Ballot Box

TUESDAY'S MIDTERM election victories for the Democrats in the House and the Senate were striking but not historically extraordinary. Of the 16 midterm elections since World War II, Tuesday's was the seventh that could be classified as a repudiation election, a turnover that revealed widespread dissatisfaction with the policies of the president and his party. The varied aftermaths of past repudiation elections show the difficulty of forecasting what will follow the Democrats' victory.

THEY get the best booths at the Grill, they make the deals happen and they represent the highest-wattage of A-list clients: Julia Roberts, Nicole Kidman, Matt Damon. So, what do guys like Patrick Whitesell and Kevin Huvane have to do to cast an Oscar ballot in this town? Voting members of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences include actors, writers and directors, of course. Then there's the casting directors and makeup, design and other technical teams. Oh, yes, and the publicists.

Re "As a campaign issue, healthcare is comatose," Oct. 31 With more than 6 million Californians uninsured, neither candidate for governor has articulated how to achieve better health coverage. We do know that Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger vetoed the universal healthcare bill by state Sen. Sheila Kuehl (D-Santa Monica). This bill would have created one public insurer to cover all Californians with no increase in income taxes. This bill could have saved millions. When we go to the polls next week, we must remember that although our Legislature passed this bill , it was vetoed by Schwarzenegger.

Vinod Khosla is crusading for the measure on Tuesday's ballot that would tax oil companies billions of dollars to fund alternative energy development. He says it would be a boon to the environment. But it could also be a boon to his investment portfolio. Khosla, a co-chairman of the campaign to pass Proposition 87 and a $1.1-million donor to the effort, invests in ethanol manufacturing companies poised to claim government grants that would be funded with the new tax.

In the fight to preserve the toughest abortion ban in the nation, the talk is not of a fetus' right to life. It's of a woman's right to motherhood. Antiabortion activists here deliberately avoid the familiar slogans of their movement. They don't talk about the "murder of innocent babies" or quote the Bible on the sanctity of life.

BALLOT-FATIGUED CALIFORNIANS, who in six weeks face their third election in a year, can be forgiven if they feel left out of the action. Voters elsewhere will see brutal political warfare between Republicans and Democrats for control of Congress -- but all seats here appear safe. The battle for Congress will not be decided in California. Yet on Nov.

Before last week, this rural region in the heartland state of Guanajuato was famous for producing some of the biggest vegetables Mexico has ever seen: a 90-pound cabbage and onions as big as volleyballs. Now Valle de Santiago has produced another bountiful harvest, this one for conservative presidential candidate Felipe Calderon.

With more than 90% of an official recount concluded late Wednesday, leftist Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador held a slim lead over conservative Felipe Calderon in Mexico's fractious and unpredictable presidential election. The partial result was a surprising turnabout after two days of preliminary counts showed Calderon slightly ahead. The initial tally at the 131,000 polling places that began Sunday night was deemed too close to call.

Aiming to transform street passions into political power, organizers of recent immigrant rights marches Tuesday announced a national campaign to produce 1 million new citizens and voters by the November mid-term elections. The drive will "channel the unprecedented momentum of our previous marches into a targeted mass campaign for civic action," Roman Catholic Auxiliary Bishop Gabino Zavala said at a news conference at the Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels in Los Angeles.