California Secretary of State Debra Bowen was a somewhat orphaned figure in the spin room at the Kodak Theater following tonight's Democratic debate. The reason: Bowen, as the state's chief elections official, has remained neutral in the campaign.

She learned that lesson, she said, from former Florida Secretary of State Katherine Harris, whose impartiality as a supporter of President Bush was questioned during the tense recount of that state's presidential vote in 2000.

Besides, Bowen has plenty else on her mind going into Tuesday's election. Specifically, making certain that things go smoothly.

She is not estimating what the turnout will be, but notes anecdotal evidence that voters are unusually engaged in a primary election.

"I just keep reminding people that it's most important to have the results correct," she told me.

Many absentee voters appear to be holding on to their ballots an unusually long time, she said. If they drop off their ballots at polling places on Tuesday, those ballots won't be counted for days.

I pointed out such delays could make news reporters very grouchy.

"If we're slow, you're going to be grouchy for a few days," Bowen said. "If we're wrong, you'll never forgive us."

I'd just checked into the Kodak Theater in Hollywood about 15 minutes ago when I got a timely call from Laura Winchester, vice chair of the Ventura County Democratic Central Committee -- timely, because it comes as the mass of assembled media here prepares to cover this evening's one-on-one Democratic debate between Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama.

Winchester reported the latest voter registration figures from Ventura County, as of Tuesday. They show that Democrats are now just 474 voters shy of parity -- within striking range of overtaking Republicans and having a plurality of the registered voters in the county. The county became a Republican county in the mid-1980s and the GOP has held supremacy since. A shift to a Democratic county would obviously provide a big boost to the enthusiasm of local activists heading into the November presidential election.

"It's very doable," Winchester said.

She reports that the latest surge is the result of voter-registration drives at community college campuses -- yet another indicator that young adults are focusing on the 2008 election as they have seldom done before.

The Reagan Library, being a good neighbor, provided local officials with several choice seats in the small spectator section at Wednesday evening's Republican presidential debate.

Among them was Rep. Elton Gallegly, who shared a good story about his day. He had flown from Washington with President Bush aboard Air Force One. When Bush asked him to come along on his visit to a helicopter plant in Torrance, Gallagly said he needed to get to Simi Valley because it was his wife's birthday. Bush then picked up the airplane phone and called Janice Gallegly to wish her a happy birthday...

Other locals in the crowd included state Sen. Tom McClintock, District Attorney Greg Totten, Supervisors Linda Parks and Peter Foy, Simi Valley City Councilman Glen Becerra, Thousand Oaks Mayor Jacqui Irwin, Thousand Oaks City Councilman Dennis Gillette, Oxnard attorney Jeff Gorell and former Amgen CEO Gordon Binder.

The list, I'm certain, isn't exhaustive, but those were the only folks I could see from my seat in the far corner.

Oxnard Supervisor John Flynn may have been the only Democrat in the house, but I'm told that he left during the debate's one commercial break.

I just ran into former California Secretary of State Bill Jones here at the Ronald Reagan Library. I suggested to him that perhaps he was the second-place finisher in last night's Florida primary. He smiled and nodded in silent agreement.

How so? Well, eight years ago Jones rescinded his endorsement of George W. Bush and came out instead for John McCain in the 2000 GOP presidential primary. That decision later made him a pariah in the Bush camp. With political enemies in the White House, Jones' chance to win the Republican nomination for governor in 2002 were pretty much shot.

Now Jones finds himself as the most prominent California supporter of the Republican presidential front-runner. And, yes, he very much seemed to be enjoying the role.

In the wake of John McCain's big win in Florida last night and his emergence as the clear front-runner for the GOP presidential nomination, I thought back to two years ago and the run-up to the congressional midterm elections that were disastrous for the party.

Former New Jersey Gov. Christine Todd Whitman, one of the party's most celebrated moderates, was in California to stump for Arnold Schwarzenegger and promote her book, "It's My Party, Too." In an interview, Whitman lamented the political environment dominated in her view by extremists on both sides.

That environment, she said at the time, would make it impossible for any candidate other than an extreme, combative conservative to win her party's presidential primary in 2008. McCain was among those she specifically counted out.

"I don't think they could get through the process as it exists," she said.

It is noteworthy that McCain is being advised in this campaign by the same person who managed Schwarzenegger's re-election in 2006: Steve Schmidt, who predicted two years ago that the governor's essentially nonpartisan campaign in California could serve as a roadmap for Republicans in 2008.

"The American people want to see this type of leadership," Schmidt said on the night of Schwarzenegger's re-election. "They want the fighting to stop."

For the moment, McCain will be working to unite the party and to reassure conservatives. But come fall when the general election campaign kicks in, if McCain is the nominee expect a campaign that tries to steal a page or two from Schwarzenegger's "post-partisan" handbook.

The center of the Republican universe today is Ventura County, California. To wit:

-- At noon, former GOP governor Pete Wilson speaks to a policy forum at California Luthern University (it gets better).

-- At 1:30, Mike Huckabee, Tom McClintock, Hugh Hewitt and other conservative luminaries speak at another forum in Westlake Village (it gets better still).

-- At 3, the Regan Library has advised that a "special guest" may show up in advance of this evening's CNN Republican presidential debate. Speculation is rampant that this special guest's middle initial is W. (Can it get any better than that?)

-- At 4, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger will be on hand to take a few questions from the assembled media. (You didn't think he'd miss the chance, right?)

-- At some point, presumably before the beginning of the debate, it has been reported that Rudy Guliani will show up at the library to officially drop out of the race and endorse John McCain. (Imagine that, real news breaking out at a debate.)

-- At 5 p.m., the debate begins, the beginning of what amounts to a mano-a-mano contest between McCain and Mitt Romney.

Today's endorsements from Sen. Edward Kennedy and his niece Caroline Kennedy could help Barack Obama with a key Democratic constituency that to date has been solidly in the camp of Hillary Clinton: Latino voters.

Exit polls showed that Clinton overwhelmingly won the Latino vote in the Nevada caucus and pre-election polls show that she is leading substantially among Latino voters in California.

The Kennedy name is revered among many Latinos, who were instrumental in the coalition that helped the late Robert Kennedy to win the California Democratic primary in 1968. Even today, nearly 46 years after his assassination, former President John Kennedy remains an icon in Latino households, in which his photograph often can be found on the wall alongside Catholic religious icons. The campaigns of both men benefited from aggressive "Viva Kennedy" campaigns in Latino neighborhoods across California.

Kenneth Burt, author of a recent book on the history of Latino politics in California, reminded me of the significance of the Kennedy endorsement in an e-mail today. To underscore that significance, Burt has posted on his website a video clip of the first campaign commercial directed at Latino voters: a 1960 television ad in which Jacqueline Kennedy delivers an appeal in Spanish.

The Democratic presidential candidates are making some attempt to campaign in California despite the overwhelming cost of reaching voters in the nation's largest state. But it is noteworthy that none of the three contenders chose to write a check to have his or her name put on slate mailers that are such a vital part of lower-profile campaigns in California.

The "Voter Information Guide for Democrats" showed up in my house last week, addressed to my wife (I'm a decline-to-state voter), with official-looking recommendations on all the ballot propositions: Yes on 92, Yes on 93, No on 94, 95, 96 and 97. All those recommendations, of course, are accompanied by a small asterisk, meaning that campaigns paid handsomely to have their position represented as the official, learned position of the Voter Information Guide.

As for the top of ticket? The slate mailer includes photographs of Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama and John Edwards, with the notation: "Vote for the Democrat of your choice in the primary election and then rally around the winner in November."

Translation: All three declined to pay their way onto the mailer.

A new Public Policy Institute of California poll released today shows a wide gender gap among California Democrats — a gap on the order of the one that has shown itself in recent general elections.

If you add the votes of Barack Obama, John Edwards and (the recently withdrawn) Dennis Kucinich, the three men are carrying male Democrats 51 percent to 35 percent over Hillary Clinton. But Clinton alone captures 48 percent of the female vote, while the three men combined attract only 38 percent of Democratic women.

Pollster Mark Baldassare told me today that the Democratic gender gap is the most striking finding in the new poll: "It's incredible."

The findings raise an interesting question: If Clinton is the nominee, how much of the Democratic male vote will she be able to capture in November?

The fact is, if only men could vote, California might well be a red state. According to exit polls, for instance, Republican Bill Simon beat Democrat Gray Davis among men in their race for governor in 2002. Davis' entire margin of victory was supplied by women.

Since women are the source of the Democratic advantage in California, it's hard to imagine that having a woman on the ballot would substantially increase that already large edge. The bottom line, in California and elsewhere, is that a close election in the fall could be decided by whether the Democratic candidate's gender has any impact on the votes of independent and Democratic men.

Early on in today's marathon Senate Health Committee hearing on California's proposed comprehensive healthcare reform plan, Assembly Speaker Fabian Nuñez told senators that the plan is very much "a strong Democratic bill." He said that he anticipates a Democratic governor will be in office after Arnold Schwarzenegger is termed out in 2010, and that the new Democratic governor would ensure that the program worked as planned.

"Not that this governor has been bad," Nuñez said. "In the last year or so, he's been pretty good. I mean, just ask my Republican colleagues."

The hearing, by the way, opened at 9 a.m. and has continued without a break until now -- nearly 6 p.m. To find out if it's still going on, check the webcast.

It may not be too late. At one point late in the afternoon, Chairwoman Sheila Kuehl referred to it as "a 25-hour hearing."

After attending a Democratic caucus in Reno on Saturday, I came away believing there's a lot to be said for voting the old-fashioned way.

Three precincts were assigned to caucus at the south-side elementary school I visited. Two were in the multipurpose room, separated by a flimsy divider. The third was in the library.

The sign-in deadline was noon, but the school parking lot was filled to capacity by 10:45. By 11 o'clock the library was full and there was a line of 30 people out the door waiting to register.

Everyone was extraordinarily patient.

They began to get a little grumpy, however, after the voting started. It seemed that each time a precinct coordinator tried to count hands she arrived at a different number, necessitating numerous recounts. Then the coordinator had to compete a couple of confusing mathematical formulas to determine the allocation of each precinct's four or five delegates. In one of the precincts I observed, the coordinator was about to cut a deck of cards to determine one of the delegates since the fractional delegates the formula awarded to both Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton were below .5 and could not be rounded up. In the end, better math and sounder thinking prevailed.

By the end of the day, several of the caucus-goes expressed sentiment similar to what electronics technician Mario Salazar told me: "You should come in, vote on a piece of paper and go home."

A busload of volunteers left the state Capitol this morning bound for Nevada, where they will work tomorrow and Saturday trying to get Democrats to turn out for Hillary Clinton in Saturday's Nevada caucus. Assembly Speaker Fabian Nuñez, a national co-chair of the Clinton campaign, was on hand to send off the volunteers.

It has become a familiar scene in recent years, as Californians have flocked en masse to battleground states and early primary states to pitch in. And when prominent Californians do that, it can sometimes lead to awkward moments.

On the Sunday before the Iowa caucus, the Clinton campaign held a national conference call to brief prominent national supporters on the situation in Iowa.

According to a Californian who listened in, former Iowa Gov. Tom Vilsack got on the line to say the ground operations were going very well. He noted that a number of members of Congress were in the state to help campaign, and said that just that morning he had been impressed with the work of a Hispanic volunteer he encountered at the grocery store.

"I went over to introduce myself," Vilsack reportedly said. "I told him, 'You probably don't recognize me, but I'm the former governor of Iowa.' And he said, 'You probably don't recognize me, but I'm the mayor of Los Angeles.'"

Never let it be said that Antonio Villaraigosa isn't doing his part.

After learning yesterday that former President Bill Clinton was going to speak at UC Davis last night, I figured it would be easy enough to go over and listen. After all, he was speaking in the 8,500-seat basketball arena, the largest venue on campus.

This is what I discovered when I arrived 45 minutes before the 9 p.m. speech: a line of college students, five or six across, that stretched from the arena door, around a football field, back up the street past the arena and adjacent rec hall, around the rec hall, back toward the arena to where the end of the line nearly met up with the beginning. There must have been close to 15,000 in all — for an event that was announced less than 24 hours in advance. Some students stood on line for 5 hours.

Fortunately, I met a friend who had been holding a place for me and was able get in the door. Many thousands did not.

It's always an iffy proposition to predict that a given election year will be one in which the youth vote awakens and young voters show up at the polls in percentages even approaching those of their parents. But this could in fact be the year. The youth turnout was unusually large in Iowa, and higher than average in New Hampshire.

Seeing those members of the "Daily Show" generation turn out last night tells me that something in fact might be going on.

Clinton, whose many political skills include always framing issues around the future ("Don't Stop Thinking About Tomorrow," "Build a Bridge to the 21st Century"), picked up the theme again for the benefit of his college-age audience.

"Every election is about the future," he told them. "You have a bigger stake in this than I do because you have more tomorrows."

He spoke for an hour, easing into what was first a soft-sell on behalf of Hillary Clinton's campaign that eventually built into a forceful attempt to close the deal. It wasn't at all clear that even a majority of the students were sold on Hillary; there were, no doubt, thousands of Barack Obama and John Edwards supporters among them.

Bill Clinton didn't try to drive any wedges. "I love this election," he said, "because I don't have to be against anybody."

But his closing message was plain: If you're looking for someone who will secure a better future, Hillary's the one.

There wasn't much good humor yesterday when Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger presented his Doomsday budget proposal to slash school spending, close 48 parks and provide for the early release of more than 20,000 inmates. Still, Schwarzenegger was able to add a little levity to the news conference.

When asked by Sacramento Bee columnist Dan Walters whether he would be willing to repeat President George Herbert Walker Bush's famous proclamation of "Read my lips, no new taxes," Schwarzenegger gave an actor's reply:

"First off, I never steal anyone else's lines. For instance, you never hear me say, 'Make my day.' I say, 'I'll be back,' but never, 'Make my day.'"

In need of a primer on the process for selecting California's 441 delegates to the Democratic National Convention in August, I called the one guy who not only understands the complex formula, but has it memorized: state party political adviser Bob Mulholland.

Because of the early primary this year, California Democrats have moved the delegate-selection process to after the primary. Always before, candidates picked delegate slates before the vote, so no one knew how many actual delegates pledged to a given candidate -- if any -- would go on to the national convention.

On April 13 this year, Democrats in each congressional district will know precisely how many delegates Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama and John Edwards will have to select. That dynamic — coupled with the feverish level of enthusiasm over this year's presidential election — could create something bordering on chaos.

Each person hoping to become a delegate will recruit as many possible supporters to show up at the caucus to cast a vote. So Mulholland's advice to caucus organizers: Book a very large facility with plenty of parking.

After Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger predicted last night that "when the Senate finishes its deliberations" it will approve the healthcare reform bill passed by the Assembly in December, I asked Senate Health Committee Chairwoman Sheila Kuehl if she concurred with that assessment.

Kuehl declined to make a prediction on the ultimate outcome in the Senate, but she offered this assurance about what her committee will do with the bill: "We're going to have the world's longest hearing on it. The bill is 200 pages, and after we're through no one is going to able to say they didn't know what was in the bill."

Ventura County's other state senator, Republican Tom McClintock of Thousand Oaks, reacted even more strongly to Schwarzenegger's appeal for support of the $13 billion healthcare overhaul.

"I'm very disappointed in the governor's speech," McClintock said. "Out of one side of his mouth he promises spending restraint, and out of the other he promises the most expensive social program in the history of this -- or any other -- state along with the biggest tax increase in the history of this -- or any other -- state. That's not sound public policy. That's flimflammery and that's what got us into this mess."

Kuehl, the state's leading proponent of a single-payer healthcare system, says she does not intend to vote for the bill, which would provide near-universal health coverage through an expansion of public programs and reliance on the private insurance market.

The Health Committee has a hearing scheduled for next Wednesday, but that could be put back a week if Legislative Analyst Elizabeth Hill has not completed her study on the fiscal implications of the measure on future state budgets.

The political reality of 2008 hits home in Sacramento tomorrow with the governor's annual State of the State address, the traditional kickoff that sets the tone and agenda for the year ahead in the Capitol.

There are years when some Californians are actually paying attention. This won't be one of them, as the presidential campaign of 2008 will dominate media coverage and public attention.

Here's the first reality check: In order to get some live television coverage of the event, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger had to move the traditional 5 p.m. start time up to 3:30 in the afternoon. The reason is that television networks will begin live coverage of the New Hampshire primary results beginning at 5 p.m. Pacific time, meaning that the governor would have been bumped off the tube had he waited until 5.