“C’mon you can blog in the limo,” ringleader orders me as I get yanked off the front lines of the most boring election ever. The front lines at that precise moment, 11 to 11pm PST, means a balloon-festooned Carlos Goldstein’s restaurant in North San Jose that smells like refried beans. The quartered quesadillas in the warming tray have permabonded to each other so that they peel up in clumps.  Chamber dude Bill Baron wants his posse to split too and pulls out his Treo to text his buddy, who’s schmoozing on the other side of the room. “All right, Mulcahy! What’s he doing, running again?” Baron asks, to no one in particular.

At Carlos Goldstein’s, political chameleon David Cortese, San Jose’s vice mayor, savored his victory as the smackdown in who he’ll run against for Santa Clara County supervisor pulled into a dead heat. Milpitas mayor Jose Esteves lagged just a fraction of a point behind soft-spoken ex-Sunnyvale mayor and intellectual property attorney Otto Lee, who cleverly made his campaign site look like the City of Sunnyvale’s. Cortese professed not to care who he runs against. “Oh I don’t care,” he shrugged, and said he wasn’t surprised by the close race for second banana. “I didn’t think one would fall way behind.” Esteves, however, dropped close to two points by the time our ride pulled up at the Fiesta nightclub on Monterey Highway, a cavernous Mexican joint a lot more authentic than the one with the Yiddish last name. There, George Shirakawa’s supporters, many of them relatives, whooped it up as the band snapped up its instrument cases.

Big George, in white shirt, black slacks and suspenders, chilled by the bar while supporters pulled up bar stools and ordered tequila shots, with lime, celebrating his three-point edge over immigration attorney Richard Hobbs in the county supervisor’s race. The Hobbesians lobbed some nasty mail that portrayed Shirakawa as a fat-faced lobbyist. Shirakawa says he stayed positive and ran on his record of accomplishments as a San Jose councilman. “People can say whatever they want… I’m gonna win,” he predicted. The race now goes to runoff.

The low-turnout local election — only 25 percent of eligibles voted —  thrust an unexciting cast of issues and political actors onstage and failed to capture much public interest. It was basically an inside job. Final returns didn’t come in until after 1 am. Someone will no doubt blame the decertification of electronic voting.

The election wasn’t without some surprises. Clark Williams didn’t make it to Democratic Central Committee, despite aggressive Facebooking. Prosecutor Jay Boyarsky, with a telephone book-length list of endorsements from cops, prosecutors and judges as well as habeas corpus champion Zoe Lofgren, sank to fourth place amidst a cluster of DAs who were whamped by civil attorney Diane Ritchie in the race to replace Superior Court judge Ray Cunningham. Paul Fong pulled off a five-point lead against Dominic Caserta in the hotly gladiated 22nd District Assembly contest, a race decided by less than 700 votes. Joe Judge handily fought back a challenge from Diana Foss to keep his Water District seat.

The election results can be viewed here.