No Loss of Faith : Campaigns: Defeat at the polls doesn’t mean the party’s over. Candidates who didn’t win celebrate the act of running and making their voices heard.

First of all, no matter how badly candidates were clobbered by the voters, all their post-election parties are called “victory” parties.

Second, losing big means you can get to bed early.

And then, the fewer the votes, the more important it is symbolically to have taken part, to sink beneath the waves of an uncaring electorate with flag still flying, perhaps having made a few converts.

These are the lessons learned when visiting gatherings for the big losers on election night.

“I’ve run three times, and I don’t think I’ve ever seen my name on television in the returns,” said Michael Everling, the Libertarian candidate in the 46th Assembly District. Everling had gathered with fellow Libertarians--who believe in cutting government to the bone and maximizing individual freedoms--at the Holiday Inn in Burbank.

They didn’t need to rent a function room for the affair. About 30 of them fit neatly into a portion of the Final Score bar.

“We don’t enter a campaign because we think we will win,” said Everling, who got 2.4% of the vote. “We do it because it’s the right thing to do.”

Just because these party faithful are staunch proponents of virtually limitless freedom, however, doesn’t mean they are wild and crazy partiers. Over drinks from the no-host bar, there was much serious talk about oppression by government agencies, the fine points of Ayn Rand novels and the latest software. It was like partying down with Mr. Spock.

“We’re a very intellectual party,” said Dennis Decherd, who garnered 2.3% of the vote in the 27th Congressional District. Like everyone at the party, he wore a name tag.

“We have a lot of computer programmers, engineers,” he said, “people who think logically and rationally.”

And they don’t wish to be dismissed as a fringe party. “It’s an incremental thing, but we are really making progress,” said Andrew Rotter, who ran in the 42nd Assembly District and tallied 2.7% of the vote.

Rotter is 47 but said he has been a Libertarian since he was 18. “If we can get up to 7% to 10% of the vote, we could be a swing vote,” he said. “Then the candidates would have to listen to us.”

While the Democrats may not be a fringe party in Santa Clarita, they are definitely in the minority there. That made the group gathering at Carlos O’Leary’s restaurant especially enthusiastic as they watched the national and state returns. When Bill Clinton made his victory speech, they crowded in front of a projection TV to scream and cheer.

But Dave Cochran, the party official in charge of the event, could find no local candidates in the crowd. “I think they have all gone home or didn’t make it down here,” said Cochran, apologetically.

Then again, Santa Clarita’s Democratic standard-bearers had little reason to celebrate, going down to defeat as usual.

But one of the local losers was finally found in the crowd. Lynne Plambeck, who ran for the Castaic Lake Water Board--getting 29.6% of the vote in a two-person race--looked as jolly as everyone around her.

“Even though I didn’t come close to winning, I was able to bring up issues that I thought were important,” she said, standing next to a life-size figure of Al Gore. “You need challenges to make the democratic process work.”

Getting her messages across came fairly cheap. Plambeck said she spent about $1,000 on her campaign, only about $500 of it hers.

Elsewhere, by the time Clinton was done with his speech, many of the losers’ parties had broken up. Peace and Freedom candidate John Paul Lindblad won 5.4% of the vote in the 24th Congressional District, but his “victory party” at the Hamburger Hamlet in Sherman Oaks ended before midnight, prior to the arrival of Times reporters.

That was perhaps for the best.

“What makes you think you would have been welcome at a party that was for my supporters?” an angry Lindblad asked the next day. He also said he was demanding a recount.

A kinder, gentler reaction came from another Peace and Freedom candidate, Charles Najbergier, who finished with 3.8% of the vote in the 19th state Senate District.

Anyone who believes the stereotype that Peace and Freedom people are all tie-dyed hippie-peacenik types need only visit the suburban apartment where Najbergier and his wife watched the returns together in the family room.

Sitting on the sofa, drinking a nonalcoholic beer, Najbergier, 57, watched a replay of George Bush’s concession speech. “That guy lost for $60 million, and it only cost me 200 bucks,” said Najbergier, taking off his quilted slipper boots.

That $200 bought him a chance to fight for his socialist ideas during the campaign, which he said was enjoyable. “I expected red-baiting, but I never got it,” said the French-born candidate, a registered nurse. “People seemed glad to hear my ideas. Maybe I convinced a few.”

Next to him sat his campaign poster-- the poster. “You didn’t see this all over town,” he said with a laugh. “It was the only one I had done.”

Najbergier said he might stay up late to watch the returns, hoping to see his name flash across the screen. Never in his wildest dreams did he actually expect to win, he said. But that didn’t matter.

“The only way I could have lost this campaign was to not have run,” he said. “The important thing is to be heard.”