat continued to drop, ever so slightly,

until he finished with an unofficial 46.8% of the vote.

This, of course, is the perfect scenario, as it gives us two more

months of campaigning.

Which leads to this aside: Last week I erred by about 30 days and

gave the wrong date for the general election in the 48th

Congressional race. It’s Dec. 6. Mark your calendars.

And while we’re at, if you missed the news, here’s the list of

candidates from which you’ll be choosing a new representative:

Campbell; Democrat Steve Young; American Independent Jim Gilchrist,

best known as a founder of the anti-illegal immigration Minuteman

Project; Libertarian Bruce Cohen; and Green Bea Tiritilli.

But back to 8:15 p.m. The shock of Campbell’s huge early lead was

compounded by the fact that, as predicted, the absentee voting

accounted for nearly two-thirds of the total ballots.

As of Wednesday evening, 89,991 votes had been cast -- just 22.4%

of the registered voters. And 57,070 of those were absentee.

(Campbell’s total, by the way, dropped even a bit more on Wednesday

and now is at 45.7%.)

Campbell obviously won the war to get to absentee voters, which is

a central explanation for his victory (along with getting the county

party’s backing and simply being most in tune with most GOP voters).

But something else played into his almost getting a quick trip to

Washington: Democrats didn’t show up to vote.

Go back a year to the last time Cox ran. The vote totals then were

Cox with 65% of the vote, 189,004; Democrat John Graham with 32.2%,

at 93,525; and Cohen with 2.9%, at 8,343.

You’re reading that correctly. A year ago, Graham got more votes

than were cast on Tuesday. But look even closer. In 2004, Graham got

more than 32% of the vote. This year, all the Democrats combined got

just 16.4%.

I’d figured there would be no way for Campbell to win more than

50% of the vote because about 30% would go to the Democrats. How

possibly could Campbell get such an overwhelming majority of what was

left? I suspected he’d end up at best in the high 30%.

The answer was, he didn’t need to get an overwhelming majority.

With no Democrats showing up, it was almost possible to win the

election on Tuesday.

The other wildcard that didn’t show up as much as it might have

was Gilchrist. He’s pulled a respectable 14.6% of the vote -- almost

as much as the Democrats -- but that’s not enough for him to be a

serious candidate on Dec. 6.

Tuesday’s vote has to be a minor rebuke for Gilchrist. But it was

a major rebuke for former Assemblywoman Marilyn Brewer, who as the

moderate Republican only got 17.1% of the vote.

Brewer, with that, becomes old news. More interesting is how the

lack of moderate support seems an ill portent for the first candidate

to have announced plans to run for Campbell’s seat: Assemblyman Tom

Harman, whose Huntington Beach district makes up the northern part of

Campbell’s state Senate seat.

Brewer’s showing has to give him pause. But still in his corner is

his opposition to the El Toro Airport, which will play well in the

southern part of the seat, and his name recognition in Huntington

Beach and surrounding areas (where, I suspect, there are more

moderate Republicans).

I think we can count on the race to replace Campbell being far

more exciting than the race to replace Cox has been.

I sure hope it is.

* S.J. CAHN is the managing editor. He may be reached at (714)

966-4607 or by e-mail at o7s.j.cahn@latimes.comf7.