There was some good news
for George W Bush yesterday, as his party comfortably held one of its
House of Representatives seats in a by-election in southern California.
The 48th district, in Orange County, was vacated when the previous
member, Christopher Cox, was appointed to head the powerful Securities
and Exchange Commission.

Orange County, birthplace of Richard Nixon, is very safe Republican
territory, but the Republican vote was down almost 20 percentage points
to 44.7%. The Democrats, however, also went down, to 28%. The slack was
taken up by Jim Gilchrist of the American Independent Party, who
managed 25%.

The AIP is the remnant
of George Wallace’s party from his 1968 white supremacist presidential
campaign, but its big issue today is illegal immigration. Gilchrist is
one of the founders of the “Minute Man” vigilantes who patrol the
US-Mexican border and demand tougher controls on immigration, in
contrast to the Bush administration’s relatively liberal position.

Although he only came third, such a large vote for a minor-party candidate is extremely rare in the US. Commentators have suggested
that it will help to make immigration a major issue in next year’s
congressional elections. As Gilchrist said after the result was
announced, “We’ve got a huge victory tonight because we’ve issued a
wake-up call to America”.

Also on Tuesday, a recall move against the mayor of Spokane, Washington, was successful. Early results
showed the vote running two to one against mayor James E West.
Associated Press reports that West, a conservative Republican, had been
exposed as “a closeted homosexual who visited gay chat rooms using his
city-owned laptop computer, and offered internships and other favours
to young men he hoped to have sex with.”