How My Blog Beat the Mayor

I knew things were amiss when I walked into a meeting of bloggers and was called "the most influential blogger in Illinois" (really? Rich Miller? Josh Kalven? just sayin'). But I really didn't expect my blog to be credited (or blamed, depending on your point of view) for defeating Flossmoor's incumbent mayor on Tuesday.

Flossmoor is a sleepy bedroom community in the South Suburbs of Cook County. It is probably best known for its architectural charm and golf courses. I note with extreme irony to my friends that, as a resident of Flossmoor, I now live a mile from five golf courses. In Florida where I grew up -- which has its share of golf courses -- I lived at least ten miles from the closest golf course, and the next closest one would have been double that. Plus, I don't golf.

Roger Molski was appointed "mayor" of Flossmoor (technically, Flossmoor has a village government, which means that we elect a village president, some of whom prefer to be called mayor -- like Mayor Daley) in 1994. In 2005, Molski was re-elected by winning 58% of the vote:

Molski	%	Mitros	%	Gummerson	%	Turnout
1,391	58.35%	460	19.30%	533	22.36%	0.238090482

I started Political Tracks -- a View from the Southside in August of 2007, inspired by the Proviso Probe by Carl Nyberg. I never intended to copy what Carl was doing in his blog, but I was interested in adding some content about politics in the South Suburbs.

I've written 61 posts since then, quite a bit about the BP proposal to dump more waste in Lake Michigan and about local elections, both near and far from Flossmoor. I did my best to cover the race in Robin Kelly's former seat in the Illinois General Assembly and about the mobilization of volunteers for the Obama campaign in the South Suburbs. I didn't write about Roger Molski until after I learned he was running for re-election. I was shocked, and I asked a very simple question: Shouldn't the Mayor Live Here?

It had been apparent to me that Molski had been commuting to his work as an Insurance Agent and Flossmoor mayor from his residence in Chicago. We happen to own places in the same condominium complex. My biggest clue was when he was no longer walking his dog every afternoon (and often, evenings). I asked him flat out whether his dog had died. But I had also started to observe him returning to Flossmoor early mornings (~5am) out my kitchen window. When he pulled clothes out of his car so early in the morning, it seemed obvious that Flossmoor was no longer his primary residence.

So when we got an overnight snow storm, I took advantage of the opportunity to make it clear that Roger Molski wasn't around at night. The pictures spoke for themselves.

A month later, a much lighter snow storm passed through Flossmoor, so I took pictures again of the mayor's empty parking spots. Once again, the pictures spoke for themselves. What I didn't realize, because I wasn't tracking these things, was that Flossmoor residents were paying attention, too. The pictures struck a chord, because they dovetailed nicely with the questions they already had about Molski's presence -- and judgment -- in Flossmoor.

I am told that the Molski was informed about the blog as people started talking about it. Apparently, he posted this:

Mayor Molski lives in Flossmoor. Just because his car was not in the spot one nite means nothing. STOP STALKING Roger!

Of course, if it was only one night, no one would have noticed. But what was interesting was that this concern -- the question, really: Shouldn't the Mayor Live Here? -- was growing in the village.

Because Molski had reacted to my second post, I made sure that my readers knew that the Molskis had returned from their vacation to Florida. I also wanted residents to know what to expect, since they had done this same kind of show in 2005. Then I summarized my concerns in a neat package:

The question of whether our mayor should live here really is a question about how invested the mayor should be in the community that he leads. Overnight power outages have no effect on the mayor because he doesn't sleep here. He can't look out his windows and see a community that is blacked-out. One suspects his condo in Chicago has its own backup generator, so he may very well be immune to local power outages there, as well. Must be nice.

The mayor's lack of investment in Flossmoor shows in the kinds of things he is doing to our community, as well. He brought blight to Flossmoor, helping an over-extended developer raze five active businesses on the tax rolls here and leaving a half-block long hole on Flossmoor's main street. What is he doing about it? When I asked, not a thing.

Instead, we come to find that the mayor is helping to bring in a store that will sell liquor and tobacco across the street from Homewood-Flossmoor High School. Once again, Molski was instrumental in having our community standards waved in order to get one of his pet projects passed.

Would Roger Molski really have worked so hard to wave our community zoning requirements if he actually lived in Flossmoor? Probably not. If Molski was fully invested in our community, he would have been more likely to understand why residents would want to retain the look and feel of Flossmoor, why it is important to encourage businesses to adapt to our community standards, why selling liquor across the street from one of our community's main assets (its high school) isn't a good idea. No, our absentee mayor has discovered Chicago values and seeks to import them here, to Flossmoor. He's not fully invested in our community, and it shows.

So the question is, should the mayor live here? If you care about Flossmoor's community values, about its inherent charm and small town flavor, then the answer must be yes. If you want to turn Flossmoor into Chicago, then obviously the mayor is a great promoter for undermining Flossmoor's charm and standards. He's done it before and you can expect for him to do it again. Home is where the heart is, and it's clear that Roger Molski's heart is no longer in Flossmoor.

I hadn't even met his opponent yet. I didn't really know anything about him, but I mentioned that I wanted to meet Paul Braun to Flossmoor Trustee Diane Williams. She passed that message along to Braun, and on February 22nd, I received my first email from him. He attended a "Team Obama" meeting on March 3rd, and then we met privately on the 6th. At that point, I offered to organize former Obama volunteers in Flossmoor to canvass for him. I told him that he'd have to print up more lit for us to pass in our canvass. But on the 13th, Braun responded to me in an email basically saying that he did not want to "jeopardize anything by a second wave of paper not placed by me personally." His campaign was based on a single knock with a single piece of literature aimed not at Flossmoor voters but at every household in the village. No mail. No validators. No phone calls. Paul Braun was running his campaign by himself based on a positive message of Change.

On March 17th, I posted a response to a Molski postcard to voters claiming "Record Commercial Development." Mostly, I sought to undermine Molksi's claim that the "development" he brought to Flossmoor in 2005 failed because of the market's collapse. The market was actually booming then. It failed because the developer had too many risky projects going on from the beginning, not because of the economic downturn in the past year. I laid out the timeline for the blight Molski brought to the heart of our commercial district that contradicted Molski's claims. One commenter shared my concern:

I am also a lifelong resident of Flossmoor. It is definitely time for change. It is hardbreaking to see Flossmoor losing the prestige and curb appeal it had in the past.

My final post on the race was a transcript of the debate sponsored by the League of Women Voters. This was really the only thing that came out of my meeting with Paul Braun. He had felt that the prior race was lost at the 2005 debate, but I wondered how many people really knew about it. So I went to video the debate at the end of March, and while I wasn't allowed to record it, I did my best to take notes. Braun acquitted himself quite well -- to be expected from a candidate who believed this would be the turning point of the race -- while Roger Molski was rather cavalier in his whole approach. Molski's biggest mistake was asking people to decide who to vote for based upon his record. After four years of leaving a big black hole in the heart of downtown Flossmoor, it was probably the wrong thing to ask. But I did the best I could to record their answers to the night's questions from the audience and let readers know.

So did my blog beat an incumbent mayor? I'm inclined to say no, although Braun has thanked me several times for his win, and quite a few readers have come out of the woodwork since the results have come in. The win is surprising in that incumbents rarely lose election. But it was obvious that I struck a nerve. Even more obvious since Molski's daughter sought to "put my mind at rest."

What I can take credit for was opening up the discussion about the things that Molski had done in the past four years, in creating a safe space for people to express their concerns about what was happening in Flossmoor. During the debate, people asked about the failed development Molski brought to the village and about his plan for allowing liquor to be sold across the street from H-F High School. Whereas in the past, Molski had sought to bully people who questioned his judgment or his decisions, these things were occuring out in the open -- and without the degree of hostility seen in past efforts to unseat him.

I can also take credit for serving as a huge distraction for Molski at the height of the campaign. Instead of knocking on doors like he'd done in the past, Molski relied on two mailings and a concerted effort to get his signs everywhere he could. Molski even called my father-in-law and asked him to put up one of his signs in his yard! I gave people something to talk about when they encountered Roger Molski -- and he didn't like it. You could see that from this comment:

Thank you for your coverage of the mayoral race in Flossmoor. It motivated me to get out and vote on Tuesday, and I'm pleased with the outcome. I hope Mr. Braun lives up to the confidence shown him in Tuesday's election. I agree it was time for a change. The ugly vacant lot on Flossmoor Road has been a thorn in my side since it became apparent nothing was happening there.

But I don't think I can really take credit for Paul Braun's defeat of an incumbent mayor. Braun did that himself. The lessons for bloggers, though, are obvious:

* Blogs can -- and do -- replace mainstream media who are no longer covering local issues and local elections
* Blogs can serve as a counterweight to those politicians who have tried to tightly control information
* Blogs can help people to realize that other people share their concerns -- that they are not alone in questioning their local authority
* Blogs can force opponents to "tip their hand." One should never underestimate the "intelligence" potential of blogging, in getting one's opponents to telegraph their punches or messaging in an untimely manner (for them, the opponent).
* Blogs can -- and do -- mobilize supporters by providing information about action

In 2002, I was involved in the Chambliss/Cleland Senate race. Chambliss' ad has taken on mythical proportions for negative campaigning, but what it really did was to galvenize Democrats' attention on the air war and made them neglect the streets. Cleland's supporters started talking amongst themselves with outrage and started to neglect their efforts to mobilize other supporters. It was the supreme distraction that paralyzed Cleland's supporters from action that turned voters towards them. In smaller races, blogs can have this same effect: to create the illusion that elections can be won in the ether instead of won at people's doors. As a message delivery system, blogs have the same indirect effect that other mass broadcast media has. It's another tool in our communications with the electorate.

Did my blog defeat an incumbent? No. But it didn't hurt. And people who know me understand that I will do it again. Defeat an incumbent, using unconventional means. I don't have to be the only one...