Paparian's election night party

Erin and I went to the Bill Paparian election-night party in Pasadena. Ed Begley, Jr., the actor and environmentalist--and a high school classmate of Paparian--introduced the candidate. Paparian, a defense attorney and former mayor of Pasadena, spoke about his experience in the Marines, and how his counsel of a fellow soldier led him to go into the law and public service. He also argued convincingly that his Democrat opponent, Adam Schiff, had severed his ties with the community after being elected to Congress and moving to Washington. He said Schiff bought a large house in Maryland, where his family lives, and is now only a resident of California on paper, having registered to vote at a small apartment in his rarely-visited district.

Unfortunately, my camera was out of batteries, so I didn't take any pictures at the event. I'll try to find and post some later.

[Update: Bob Morris put audio from the event on his blog, Politics in the Zeros]

Up-to-the minute election night results:

Green Party primaries:

U.S. Senate (77.4% of precincts reporting as of Jun 7, 2006 at 1:29 am)
Todd Chretien.........45.2%
Tian Harter...........37.9%
Kent P. Mesplay.......16.9%

No big surprise here, probably a lot of people voting randomly. Tian Harter's long activist participation in the Green Party helping him, but Chretien's more high profile campaign as part of the "Million Votes for Peace" slate carrying the day.

State Assembly District 44 (99.3% of precincts reporting)

Ricardo Costa..........60.5%
Philip Koebel..........39.5%

Both candidates--friends who ran in a contested primary to raise the profile of the Green Party in Pasadena--were at the election-night party. I wasn't paying much attention to this race, but I was told that the result was somewhat a surprise, as Koebel had name recognition from an previous campaign.


Non-partisan races:

Superintendent of Public Instruction (78.4% of precincts reporting as of 1:45 am):
Jack T. O'Connell.......52.8%
Sarah L. Knopp..........17.1%

Sarah Knopp is a Green, and a teacher in Los Angeles. It is a nice surprise that she did this well in the election, coming in second among five candidates and garnering 478,107 votes (and counting). Although it would have been amazing if Jack O'Connell had been held under 50% and she got into a runoff.

Oakland City Council (50% of precincts reporting):
Patricia Kernighan.......50.5%
Aimee Allison............33.4%
Shirley Gee..............16.1%

Aimee Allison is the Green in this race.


In other races of note, Phil Angelides has won the Democrat primary for Governor, Debra Bowen won the Dem primary for Secretary of State, and both propositions are losing.

Oh, and Roy Moore went down in flames in Alabama. :)