 | Jubilation at the brewery [North Coast Journal] |
Hundreds celebrate the DA's easy victory
by HANK SIMS
March 4, 2004
A campaign volunteer's wolf whistle silenced the crowd shortly after 9 p.m. Tuesday night. After quiet descended, Steve Schectman started pounding the balustrade upstairs at the Lost Coast Brewery, and suddenly it was official: DA Paul Gallegos had defeated the recall, and defeated it badly.
The hundreds of Gallegos supporters who had packed the brewery erupted in a deafening cheer as Gallegos gave a short speech thanking the people who had volunteered to work to defeat the effort to remove him from office.
"What we learned here, I hope, is if we work and sacrifice for democracy, it will work and sacrifice for us," Gallegos said.
The bulk of the DA's victory speech consisted of a recitation of Mahatma Gandhi's "Seven Sins." The crowd again exploded with cheers when he got to the fourth -- "commerce without morality." That was taken by all present as a reference to the Pacific Lumber Co., which had carried the finances of the recall effort almost entirely.
"It is truly our victory, not mine," he said in closing. "So, thanks."
With only 1,500 to 2,000 absentee and provisional votes left to be counted, the recall -- Measure F on the ballot -- was trailing by some 11,000 votes after the final tallies Tuesday night. It was an ignoble end for an effort that had dominated the local political scene since it was launched just weeks after Gallegos filed fraud charges against PL in February of last year. At the end of Tuesday, 30,716 Humboldt County citizens had voted against the recall, with 19,464 in favor.
But if Gallegos' stunning margin of victory was the most surprising result of the night, the county's turnout for Assistant District Attorney Tim Stoen's aborted run for U.S. Senate was a very close second. Stoen -- who is prosecuting the county's lawsuit against PL -- received 1,185 votes from fellow Humboldt County Republicans, despite having actively campaigned for the office only one day in December.
Stoen, who was among those celebrating at the Lost Coast Brewery Tuesday night, said that Gallegos' large victory meant that he could finally run the office without political distractions.
"It's not back to normal -- Paul has juice," Stoen said. "He owns that office for the first time, and by gosh we're going to make it the best office in the state."
Supervisor John Woolley -- a vocal and active Gallegos supporter -- was the only member of the Board of Supervisors to turn out for Tuesday night's party.
"It's always good to be with a winner," he said.
Woolley added that he took heart from the surprisingly large majority that voted against Measure F, as it showed that Humboldt County citizens would not be swayed by the economic interests of a private corporation.
"In terms of the widespread margin, not only does the recall not stand on its own merits, it shows that a majority of the people believe that a major corporation should not be able to have this much influence in the electoral process," he said.
Earlier in the day, Gallegos had gone on a last-minute campaign tour of the county, starting in Orick and working his way down to Eureka. He said that he had met with many local citizens and had encountered a variety of strong opinions about his tenure as DA.
"The fact is that people have been galvanized, one way or another," he said before learning of his victory.
The Friends of Paul Gallegos conducted a massive get-out-the-vote drive on election day, with designated "precinct captains" for each region of the county. Richard Salzman, who managed the effort, said that the campaign had identified 11,000 solid Gallegos supporters throughout the county in the run-up to the election, and the precinct captains made sure that they all got to the polls.
Jaime O'Donnell of Trinidad was the committee's campaign manager for the Scotia, Rio Dell, Carlotta, Bridgeville and Hydesville precincts. He said that the Friends of Paul had identified 60 Gallegos supporters in the Scotia area, and he made sure that every one of them got to the polls.
"Everywhere we went the poll workers were completely amazed," he said. "They said they'd never seen such a dedicated organization."
After the victory celebration, Gallegos returned to the Friends of Paul Gallegos headquarters to field telephone calls from out-of-town newspapers.
"We're working on the principle that right makes might," he told one reporter.
Rob Flanigan, campaign manager of the Safety Yes, Recall Gallegos! Committee, did not return calls Tuesday evening.
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