One Fewer Baldwin? Please Say It Ain’t So!

I’m glad all the campaigning has ended because I feel like I’ve been pulled this way and that on several big issues. For instance, first it was reported that actor Alec Baldwin would move to another country if George W. Bush was elected president. Then Baldwin said it was all a misunderstanding and he wouldn’t leave. But, he added, it “might be a good time to take a long vacation.” (Just wondering, Alec: How long?)

Whatever, it’s indisputably election day and, if influencing Baldwin’s vacation plans isn’t enough incentive to vote, I’ve decorated today’s column with some of my most treasured campaign memorabilia (see accompanying).

There’s a billboard that mocked Bill Clinton’s candidacy early in 1992 when he trailed George W.’s daddy in the polls. There’s a familiar Republican’s victory pose from the book “Richard M. Nixon and His Family Paper Dolls,” by Tom Tierney (available at the Nixon Library and Birthplace).

And, finally, a photo from one 1996 precinct raises suspicions that the turnout there wasn’t as large as it could have been.

L.A. COUNTY SOUTH: Stan Kelton received a call from former L.A. Dist. Atty. John Van de Kamp urging him to vote for Steve Cooley for that office. Kelton commented: “I can’t find Steve Cooley on my Orange County sample ballot.” Kelton lives in Huntington Beach.

L.A. COUNTY NORTH: Los Angeles is being mentioned in one Alameda County campaign, but it’s no mistake.

Backers of an anti-growth measure are running TV ads that show a lush green mountain scene with a voice-over beseeching voters not to turn it into “another Los Angeles.”

Sure it’s insulting to Angelenos--though not as insulting as the time residents elsewhere voiced fears that runaway growth might turn their suburb into a “little Los Angeles.”

Their suburb in Fresno.

AT LEAST THEY WEREN’T ACCUSED OF BEING POLITICIANS: The San Fernando Valley Folklore Society (www.snopes.com) reports that separate yarns on the Internet allege Al Gore and Hillary Clinton each had a great-great-uncle who was hanged as a horse thief/train robber.

Odd thing about the stories involving one Gunther Gore and one Remus Rodham, aside from the fact that they have no basis in reality, is that they’re worded almost identically.

The punch lines have each family altering biographies so that Gunther and Remus each becomes “a famous cowboy” known for his “valuable equestrian assets and intimate dealings with the railroad.”

miscelLAny:

In Missouri, as you may have read, the U.S. Senate candidacy of Democratic Gov. Mel Carnahan is still receiving strong support even though Carnahan was killed in a plane crash.

Such a phenomenon is not unknown in Southern California. In 1988, Assemblyman Curtis Tucker (D-Inglewood) won reelection with a whopping 71% of the vote, even though he had died a month earlier.

His Republican rival grumbled: “The people have made it clear they wish to be represented by a Democrat no matter what the circumstances.”

The seat was filled through a special election by the late incumbent’s son, Curtis Tucker Jr., also a Democrat.

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Steve Harvey can be reached at (800) LATIMES, Ext. 77083, by fax at (213) 237-4712, by mail at Metro, L.A. Times, 202 W. 1st St., L.A., 90012 and by e-mail at steve.harvey@latimes.com.