Extraordinary Election for Ordinary People : Politics: A rare power this year energized the citizenry, which voted and volunteered for candidates in what may be record numbers.

In an outpouring of voting fervor that exceeded the usual quadrennial march to the polls, thousands of Glendale-area and San Gabriel Valley voters got involved Election Day.

They electioneered, they partied, they feverishly compared notes, and they voted--in greater than usual numbers, according to some polling inspectors.

There was widespread Clinton-mania in the region, a dab or two of Perot-noia and some sorrowful breast-beating by Bush supporters.

And as the moment of truth neared, the political process in the region seemed to be taken over by ordinary people. Flashy political consultants and handlers were hard to find in the region Tuesday.

“This year we have had more volunteers than we’ve had in 20 years,” said Bill Christensen, aide to state Sen. Newton Russell (R-Glendale). And, like those in other campaigns, many of them are new to politics, Christensen added.

Though the turnout of Los Angeles County’s registered voters lagged slightly behind that of 1988, key polling places in the San Gabriel Valley and Glendale area were absorbing waves of highly motivated voters Tuesday, inspectors said.

There was even the rare sight of lines of waiting voters at some polling places, especially in the early morning and in the evening. First-time voters, some of them well into middle age, were requesting assistance from inspectors, and veterans waited patiently for their turn.

Many of the region’s voters were driven by what they perceived as hard times.

“We feel it,” said Nadine Carter, emerging from a voting booth in the Jackie Robinson Center in northwest Pasadena. “Do we ever! Even working people. Rents are going up. It’s hellacious out there.”

As the first projections of a Bill Clinton victory were televised, volunteers spilled out of the Democratic Headquarters in Old Pasadena onto Raymond Avenue and staged something akin to a New Year’s party.

They hugged each other, waved at passing cars, and a few of them danced the “electric slide”--a slow, twirling dance--to the beat of a rap record. Then they returned to the storefront headquarters to laugh raucously at a television broadcast of President Bush’s and Vice President Quayle’s concession speeches, singing: “Nah-nah- nah- nah. Nah-nah- nah- nah. Hey hey hey, good-bye.”

For Clinton supporters, it was the perfect cap to a day that had begun in uncertainty hours before.

For the losers, it was a time to search for silver linings.

More than 24 people were already lined up at St. Teresa’s Catholic School in Silver Lake when the polls opened there at 7 a.m. Tuesday.

“It’s unbelievable,” precinct inspector Paul Apostle said gleefully. “I’ve never experienced it this busy before, and I’ve been doing this for years. . . . They’ve been so patient, waiting in line. People have a desire to express their needs.”

Voters included Jim Wu, 40, who emigrated from mainland China in 1982. This was his second election, and he cast his vote for Bush.

“I like his economic policies,” Wu said. “He’s for China. He’s encouraging Chinese trading and weapons sales to Taiwan. And I think Bush is pushing the Chinese over toward democracy.”

Democracy is still a relatively new concept for Wu, but he has embraced the American system fervently.

“In China, we couldn’t vote,” he said. “Here, I think it’s important to vote. The ability to choose a President is good.”

Carla Haven and Sharna Newell, both 26, headed to the polls before work. The two may be roommates, but their politics couldn’t be farther apart. Monday night, they sat down to go over their voting pamphlets and found that Haven was a Clinton supporter, while Newell favored Bush.

Newell, a sales rep for Alberta VO5 who works out of her home, said she felt a special urgency to visit the polls because “I think everyone feels their vote could make a difference this year.”

Haven, a social worker at Queen of the Valley Hospital in West Covina, said she would vote for Clinton out of default.

“It was a hard decision to make this time,” she said. “I feel more strongly about the need for change than for the person.”

But, Haven said, her work had made her more aware of how many people are hurting financially.

“We personally have been pretty fortunate,” she said. “But we see it everywhere. There are more and more people without health care insurance.”

Round Table Pizza on Brand Boulevard in Glendale was packed at noon with diners--and voters. The restaurant has been a polling place in the past several elections, but none had drawn such a high turnout as Tuesday’s presidential contest. When poll workers arrived at 7 a.m., they found about 25 voters waiting in line. The flow continued to be heavy the rest of the day.

“People are more interested in what’s going on than ever before,” said poll worker Orman Rainwater, who is in his 70s. “A lot of people want to see change.”

Poll worker Albina Lovasz also caught election fever. For her first presidential election as a poll worker, Lovasz contributed a tablecloth festooned with American flags to decorate the table. And she sported a hand-painted T-shirt boasting, “It’s a Grand Old Flag.”

Earlier this year, Lovasz spent evenings and weekends registering voters for a candidate whose name she would only whisper in a reporter’s ear--lest she be accused of violating the prohibition on electioneering near a polling place.

“I have to be neutral here,” she said, after whispering “Clinton.”

Lovasz, who admitted she had steered clear of politics for the past 10 years, said she “was pretty disgusted with the general tone of the way politics was going and the way the country was going.”

After the Democratic national convention, she said, she jumped on the Clinton bandwagon and volunteered her time. Tuesday, as she signed in voter after voter at the polls, Lovasz said she felt as if she were at a party.

“I’m really energized,” she said. “I didn’t go to sleep at all last night because I’m so psyched.”

The early afternoon at the Glendale campaign headquarters of Rep. Carlos J. Moorhead was calm and peaceful, reflecting the mood of the Republican incumbent. After a grueling campaign, which saw him attend more than 200 events in the last seven weeks or so, the congressman said he felt confident of victory.

“I feel very comfortable at this point,” he said, as he reminisced about previous elections as well as this year’s campaign. “We’ve done everything we should do.”

One volunteer was making phone calls to make sure Republicans voted. Arcadia resident Norman Fleming, 65, said he walked into the GOP headquarters in Pasadena for the first time about two weeks ago because he was concerned about a Clinton victory.

Election Day started the night before for Dee Dee Joe.

The Democratic headquarters for the Glendale area, in Old Town Pasadena, was buzzing, and people turned to Joe, the volunteer coordinator, for guidance: “What about this precinct? What about this voter? What about that coffee?”

Joe, a youthful-looking 41-year-old, put out symbolic fires all night, always with smiles and hugs. She stumbled home about 1:30 a.m., caught a late-night election special and woke up about 6 a.m.

“This is a good day for voting,” she told herself, when she saw the sunshine outside.

There was no time for breakfast or the morning news. Joe threw on a sweater and some jeans and ran next-door.

“You guys remember to vote?” she asked her neighbors.

Then it was her turn, so Joe hopped into her ’76 Honda Civic (“Zippy, the Wonder Honda”) and drove to her polling place at a Pasadena church. It was 7:15 a.m., and there was a 45-minute wait. “I think we’re gonna kick butt today,” she thought.

Teri Buchanan of Eagle Rock took the day off from work to jump up and down on street corners and wave cheerfully to passing cars.

Buchanan, a 35-year-old legal secretary, was bursting with energy as a Clinton-Gore volunteer. Her day started at 7 a.m., when she picked up a 92-year-old woman and drove her to the polls. At 8:30 a.m., she picked up her Clinton-Gore signs and staked out corners outside the party headquarters.

At noon, lunchtime traffic picked up, and so did Buchanan.

“Yeah, Clinton!” shouted a long-haired man who walked by.

Buchanan pumped a fist into the air in response.

“The country is ready for a change,” said Buchanan, who wore a red, white and blue Clinton-Gore T-shirt. “I can feel it.”

A battered white pickup truck covered with Clinton-Gore signs pulled up to the curb and plunked down soft drinks on a newspaper vending box for Buchanan and two other volunteers at Fair Oaks Avenue and Colorado Boulevard.

“Save me the cans,” the harried worker said before scurrying back into his truck.

Did Buchanan feel she could make much of a difference by waving signs on a street corner?

“I think we can possibly make a difference with one or two voters who haven’t voted,” she said. “We get the enthusiasm up. People want to be on a winning side.”

It was early afternoon and spirits were high. Phones were ringing, dozens of volunteers and curiosity seekers were milling about the office, and the din was so loud that people were shouting to be heard. Volunteers were hauling five cases of soft drinks into the office, calling voters to make sure they went to the polls and attaching rubber bands to last-minute door flyers.

The 2,500-square-foot office, with clean white walls and slate-blue carpet, was a mixture of high-tech and down-to-earth: There were computers and a phone bank; there was a plastic pumpkin full of candy; there was an old Zenith television set propped up between two folding chairs in a back room. The main room was draped with red, white and blue bunting, and empty boxes were everywhere, including one from the Democrat’s downtown office, labeled in red ink: PASEDENA .

The walls were covered with precinct maps, political cartoons and a blown-up copy of Clinton on the cover of Rolling Stone.

Two volunteers at the Democratic headquarters were selling 17 different Clinton-Gore buttons. The most popular: a rectangular button with a color picture of Clinton, blowing a saxophone and wearing sunglasses, that said, Blow, Bill, blow. That pin sold out early in the morning.

At 1:30 p.m. Mary Westerlund, 46, was making her second trip to the headquarters. Earlier in the day she picked up four, including Blow, Bill, blow. She pinned all four buttons on her cable-knit sweater and went into work at the public affairs office of Kaiser Permanente in Pasadena.

Her co-workers bugged her so much that she returned with a shopping list of requests for more buttons.

“This is the first election I’ve been excited about since Kennedy,” Westerlund said.

At 1 p.m., the Green Party headquarters and the Perot headquarters in Old Town Pasadena remained empty.

At about 2:20 p.m., a 30-ish looking woman in a Perot T-shirt appeared outside the Perot headquarters on North Raymond Avenue with two small boys.

“I’m a Perot supporter,” she said. “I’m just here.”

But when pressed about why the office was closed, she turned hostile.

“What are you going to write?” she demanded, peering at a reporter’s notebook. “That no one is at Perot headquarters?”

When asked whether other people were expected, she said, tight-lipped, “I have no data. I have no information.”

She refused to identify herself.

“I’m nobody,” she said in shrill tones. “You may not write that. YOU MAY NOT WRITE THAT!”

The Green Party Headquarters in Old Town Pasadena was empty until about 2:30 p.m., when Jesse A. Moorman, the party’s candidate for Glendale’s 27th Congressional District, showed up in khakis, a forest-green work shirt and floppy hat.

“We’re not in any frantic mood of getting out the last few votes,” said Moorman, who spoke in slow, measured tones.

The office included a table full of brochures and a desk. The floor was concrete, and the ceiling was exposed, with wooden beams and pipes above; fluorescent lights dangled on wires.

Moorman said he was out all day, talking to voters and handing out pamphlets. Voters told him they voted for him or intended to vote for him, he said.

“I have no polling data,” said Moorman, 45. “I don’t know what percentage of the vote I’m going to get, but it’s been very encouraging.”

On Lake Avenue, volunteers at the Republican headquarters for the Glendale area were scurrying to persuade last-minute voters, such as Frank Alongi, that they should help reelect President Bush, send Bruce Herschensohn to the U.S. Senate and back the rest of the GOP ticket.

“I’m on my way to the polls,” said Alongi, a Sylmar resident. “I still haven’t decided on which presidential candidate to vote for. I came in here to see if these ladies could convince me to make a decision.”

Ann Edmonston, the headquarters’ volunteer coordinator, quickly jumped in:

“Bush is the only option,” she told Alongi.

“I’m scared to death of Bill and Hillary Clinton,” longtime GOP supporter Dorotha Stone added, joining the small debate that ensued. “I think if he gets elected, she’s going to run the White House.”

“I know I have to pick one,” Alongi said. “If I vote for Bush, the main reason will be that he can handle a flare-up in the world. But as far as the economy, I don’t know.”

After finally persuading their mid-morning visitor to vote for Bush, Stone--who said she has supported conservative causes for 30 years--went back to answering phones and connecting volunteer drivers with people needing rides to the polls.

Husk said this was the first time she had become involved in a political campaign.

“As far as I’m concerned, you don’t have any right to complain if you’re not involved,” she said. “I love Bush. I want to see our country grow out of this problem (the recession), and I don’t think Clinton is capable of bringing us out.

“People have a lot of questions,” Husk added. “They’re even calling up to find out some basic information about voting. It feels good to be able to help them.”

Later Tuesday afternoon, phones were still ringing at the headquarters of Bill Hoge, candidate for Glendale’s 44th Assembly District, set up in his own insurance office in Pasadena.

Cecil Dougherty, a Pasadena conservative, sat dialing numbers from a list of registered voters who hadn’t made it to the polls by mid-afternoon.

Dougherty said her effort in this year’s 44th Assembly race was part of a longtime commitment to political activism.

In past local and state elections, Dougherty said, she has managed phone banks and gone door-to-door handing out leaflets for the GOP cause. She also supervised 200 volunteers in one local Assembly race.

“It takes determination,” she said.

“We have a good number of college students and other young people involved in this race, and that warms my heart,” she said.

“You just have to keep calling and calling” voters on the lists returned by volunteers.

The formula she uses to keep an office of volunteers keen about their work, Dougherty said, is simple:

“You have to keep in mind that these people aren’t paid,” she said. “It takes patience, but you just make (the campaign) sound as important to them as it is to you.”

Tuesday afternoon, Ron Gonzales, 44, a longtime Democrat, found himself doing something he never would have imagined. “Never. Not in a million years,” he said.

The self-employed educational consultant was walking precincts in the 44th Assembly District, urging Republican voters to go to the polls.

Gonzales, a San Marino resident, said he believes in the Democratic platform and the ideals of the party. But he said he just could not bring himself to support Bill Clinton.

“I took a real good look at Clinton and the whole situation with his wife and his mistress,” Gonzales said. “For me, the bottom line was the character issue. I think we need a leader with character.”

Gonzales said he would have voted for Perot, but was convinced that the maverick independent had virtually no chance of winning. So, on the last day of the long contest for the Oval Office, Gonzales hung flyers on doors of GOP voters to remind them to vote for Bush.

“I feel like I betrayed the (Democratic) Party to a certain extent,” he said. “But I feel I’ve been true to my conscience. Clinton bothered my conscience.”

By Tuesday evening at Jax Bar, a popular Glendale hangout, Robert Nichols and John Desbro, who said they were both registered Republicans, were toasting Clinton’s emerging victory.

“People have had enough, they’ve had it up to here,” said Desbro, 75, a retired stockbroker, indicating his neck. “The American people are expressing themselves today. And let me tell you something, we’re no dummies. We’re educated, and we’re from all walks of life.”

“That’s right,” Nichols said. “We’ve been too divided for too long. We want a change, and Bush isn’t going to change things. I voted for Clinton because I like his program. He has a vision, and it’s better for the country. I’m happy. We’re going to see a better America.”

Both said they were initially tantalized by Perot. However, “Perot is a fantasy figure,” Nichols said.

“Yeah, he scared me,” added Desbro. “He’s going to cut the deficit in half, but a lot of people are going to starve to death in the meantime.”

“If Perot were serious, he would have picked a different vice president,” said Nichols. “Now Clinton, he took the poorest state in the nation and made it No. 1.”

Times Staff Writers Denise Hamilton, Christopher Heredia, Amy Kazmin and Renee Tawa contributed to this story.