Who cost Francine Busby the election?
By Raoul Lowery Contreras
June 12, 2006

"I actually voted for it before I voted against it," remains one of the greatest political gaffes in memory. It was from the very moment Senator John Kerry uttered those words during the 2004 presidential campaign. Question: Did that gaffe cost Kerry the election?

"You don’t need papers to vote," words spoken by Democrat Francine Busby five days before election day that were captured on tape and disseminated nationally within hours may equal the Kerry goof in political history. Question: Did those words cost Busby the election and elect Brian Bilbray to Congress?

In Kerry’s case, no objective observer who examined the daily polls taken and published during October 2004 thought that Kerry had a chance. President Bush led Kerry every single day in the average of all polls taken in the month leading up to the election. The average was consistently Bush. The only people who thought Kerry had a chance were elements in the media, especially at the television networks.

In Busby’s case, She lost the election in the year of our Lord 2001. It was in that year that California’s congressional Republicans made a deal with the Democratic legislature to protect all of California’s incumbent congress people.

In San Diego that meant that Democrat incumbents Susan Davis and Bob Filner would have districts with insurmountable Democratic majorities as would Republicans Darrell Issa, Duncan Hunter and Duke Cunningham (50th District) have insurmountable Republican majorities. The deal produced lifetime tenure for these people.

Cunningham, of course, went wacko and bludgeoned defense contractors and others to pay him cash bribes. Imprisoned Cunningham wisely resigned from office opening up that office to a special election which the entire political world became involved in.

It was in the Special Election held in April that Francine Busby had her only chance to win. She faced a phalanx of Republican candidates that forced the vast Republican registration to split into 15 or so parts while Democrats and a few Independents could rally behind Cardiff School Board member, Francine Busby.

Like her soul mate Donna Frye in last year’s special mayor election in San Diego caused by the resignation of Mayor Dick Murphy, Busby garnered 44 percent of the vote in April. And, like Frye, Busby simply wasn’t able to improve on that percentage and, thus, suffered a humiliating loss.

Humiliating because the national Democrats led by Congressman Rahm Emanual spent millions on the race and smeared Bilbray in every conceivable manner. Nonetheless, in the final analysis, those millions were wasted. That is in contrast to the millions spent by Republicans to elect Bilbray. That money was not only well spent it put Democrats and the media on notice that Republicans will not simply roll over in November.

The question of whether or not Busby’s "you don’t have to have papers to vote" goof cost her the election is easy to answer. Absentee ballots in hand before Election Day are the first ones counted. As her comment came on the Thursday night before the election, most of the absentee ballots ready for Tuesday night counting were already in hand before she made the comment.

When the first report was made, Bilbray led with 50 percent. That basically didn’t change throughout the vote count. Busby wound up with 45 percent. While absentee ballots usually distort the Republican vote because they vote more by absentee, in this case the initial counts truly reflected the final vote count as they should have given the overwhelming Republican registration of the district.

If Busby wants to blame anyone for her loss or Bilbray wants to thank anyone for his victory, they should do so to the Democratic legislators in Sacramento and Republican congressmen in Washington who decided this election five years ago before anyone ever heard of Francine Busby.

Contreras’s newest book—THE ILLEGAL ALIEN: A DAGGER INTO THE HEART OF AMERICA published by Floricanto Press is available and reviewed at www.amazon.com and www.barnesandnoble.com