CALIFORNIA ELECTIONS 78th ASSEMBLY DISTRICT : GOP Puts All of Its Eggs in Marston’s Basket

As the special 78th Assembly District primary entered its final week Monday, Republican Jeff Marston was all but assured a spot in any June runoff when his last remaining active GOP opponent withdrew--the second to do so in four days.

Saying she hoped that her withdrawal will prevent Democratic front-runner Mike Gotch from winning election outright in the April 10 primary, insurance broker Jane Ramshaw said that her decision to drop out and back Marston stemmed from the county Republican Assembly delegation’s endorsement of Marston last week.

Last Friday, the third Republican candidate in the campaign, lawyer Helen Rowe, offered the same explanation when she, too, withdrew from the race and endorsed Marston.

“I got in this race to serve the district, and if the best way to do that is by trying to make sure that it’s represented by Jeff Marston rather than Mike Gotch, then that’s what I want to do,” Ramshaw said. “I still think the right person for the job is me, but, looking at it realistically, I just don’t have the numbers Jeff does.”

Marston described Ramshaw’s decision as a “tremendous boost” that will allow Republicans who had remained neutral so long as the primary was contested “to come out full speed” for his campaign in the race’s closing days. Concurring, Ramshaw added that a “unified team is bound to be stronger” than if the party’s support were divided among three candidates.

Others, however, argued that Rowe’s and Ramshaw’s withdrawals actually could undermine the Republican Party’s overriding goal of ensuring that Gotch does not receive the 50%-plus primary victory needed to avoid a June 5 runoff. That line of reasoning holds that three active Republican candidates probably would draw more total votes than Marston alone, a theory based on the belief that at least some of Rowe’s and Ramshaw’s supporters now will simply not bother to vote, despite the women’s endorsement of Marston.

“I think they’re going to lose votes, not gain them,” said former San Diego City Councilman Gotch. “I don’t understand that tactic at all.”

But Marston dismissed that analysis as “a classic case of looking at the cup as half empty rather than half full.”

“This gives us a lot more than it takes away,” said Marston, a one-time aide to former San Diego City Councilwoman Gloria McColl and former Sen. S. I. Hayakawa (R-Calif.). “Now, we’re all moving in the same direction.”

Ramshaw’s name, like Rowe’s and that of Democratic lawyer Byron Georgiou, who dropped out of the race last month to run for Congress, will remain on the ballot--a fact that Gotch argued will minimize the significance of the Republicans’ late withdrawals.

Although nine names will appear on the 78th District ballot, Ramshaw’s decision reduced the number of active candidates to six--Marston, Peace and Freedom Party candidate Jane Rocio Evans and Democrats Gotch, attorney Howard Wayne, attorney Judith Abeles and county probation officer A. L. (Bud) Brooks.

Under the unorthodox procedures governing special elections, all candidates of all parties will appear on a single ballot in next month’s primary. If no candidate receives more than 50% of the vote--a margin that only former Gotch is thought to have even a slim chance of surpassing--the top vote-getters of each party will compete in June for the Assembly seat vacated by Democrat Lucy Killea’s election to the state Senate last December.

As he has from the outset, Gotch said Monday that he continues to view the 50% threshold as an unobtainable goal in the primary--for mathematical, if not political, reasons.

“They all could drop out, and it wouldn’t change our game plan,” Gotch said. “We’ve been looking at June all along.”