Observations on Chicago's Runoffs
Cross-posted from ICPR's blog, The Race is On:
The voting ended barely 36 hours ago. While many pundits have declared the elections' meaning already, sometimes real conclusions take longer to come to the surface. Here, rather, are some observations on what happened last Tuesday.
Raising the most money
The candidate who reported raising the most since the February elections won 8 of 12 contests: Fiorretti, Dowell, Foulkes, Lane, Colon, Daley, Moore, and Stone. In the 21st, Howard Brookins was out-raised nearly 2:1 and still won the vote by 20 percentage points. In the 24th, Sharon Denise Dixon reported raising only $10K since the February elections; incumbent Michael Chandler reported twelve times that much, but Dixon appears to have won with a 128-vote margin. And in the 32nd, incumbent Ted Matlak reported raising $265K more than Scott Waguespack; outraised more than nine to one, Waguespack appears to have won with a 122-vote margin.
Ballot Position and vote margins
The candidate with first ballot position won 9 of the 12 contests. Interestingly, in two of the three races where the vote margin is less than 200 votes, the apparent winner had the second ballot position: in the 32nd, Scott Waguespack was 2nd on the ballot, and in the 24th, Sharon Denise Dixon was 2nd on the ballot. Though it its tempting to wonder if the results might have been clearer had the ballot positions been reversed, it also bears remembering that this was the only race on the ballot; all voters came to the polls with only one race, and two candidates, to consider.
Turnout
Turnout decided most of these races. Just one in four voters went to the polls. In losing to Bernie Stone, 50th Ward candidate Naisy Dolar's vote totals would have been enough to win in seven of the 11 other races (in the 3rd, 15th, 24th, 32nd, 35th, 43rd, and 49th Wards).
6 comments:
Labor = SEIU? Come on. Lynn Sweet calls for a sit down with Daley; every news piece makes SEIU be all and end all of the American Labor Movement?
I challenge one - ONE - reporter or hard-hitting columnist to ask ONE hard question of ‘outside - the BOX’ Andy Stern and the Purple Gang!
Andy Stern, Anna Burger and other leaders of SEIU came from the University of Pennsylvania school of social work - they were young ’60’s radicals with real brains - you do not make revolution by assault but by infiltration.
The news media gives these radicals a pass - on everything!. Every action by SEIU is painted as the full canvass LABOR portrait.
$ 1.8 million to unseat The HAT? Rank and fikle dues pay for that? Where’d they get that kind of cabbage to throw around? Any body ask to openthe books on SEIU? The Lefties demanded the Feds do justthat when they took over all the old janitors locals. Come on.
These people are labor’s worst enemy. The most skin-flinted capitalist could not on a full-breakfast undo the American Labor Movement’s success with ease and energy of the Stern Gang.
Here is alink to my response to Lynn Sweet’s call on Mayor Daley for a sit-down with Purple Andy - http://hickeysite.blogspot.com/2007/04/seiu-is-threat-to-american-standard-of.html
I had high hopes for Stern as a creative guy. Someone who would bring a new model for organized labor appropriate to today's economy where everyone moves around.
Instead he sounds like he wants to go back to the Donna Reed world with one wage-earner for life at the factory, stay-at home Mom, and two kids.
Maybe that was the ideal if it ever really existed, but we sure arn't going back to it.
The future is non-traditional families, multiple earners, and jumping from jobs.
We need a unionism appropriate for that economy, and a global unionsim to boot... He should be looking back to the older cooperative, social insurance models from 100 years ago instead I think.
Ideas like the Freelancers Union hold more promise for the future to me. The money SEIU spent on this election and fighting the big boxes would have been better spent financing some ideas found with that outfit.
Lyn Seet wouldn't be writing about how Stern should be sitting down with the Power of course, but I think it would have been a better long term investiment for SEIU.
The Pols afterall, I'm pretty certain, will prove a disappointment to SEIU I think.
Power meaning Daley... why I typed that I sure don't know, althought it's obviously something some con...
b
This was a great election for the ILLINOIS COMMITTEE FOR HONEST GOVERNMENT.
The racist Tillman is finally defeated.
Bob Fioretti is a great new addition.
Howard Brookins had a solid re-election.
Lots of good results in the suburbs and some good up and comers.
But not all greatness comes in winning, some great candidates lost, and some bums are still in office.
More openess like cameras in City Council meetings, votes recorded on the internet and more.
Property Tax reform is the top priority.
The Democrats will only have themselves to blame for any so-called "spoiler" effect if they don't implement runoff or instant runoff elections statewide. The Green Party is now a legally established statewide political party, and that means that there will be a substantial number of additional Green candidates on the ballot.
I don't if about Stern and the Purple gang and the SEIU.
But Gannon and his undisclosed over quarter of a million salary and Navy Pier rooftop residence is hardly the working man either.
Labor should start looking to get more jobs generally and not excluding minorities from the trades. Labor spent a lot of money with little results in wards with vulnerable alderman.
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