Disappointing election results

I WATCHED the election results on election night in the pavilion adjoining the fabled rotunda staircase of the San Francisco City Hall where the local results were flashed in the giant center screen sandwiched between two 60-inch projection TVs that showed CNN and Fox News coverage of the national elections.

Together with other candidates and the media, I watched the election returns roll in which showed that I had won re-election to my college board post (with 96,685 votes). But I was not in any mood to celebrate as my presidential candidate, John Kerry, had lost Florida and was behind in Ohio, which he badly needed to win to pull out an electoral college victory.

"There's still a chance," a few folks assured me as we watched the vote tabulations. San Francisco may be on earth but the rest of the country is in a different planet, a red planet like Mars, filled with red specks. While George W. Bush won 51 percent of the votes nationwide, John F. Kerry won 83 percent of the votes in San Francisco, as blue a city as there ever was.

But Bush may very well owe his victory to San Francisco. Election analysts attribute his reelection to the huge turnout of Christian evangelical voters who voted for him because of his staunch opposition to gay marriage. For a week in February, just nine months ago, more than 4,000 gay couples lined up outside this City Hall rotunda to legally exchange their wedding vows in San Francisco.

While large numbers of married straight couples are routinely filing for divorce, here were thousands of gays joyfully rushing to officially cement their relationships with a ring and a solemn promise to remain true to each other forever.

But it was the nightly sight on the television screens of gays kissing each other that galvanized support for Bush among Christian conservatives (ironically just as it would have galvanized support for Osama bin Laden among Islamic fundamentalists). It did not matter that Kerry had himself come out in opposition to gay marriage or that Bush, in the last week of the campaign, voiced support for civil unions for gays as Kerry had advocated.

Bush and his chief strategist, Karl Rove, had cleverly and successfully exploited the cultural wedge issues of gay marriage, abortion and stem cell research to win the support of the majority of voters.

That strategy, combined with spending more than $100 million to define Kerry as a "flip-flopper" and to redefine the bemedalled Vietnam War hero as an anti-Vietnam War traitor even before Kerry could define himself to the American people, proved the magic formula for success. Negative advertising works. Just ask the Swift Boat Veterans and the wolf packs.

Nationally, the Los Angeles Times Exit Poll found that the minority vote went to Kerry with 86 percent of blacks, 64 percent of Asian Pacific Islanders and 54 percent of Latinos voting for Kerry. But while Kerry won the minority vote, Bush was reelected because he was supported by almost 58 percent of the white vote.

By 2050, minorities in the US will account for half of all Americans. I'll be almost 100 by then and I hope I don't have to wait that long for a Democrat to win the presidency.

To the Filipino Republicans who actively campaigned for President Bush, congratulations. In your hands lie the fate of our World War II veterans. John Kerry had pledged his support for the Filipino Veterans Equity Bill together with more than 186 Democrats in the House who had signed on as co-sponsors of the equity bill. If you believe that the victory of Republicans is good for our veterans, here's your chance to show it. Increase the number of House Republican sponsors for the equity bill from the measly 16 in the last session. I dare you -- prove me wrong. Prove that President Bush cares for our veterans.

The November election results were a disaster not just for Democrats but for the Filipino community. While other minority groups made great strides in empowering themselves, our community faltered even more.

Filipinos can trace the history of Filipinos in California back to Oct. 18, 1587 when the first "Luzon Indians" set foot in Morro Bay. In contrast, the Vietnamese community immigrated to Orange County after the fall of Vietnam in 1975. More than 25 years later, there is now a Vietnamese-American elected to the California State Assembly, Van Tranh from OC. After more than 400 years, how many Filipinos have been elected to the California Legislature? Zero. Nada. Wala.

While other minority groups fielded candidates to various city council and school board posts, Filipinos ran for only a few positions. Less than a dozen Filipinos ran for elective posts in the whole Bay Area where it is estimated that Filipinos comprise 10 percent of the total population (350,000 out of 3.5-M). In San Francisco alone, there were than 12 Chinese candidates for different positions. There should have been at least 50 Fil-Am candidates running for various posts throughout the Bay Area

In San Francisco, I thought my being introduced as the only Filipino elected official in the City for the last 13 years would finally end with two Filipinos winning a seat in the Board of Supervisors, Myrna Lim in District 11 and Art Belenson ("the Mayor of West Portal") in District 7. It would have been a sweet 7-11 victory.

But it was not to be. In the 11th District, Art placed a distant 11th garnering only 382 votes. But Myrna placed a respectable second with 3,448 votes compared to incumbent Gerardo Sandoval's 6, 113 votes. With San Francisco's unique Ranked Choice Voting in place, Myrna received additional votes to total 6,159 which would have been enough to unseat Sandoval if he was completely shut out as the second choice of voters. Unfortunately, Sandoval wasn't shut out enough.

Alameda County was a bright spot for Filipinos as New Haven School Board member Jim Navarro beat out incumbent Ben Elias to win a seat in the City Council of Union City joining Manny Fernandez. The one remaining Filipino incumbent in the New Haven School Board, Jonas Dino, narrowly won re-election by 60 votes.

In the Santa Clara City of Milpitas, incumbent Mayor Joe Esteves easily won reelection over challenger Jim Dawson.

In Solano County, Rev. Tony Ubalde won election to the College Board of the Solano Community College.

In Contra Costa County, incumbent Jess Reyes lost his seat in the Contra Costa Community College while Edgar Centeno failed in his bid for a seat in the BART Board.

In San Mateo County, Fel Amistad failed in his third bid for election to the County School Board Area 4, garnering 29,956 votes to place second out of four. Andrew Estigoy lost his run for a seat in the South San Francisco School Board, placing sixth out of six.

Of 11 Filipino candidates who ran for office in the Bay Area, six lost. We can only view the election results optimistically as "almost half full" if we resolve to do considerably better in the next elections.

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