A Green Shocker

California Democrats spent the weekend at their Sacramento convention celebrating their impressive 1998 statewide election victory. Then, they were whacked in the head by a political two-by-four. In one of the most stunning upsets ever in California politics, Green Party candidate Audie Bock edged veteran Democrat Elihu Harris by about 300 votes Tuesday in a special state Assembly election on the east side of San Francisco Bay. The count won’t be final until later today, but if anything she appears to be gaining votes.

This is the first time that a Green Party candidate has won a contested partisan election in California. Harris, the anointed candidate of the Democratic establishment, fell just short of the majority needed to take the seat outright in the February primary, edging out another strong Democrat, Frank D. Russo. In the runoff campaign, Harris outspent Bock $300,000 to $34,000. Harris was seeking a return to the Assembly, where he served 12 years before spending eight years as mayor of Oakland.

The district, covering parts of Oakland and Piedmont, is overwhelmingly Democratic. Greens account for just 1.2% of registered voters.

Bock, 51, a part-time college teacher, ran a vigorous campaign. But the overconfident Democratic Party apparently did not take her seriously enough.

Harris was not an overwhelmingly popular mayor, and voters may have resented state Democrats’ efforts, including those of San Francisco Mayor Willie L. Brown Jr., to dictate Harris’ return to the Assembly. Certainly some voters resented the state party’s handout of 3,800 coupons for free chicken dinners to historically low-turnout voters during the primary in hopes they would vote for Harris.

Harris blamed Tuesday’s outcome on low voter turnout. He’s right. If he had run a more effective campaign and convinced voters he was the best candidate for the job, the voters would have gone to the polls in sufficient numbers to elect him. But it’s also a sign that when there’s an attractive alternative, it can take more than major-party muscle and money to win elections.