It’s Not Over Till the Pizza Gets Cold : Celebrations: Win or lose, when the tallies came rolling in, party politics was the order of the evening in mini-malls and living rooms.

Well, this just had to be a politician’s loneliest hour.

Here was poor Al Dib, candidate for a 7th District City Council seat, arriving at his campaign headquarters on Election Night, the one moment he could have savored the long-awaited spoils of victory.

Instead, all Al Dib got was a couple of cold pizzas.

It was after 9 p.m. when Dib whipped his polished Jaguar into a reserved spot outside his campaign office in a Sylmar mini-mall. The campaigning, the stumping, the baby-smooching and glad-handing--all of it was finally over.

Nothing to do now but sit back, sip on a brewski and wait for the returns.

But rather than a throng of adoring supporters, there were just three crestfallen fans there to greet him. One of them was his daughter.

Defeat was imminent. The sad thing was, nobody wanted to break the news to Dib. He paced a windowless office in the back of a clammy produce tractor-trailer. With a look of disgust, he adjusted his tie, herky-jerky, and eyed the folding table laden with cold Col. Sanders chicken and Pizza Hut pies--now the consistency of cardboard.

It was one of those uncomfortable moments when, at 8 p.m. on the night of your big coming-out social bash, you wait in your decked-out living room, wondering if, really, even one guest is going to show.

A political graveyard. With the funeral service about to begin.

“Honey,” Dib snapped at his daughter, Vanessa. “Let’s get some hot food in here.” Then he stopped, wheeling around nervously as if on his last dime, glancing at his watch. “Hey wait, maybe we should see what happens first.”

Election Night in the San Fernando Valley. While wanna-bes like Al Dib licked their wounds, the victors smiled Hollywood smiles and felt like Masters of the Universe. It was campaign party time, a night for the winners and losers. And, of course, the boozers.

The politicians had worked hard, running for offices ranging from mayor to City Council to--yikes!--the school board. (Sorry folks, no dog catchers this time around.) And so, to celebrate their sweat, their dog-tired feet and dialing-weary fingers--and to thank their supporters--they each threw their own bash-o-rama.

But like their campaign platforms, these parties were as different as night and day, as varied as a martini on the rocks and a warm Diet Coke. The get-togethers were thrown in living rooms in Pacoima, labor halls in Mission Hills, Sylmar mini-malls, mid-Valley storefront offices and swanky hotel suites.

Henry Reyes Villafana, a schoolteacher who ran for City Council because he grew tired of the funding cuts to education, finished with the fewest votes in the 7th District council race, garnering a measly 5%.

Still, at a party at his Pacoima home--surrounded by supportive friends and fellow teachers--Villafana drank an O’Douls non-alcoholic beer (“Hey, some of my students could be watching”) and refused to admit defeat.

After all, a Ross Perot this guy is not. The 29-year-old had shelled out only $1,500 on his campaign--a fraction of what his opponents spent. And so, when the phone rang about 8:30 p.m., Villafana figured he knew who it was.

“There he is, Henry,” someone called out. “It’s the mayor’s congratulatory call. You’ve won.”

Sorry, Henry. Wrong number.

Meanwhile, over at the mayor’s race bash for Republican lawyer-investor Richard Riordan, a chi-chi crowd did the bump and grind in the carpeted recesses of a Ventura Boulevard hotel meeting room.

But Roy Begley, a Riordan volunteer, was having none of the glitter.

“Typical political party,” he said, watching in disgust as the television reporters primped their hair and added a coating of eyeliner before going on the air. “Overcrowded. People being stagy. Phony smiles.”

Up in Sunland, Orville and Myrtle Wills were having the time of their lives. Clutching her cane like Ruth Buzzy’s old lady from “Laugh-In,” perched on a park bench, the 76-year-old Myrtle stared glassy-eyed at the buff firefighters and major-haired women who gathered in a converted clothing store with council candidate Lyle Hall, a Los Angeles fire captain.

For weeks, Orville and Myrtle let their fingers do the walking for their candidate, making pitch calls free of charge. The couple have been married for only four years. Fact is, Orville was married to Myrtle’s sister for 41 years. But when she passed on a few years back, they got together.

“It’s not as if I didn’t know him,” she said.

Myrtle had done more than make phone calls for Hall’s campaign. That night she baked a special batch of her “cookie-crunchy things”--a concoction of Post Toasties, corn flakes and peanut butter.

Before her hung a staple of these political celebrations--a giant American flag, as well as more balloons than what you’d see at a 5-year-old’s birthday party. But there were also pictures of smoke-clogged buildings where firefighter Hall had, no doubt, helped save the day.

This fact impressed Myrtle Wills.

“He’s a good man,” she said of Hall. “He’s a hero.”

Down the street, council candidate Richard Alarcon’s bash, thrown in a converted mini-mall space sandwiched between a Laundromat and a pizza joint, became so spirited with its mambo and salsa music, the neighbors got a bit ornery.

It seems that two dozen or more celebrants had spilled out into the parking lot--some drinking beers, others hooting and hollering, still others watching the returns on a portable television set on the asphalt.

By 9 p.m., as the double-breasted-suited candidate eased through the crowd--kissing both the babies and their mothers--the pizza and Laundromat managers complained that their customers couldn’t maneuver through the cramped lot.

“Hey, I don’t care if it is Election Night,” said the man at the Domino’s counter. “I’ve got some money to make.”

At City Council candidate Joy Picus’ party at a mid-Valley storefront office, two dozen supporters pressed together, whistling and waving banners, as Picus did a television interview--giving the impression that the quarter-filled hall was actually packed with sweaty bodies.

When the cameras stopped rolling, the crowd relaxed and got back to the business of eating. “It’s a great party,” volunteer Lucille Helwig said. “They even served lasagna. I love lasagna.”

But perhaps Election Night’s biggest winner was Monte Simon, a dapper gentleman with romance on his mind.

Sitting on the sidelines at the Riordan victory bash, his walking cane in hand, the self-professed former dancer who supposedly tapped with Fred Astaire had met his match: a platinum blonde named Linda who in her prime had been a dancer herself.

“Interpretive dance” is how the Russian-descended woman in the tight-fitting, plunging-necklined dress described it. These days, she said, primping her hair and batting her lashes, she had become a psychic.

And when she looked into Riordan’s future, the political volunteer saw victory at hand.

For Monte Simon, decked out in a gray suit and matching silk tie, the future perhaps spelled a date with a girl from his dreams.

“There is nothing,” he said, “that compares with the feeling of walking down the street with a beautiful woman on your arm.

“And that goes for politics as well.”