Belated grace

It took nearly a week, but finally one of the losers in Ventura County's two most contested partisan races took a stab at being gracious on Monday. Republican Bob Pohl, who lost by about 7,000 votes to Democrat Pedro Nava in the 35th District issued a formal statement last Wednesday evening that sounded like, but wasn't quite, a concession statement. He lauded his campaign staff and his supporters, but made no mention of Nava.

On Monday, however, he issued another statement with this brief acknowledgement: "I congratulate Pedro Nava on his election to the State Assembly. I wish him the best of luck."

Not effusive, perhaps, but a considerable step up from Democrat Ferial Masry's reaction in the 37th District after losing to Republican Audra Strickland. Masry said Strickland "didn't deserve what she got" and vowed to run against her again in two years.

Both losing candidates were personally offended by campaign activities of their opponents. Pohl took offense to a Nava commercial that challenged his record as a member of the Santa Barbara School Board and Masry was enraged over a recorded phone call that talked about her alleged support for a law to provide driver's licenses to illegal immigrants. The phone call noted security concerns over issuing such licenses and mentioned the word "terrorism."

Masry, who was born in Saudi Arabia, assailed the phone calls as an ethnic smear on Arab-Americans. Pohl believed the TV ads distorted his record.

Neither the TV commercial nor the phone call were examples of enlighted public discourse. But given the loose ground rules for conducting partisan campaigns these days, both were certainly within the bounds of partisan warfare.

Masry's reaction is understandable, and a case can be made that the calls used code language to call attention to her ethnic origins. But while Strickland's phone calls were dark and threatening, it is true that the 9/11 Commission recommended that states develop uniform rules for issuing driver's licenses.

The pique is particularly difficult to understand in Pohl's case: If a candidate can't make his opponent's record as an elected official part of the campaign debate, what else is there to talk about? Pohl could certainly challenge the criticism, but how can he legitimately be offended by it?

As they say, politics ain't beanbag.

Somehow John Kerry, who was subjected to far worse, found the resolve to be civil and gracious in defeat. Other defeated candidates should take note of his example.

The final numbers

The final voter registration numbers released yesterday by the secretary of state show that Ventura County fell just short of the 400,000 mark on its voter roll for today's balloting -- 398,6652.

Since the last report on Sept. 3, Democrats gained very slightly on Republicans, with 7,414 additional Democrats and 7,142 new Republicans. More significant, however, was where the new Democrats were added -- largely in the 35th Assembly District, the county's main partisan battleground today.

The district (including the Ventura County and Santa Barbara County portions) added 8,500 Democrats since Sept. 3 and only 3,800 Republicans. The new numbers boost the Democrats' voter-registration edge to 13 percentage points, 44.7 percent to 31.7 percent.

With those numbers, a victory today by Republican Bob Pohl over Democrat Pedro Nava would be a colossal upset. It would be virtually unheard of for a candidate to win a district when less than 32 percent of voters are registered with his party.

I'll see your CTA...and raise you an AFSCME

What do the California Teachers Association, the Hollywood Park Casino, the San Manuel Tribal Administration and the Association of Federal, State, County and Municipal Employees have in common? Not much that we can think of, but they have joined together to financially support an independent expenditure group that jumped in big time over the last week in the hotly contested 35th Assembly District campaign.

Known collectively as "Californians for a Better Future," the group dumped $101,000 into the race on behalf of Democrat Pedro Nava on Friday. That followed a $25,000 expense on Tuesday.

The effort is an indication that this race is very close. Sources from both sides have told me over the last 24 hours that the race with Republican Bob Pohl is within the margin of error in internal polling.