Jim Gilchrist "wins" in CA-48

Minuteman Project co-founder Jim Gilchrist lost tonight's special election in California's 48th District, but he got 25.1% of the vote and perhaps has put a bit of a scare into at least the GOP. Republican John Campbell won with 44.7% despite spending hundreds of thousands of dollars on his campaign, and Democrat Steve Young picked up 28%.

In 2000 it was 62% R vs. 26% D, and in 2002 it was 68% R vs. 28% D.

Gilchrist ran on basically one issue: opposition to illegal immigration and support for border control. Despite attempts by both the Dems and the GOP to say otherwise, he didn't run on an "anti-immigration" or "anti-immigrant" platform, just anti-illegal immigration.

For examples of such confusion, there are a large number of almost completely clueless comments over at Daily 'Screw 'em' Kos, however this earlier thread contains this comment that probably went in one collective ear and out the other:

This is the hypocrisy and lunacy of the Democratic party on display. The point is, it was not too long ago that construction firms did pay $15 an hour and up, and they were union jobs. Now you want your cake and you want to eat it too. You want to whine that the Republican party has destroyed the unions, the Republican party has destroyed middle class, the Republican party doesn't want to pay a living wage, and in the same breath you want to defend the rights of ten percent of the population of Mexico to come here and put on roofs for seven dollars an hour... You can't have it both ways. The fifteen dollar an hour union framer that was put out of work in Texas was likely a Democrat. Who does he vote for now? Who does he turn to now? Who speaks for him or her now?

More here and here.

UPDATE: I should have crunched the numbers in more detail, because they're very (very) important: on election day, more people voted for Gilchrist than for Campbell. If Gilchrist had gotten more mail-in votes, he would have won. Apparently Campbell flooded the district with absentee ballots and his election materials, while Gilchrist did not.

UPDATE 2: More at The Corner here, here, and here.

UPDATE 3: For the unofficial vote totals, see this. Gilchrist might not have gotten 35% vs. 30% of the election day votes, but if you do the math, those numbers say he got 274 more votes. Now awaiting the official results...

Comments

I should have crunched the numbers in more detail, because they're very (very) important: on election day, more people voted for Gilchrist than for Campbell. If Gilchrist had gotten more mail-in votes, he would have won.

Assuming your claim about the Election Day vote is true (I have yet to locate a source to corroborate it), your conclusion does not follow. If Gilchrist had organized a big absentee vote campaign, he would have gotten more mail-in votes and correspondingly fewer Election Day votes. There's no evidence this would have translated into more votes overall.

Gilchrist's vote may indeed have "sent a message" to D.C., but his only shot at actually winning the seat was in the first election, and even that was a hail Mary.

The guy made a respectable showing.

"Cox won the same seat 2 years ago with 68% of the vote compared to 28% for the Democrat (I don't remember who that was)"

It was John Graham, who won 32% of the vote to 65% for Cox in 2004 while spending $1,994 - yes that's correct - to Cox's $1 million plus. In 2002, same candidates with Graham at 28% to 68% for Cox. Graham spent $10,000 to Cox's $736,000. The Democratic base vote must be about 30% since they spent basically zilch. This is winnable in 2006 by a well organized and well financed third party.

Despite the happy face that the GOP spokesmen are putting on Campbell's victory, they are probably privately concerned over the results. Cox won the same seat 2 years ago with 68% of the vote compared to 28% for the Democrat (I don't remember who that was), so Gilchrist's 25%, although not impressive, apparently came entirely at Campbell's expense. The Democrats neither gained nor lost ground.

In a sense, politics is a business like any other. A business that had a 70% market share ought to be concerned if that share slid suddenly to 45%, and one would think the last thing the CEO would do is ignore the numbers, or worse yet, dismiss the customers who had decided to take their business elsewhere by calling them names or questioning their intelligence. That's not how you get people to feel positively about your "brand" and give you another chance.

[...he didn't run on an "anti-immigration" or "anti-immigrant" platform, just anti-illegal immigration.]

Would it be wrong if he did? Would it be a strike against him? Perhaps even clearly and hopelessly fatal to his election chances? Or is your complaint just against the dishonest language used in news reports? Yet to be concerned about such practices, you pretty much have to concede the negative impact they are expected to have, right?

Look, the situation is pretty clear: the high levels of current legal immigration to America, including very non-selective family reunification ad nauseum, will overturn the demographic heritage of the nation; that is, it will no longer be majority white -- currently this is projected to come to pass around 2050. And eventually whites won't even be the largest ethnic group (I have not seen a projection about this, but I would not be surprised if it were to happen before the end of this century).

People, especially white Americans (sorry to be so blunt and politically incorrect, but it is absolutely necessary), who are still in a clear majority, need to decide: Does the demographic heritage of America as a majority white nation have value? Is it worth preserving?

People in areas heavily impacted by immigration, legal and illegal, can see the effects around them every day -- I mean the on-the-ground reality of it, its effects on communities, as opposed to the fairytales of "diversity" you find in the media. And then they can make a judgement.

If the answer to the questions above is 'Yes', then legal immigration must be greatly reduced as well.

It is as simple as that.

I am not "anti-immigrant".

But you can definitely count me as "anti-immigration". At least as it is happening now.