THE DEVIL YOU DON'T KNOW:

Steve Rocco didn't file a candidate statement or mount a campaign for the school board. He's unknown to teachers and the district and only barely known to his neighbors. Nonetheless, the man being called a "mystery candidate" easily beat an opponent who is active, and relatively well known, in the Orange Unified School District. Now all that's left is to find him.

"Absolutely nobody, but nobody has seen this guy," said Paul Pruss, a middle school teacher and the president of the union. "The whole thing is just bizarre." ...

No one came to the door Friday at Rocco's home southeast of Los Angeles, where he lives with his bedridden parents. The front gate of the house is adorned with a fading Johnny Cash record album cover and 10 small American flags hang in the yard. Neighbors said they see him occasionally, usually on a bicycle. ...

If he shows up to the monthly meetings of the district, Rocco will receive $750 per month. But officials are wondering what they will do if he is as scarce in office as he was during the campaign. ...

Hanna, who has followed local politics for 30 years, dismissed one scenario that has been suggested, that voters chose the non-Hispanic name over Martinez.

"This is just one of the rough edges in our electoral system, where the voters can elect someone they know nothing about," he said.

Hey, if it works for the White House (and it does, as surveys showed most Bush voters were not aware of stands he has taken they disagree with, such as joining the ICC), then why not the school board? After some vicious campaigns, lots of us might have preferred voting for a total stranger we'd never heard from.