Gubernatorial Election

Last month's political contest between Jerry Brown and Meg Whitman mobilized more California voters than any gubernatorial election since 1994, according to final election results certified Friday by Secretary of State Debra Bowen. The Nov. 2 election drew a 59.6% turnout, Bowen said. "The race for governor and some controversial propositions drew the highest number of people to the polls in five gubernatorial elections," she said. Just as a sweep of statewide offices by Democrats in California ran counter to GOP gains nationally, the Golden State's voters did not exhibit the "enthusiasm gap" that dampened turnout in other states.

LAS VEGAS - A week's worth of soul-searching among Republicans has yielded no shortage of explanations for the party's failure to win the White House. They point to the Obama campaign's early and aggressive effort to disparage Mitt Romney. They admit Democrats had a superior voter-turnout operation. Some point to Superstorm Sandy, saying it robbed Romney of momentum. What they won't say is that President Obama won a mandate for his vision, or that the GOP has veered too far right in its outlook.

Prime Minister Morihiro Hosokawa's coalition won a test-case election for governor of Ishikawa prefecture, or state, Sunday that tore another hole in the fabric of power of the once-almighty Liberal Democratic Party. In the first head-on gubernatorial race between a candidate for Hosokawa's seven-party coalition and the Liberal Democrats, voters in the state west of Tokyo gave the coalition candidate, Masamori Tanimoto, the 48-year-old former vice governor, 288,085 votes, or 46.9% of the total.

A special election for the governor's office in West Virginia is too close to call as voters head to the polls Tuesday in what may be the latest example of how President Obama's struggles are weighing down his party. Strategists on both sides agree that the race, static for much of the year, has tightened in the last week. That movement coincides with a late television advertisement paid for by the Republican Governors Assn. that injected the issue of Obama's health reform law into the contest.

"Dear Governor-elect Racine," the letter from Florida Gov. Jeb Bush said. "Congratulations to you, your family and staff on your recent election!...." The only problem: Doug Racine was the loser in Vermont's gubernatorial election. "Congratulations have been made to Governor-elect Jim Douglas," Elizabeth Hirst, a Bush spokeswoman, said.

A candidate who supports a plan for a new base for thousands of U.S. troops has won a closely watched gubernatorial election in Okinawa, electoral officials announced. Hirokazu Nakaima, 67, a bureaucrat with support from Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's ruling bloc, narrowly beat Keiko Itokazu, said local election board official Maiko Tashiro. Itokazu opposed Tokyo's plan to relocate a U.S. Marine Corps airstrip to another site on the island. There are about 50,000 U.S. troops in Japan.

Re "Simon Firm Must Pay $78 Million, Jury Rules," Aug. 1: The latest news of the jury decision requiring [Republican gubernatorial candidate] Bill Simon's firm to pay $78 million in damages for "fraud and other misconduct" leaves voters with only one reasonable choice in the next gubernatorial election: write-in votes for [former Los Angeles Mayor] Richard Riordan. I'm a Democrat, and that's what I had planned to do all along. There is a danger in this, though. A split vote could result in Simon winning the election.

Candidates from the ruling Institutional Revolutionary Party face stiff challenges Sunday in two gubernatorial elections and the threat of violence if the vote is believed to be fraudulent. In the central farming state of Michoacan, the official party's candidate, Eduardo Villasenor, is running against the Democratic Revolutionary Party's Cristobal Arias.

"Continental Divide," David Edgar's two-part epic play set against the backdrop of a gubernatorial election in a state that seems to be California -- though it's never identified -- officially arrives in California today as the production opens at Berkeley Repertory Theatre. Since the play's March premiere at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival in Ashland, Ore., California has gone through its real-life gubernatorial drama.

To Lisa Goich, Tuesday's gubernatorial election pits run-on Gray Davis against lilting Dan Lungren. Last January, Goich, then a temp, was hired by Democratic hopeful Al Checchi (remember "Call Me Al"?) to transcribe each of his speeches, and those of his opponents, along with every debate. Checchi's words fell on deaf ears with the public, but Goich was subsequently retained by an L.A.-based think tank to transcribe the oral meanderings of primary winners Davis and Lungren.

State elections this weekend in Mexico are shaping up as a revealing test of whether the once-dominant Institutional Revolutionary Party, on a steady march to retake the presidential palace, has changed its old autocratic ways. The party, which ruled Mexico with an iron fist for 70 years but lost the presidency in 2000, insists it has reformed and modernized, and it is handily capitalizing on public anger at rising violence and a sluggish economy to make significant gains. The PRI, its initials in Spanish, is expected to coast to victory in the all-important race for governor in Mexico state and is leading in opinion polls in two other states that will vote Sunday.

Last month's political contest between Jerry Brown and Meg Whitman mobilized more California voters than any gubernatorial election since 1994, according to final election results certified Friday by Secretary of State Debra Bowen. The Nov. 2 election drew a 59.6% turnout, Bowen said. "The race for governor and some controversial propositions drew the highest number of people to the polls in five gubernatorial elections," she said. Just as a sweep of statewide offices by Democrats in California ran counter to GOP gains nationally, the Golden State's voters did not exhibit the "enthusiasm gap" that dampened turnout in other states.

A candidate who supports a plan for a new base for thousands of U.S. troops has won a closely watched gubernatorial election in Okinawa, electoral officials announced. Hirokazu Nakaima, 67, a bureaucrat with support from Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's ruling bloc, narrowly beat Keiko Itokazu, said local election board official Maiko Tashiro. Itokazu opposed Tokyo's plan to relocate a U.S. Marine Corps airstrip to another site on the island. There are about 50,000 U.S. troops in Japan.

Brushing aside concerns that donors are tapped out and tired, campaign warriors are preparing to spend upward of $100 million on Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's special election. In what otherwise would have been an electoral respite this year, politicians and patrons might have squirreled away money for 2006, when Californians will elect a governor and other statewide officers.

Today, when this frigid quarter of the Arctic Circle conducts Russia's last direct election for governor, many will heave a sigh of relief. Incumbent governor Vladimir Butov, who constantly feuded with the oil companies squatting in this town like crows in a sparrow's nest, was criminally charged with abuse of office and assault, disqualified from running for a third term and thrown out of the race.

Re "A Man of the People ... People Who Pay," column, Jan. 19: Congratulations to Steve Lopez for taking on our macho governor in terms clear enough for even this governor to understand. What I do not understand is why The Times does not take on the governor, editorially and firmly with regard to his faux claims of attacking the "special interests" at the same time he pockets up to $6 million from those same interests. Put Lopez on Page 1 and let him go unrestrained until our politicos wake up and do what needs to be done, even as Ronald Reagan did as governor, namely raise the ante for the fat cats.

Re "A Man of the People ... People Who Pay," column, Jan. 19: Congratulations to Steve Lopez for taking on our macho governor in terms clear enough for even this governor to understand. What I do not understand is why The Times does not take on the governor, editorially and firmly with regard to his faux claims of attacking the "special interests" at the same time he pockets up to $6 million from those same interests. Put Lopez on Page 1 and let him go unrestrained until our politicos wake up and do what needs to be done, even as Ronald Reagan did as governor, namely raise the ante for the fat cats.

LAS VEGAS - A week's worth of soul-searching among Republicans has yielded no shortage of explanations for the party's failure to win the White House. They point to the Obama campaign's early and aggressive effort to disparage Mitt Romney. They admit Democrats had a superior voter-turnout operation. Some point to Superstorm Sandy, saying it robbed Romney of momentum. What they won't say is that President Obama won a mandate for his vision, or that the GOP has veered too far right in its outlook.

After a strange and violent gubernatorial campaign marked by a faked assassination attempt on the incumbent, voters in the state of Oaxaca go to the polls today in a midterm Mexican election that lays bare the divisions in the once-invincible Institutional Revolutionary Party. Polls show Ulises Ruiz, the candidate for the PRI, as the party is known, in a dead heat with Gabino Cue, a former PRI-ista who represents an alliance of opposing parties.

"Continental Divide," David Edgar's two-part epic play set against the backdrop of a gubernatorial election in a state that seems to be California -- though it's never identified -- officially arrives in California today as the production opens at Berkeley Repertory Theatre. Since the play's March premiere at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival in Ashland, Ore., California has gone through its real-life gubernatorial drama.