Voter Turnout Will Make or Break Races

SANTA ANA —  In real estate, there is nothing more important than location, location, location. During elections, it’s all about turnout, turnout, turnout.

Once again, the question of who will win on election day rests largely on how many voters will actually cast their ballots.

Starting at the pivotal presidential contest all the way down the ballot to the propositions and a host of heated City Council races, turnout will be key.

“There are a dozen ways to slice it and analyze it, but it’s all about voter turnout,” said Barbara Shell Stone, a professor of political science at Cal State Fullerton and member of a prominent California Republican family. “Whatever party turns out could win it.”

While county Registrar of Voters Rosalyn Lever won’t make predictions, Secretary of State Bill Jones last week estimated that 71% of the state voters will take part in the election, a turnout that would be a record low for California in a presidential year.

In Orange County, where Republicans hold every partisan elected office, a low turnout tends to favor the GOP.

“Democrats historically vote in much lower percentages here than the Republicans,” said Dan Wooldridge, a Santa Ana-based political consultant. “As the turnout grows beyond 70%, however, things start getting iffy for the incumbents.”

Adding another potentially potent ingredient to the political mix this year is the growing voter interest in the third parties, which most people attribute to a dissatisfaction with the politics-as-usual stance offered by Republicans and Democrats.

“Something very strange is happening in this election. No one knows how it is going to turn out,” said Pat Choate, the Reform Party vice presidential candidate, who appeared in Santa Ana last week. “The one thing we do know is we are not going to get 8% and we are not going to get 12%. We are going to do far better than that.”

For his part, county Republican Party Chairman Thomas A. Fuentes is not shy about making predictions. Bob Dole’s recent visits to the county have energized his party’s formidable volunteer force, he said. Despite “contrived and biased polls that are fed to us by the media,” the GOP’s numbers are “stronger than they have ever been,” Fuentes said.

“Every partisan office in the county is today occupied by a Republican,” he said. “I genuinely believe that come Wednesday morning that will again be the case.”

His counterpart on the Democratic side, party Chairman Jim Toledano, obviously sees things differently. To Toledano, the strength of the Clinton-Gore ticket statewide offers hope that the county could back a Democratic president for the first time since Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1936.

“The kind of support Clinton and the party have gotten, largely because of the way the Republicans have swerved to the right, means long-term changes,” Toledano said. “We are coming back.”

Toledano echoed the contention made by most of his party’s congressional candidates--that the Republicans have opted for an extremist agenda linked to House Speaker Newt Gingrich. Most observers don’t expect the majority of county voters to upset any of the Republican incumbents, however, with the possible exception of Rep. Robert K. Dornan (R-Garden Grove) in the 46th District.

Dornan is locked in the battle of his career against Democrat Loretta Sanchez, a county native who grew up in Anaheim. A similar confrontation is taking place in the 69th Assembly District, which includes much of the same territory, where Assemblyman Jim Morrissey (R-Santa Ana) is facing Democrat Lou Correa, another Anaheim resident.

“I think the Sanchez race and the Correa race both come down to turnout,” said Toledano, noting that the two districts have large Latino and Democratic populations.

While most of the county’s other state Senate and Assembly races are expected to remain in Republican hands, the Correa-Morrissey battle has statewide implications. Assembly Speaker Curt Pringle (R-Garden Grove), who is picked to win handily over Democrat Audrey L. Gibson of Anaheim, needs a Republican victory to keep his hold on the top post in the Capitol’s lower house.

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Even Assemblyman Scott Baugh (R-Huntington Beach), despite his legal troubles stemming from his victory over former Assembly Speaker Doris Allen of Cypress a year ago, is expected to win easily.

Two Republicans will definitely win the two nonpartisan open seats--representing the 1st and 3rd districts--on the County Board of Supervisors since all four candidates are members of the GOP.

And whether it is Westminster Mayor Charles V. Smith or Garden Grove Councilman Mark Leyes in the 1st District, or Assemblyman Mickey Conroy (R-Orange) or Deputy Dist. Atty. Todd Spitzer in the 3rd District, the winner will enjoy unusual clout on the five-member board.

With Supervisor Marian Bergeson also stepping down to become state secretary of education and child development, a new board majority will be seated in January.

“It’s a historic change for that board, which was static for so long,” said Mark Thompson, a Republican county political consultant working on the Conroy campaign, among others.

New faces on the Board of Supervisors will be welcome in South County, where controversial issues like the proposed commercial airport at the El Toro Marine Corps Air Station and a possible expansion of the James A. Musick Branch Jail dominate the election.

“The idea we can get some significant changes on the board is really exciting,” said Laguna Hills Councilwoman Melody Carruth, an outspoken airport opponent who acknowledged she has been “at odds” with several board members for a long time.

The feisty Conroy-Spitzer race is regarded as the most heated of the two supervisorial contests. In the final days of the campaign, both sides accused the other of secretly backing a commercial airport and an expanded jail.

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“How in the world can the voters trust a man who has lied about this issue?” asked Spitzer after mailers distributed by the Conroy campaign suggested Spitzer wanted to expand the jail. “There is only one liar in this whole election, and it’s my opponent.”

Said Conroy’s consultant Thompson in response: “He’s lied about our stands on issues in his mailers.”

Some serious feuding has taken center stage among several City Council contests around the county. For instance:

* In Fullerton, a slate of candidates including W. Snow Hume, Bruce W. Whitaker and Barbara J. Marr are wooing voters with cash by promising to refund a controversial utility tax approved by the City Council.

* In Huntington Beach, the local police union has been accused of such nefarious activities as destroying campaign signs and intimidating voters. The union is actively campaigning for challengers Thom Doney and Pam Julien to unseat Mayor Dave Sullivan and Councilman Tom Harman. Councilman Victor Leipzig is also being targeted.

* In Santa Ana’s Ward 1, Councilman Ted R. Moreno is facing a well-funded challenge from newcomer Jose Solorio, who is backed by the city Chamber of Commerce and other council members.

* In Laguna Beach, two school district activists, Bill O’Hare and Ron Harris, are running as a slate for the two open seats on the five-member council.

* In Laguna Niguel, business executive Mimi Krogius Walters has surprised locals by spending $40,000--about twice what others have spent in past elections--in hopes of winning one of three open council seats.

* In San Clemente, where the city clerk is an elected post, appointed incumbent Paul Gudgeirsson, who is also the city budget and finance director, is facing a last-minute write-in campaign from investment consultant Tom Jones.

In addition, there are more than 60 school board and special district board of directors’ races on the ballot Tuesday.