The Aught-One Vote
I have no reason to think that Mark Green would have made a better mayor of New York City than will Michael Bloomberg, but it's likely he would have gotten the chance to show it if he hadn't been outspent $50,000,000 to $5,000,000. Green, a Democratic pol on the scene for 21 years, made education his big issue. Bloomberg, a billionaire who built the information service that bears his name, made his first political run successful investing $40 million of his own in the race. Dunno how many billions he's, got, but even with only one, that would be only 4% of his wealth. Like if you had $100,000 and spent $4,000 on vacation.
It should be noted that Green should have won, in this heavily Democratic city, but major political leaders failed to support him, mostly because of how their primary candidates lost. Had the Hispanics and blacks gotten active behind Green, as they normally do, Bloomberg would have been defeated. Also, maybe if Green hadn't run some particularly-negative ads during the weekend before the vote, he might have won. Or if popular incumbent Rudolph Guiliani hadn't been as visible as he was in support of Bloomberg, a Democrat turned Republican. Still sounds like Green lost it.
Here in Shasta County, where people have been kinda vociferous in their flag-waving, godbless'em — at least the born-agin's — just over 30% cast ballots on the only countywide measure. It was a vain hope by some of the higher-education folks up in the North State to squeeze a coupla bucks a month outta the residents to expand college facilities. A great idea, expanding the facilities, but not the way they promoted it, with high-priced mailers, confusing ideas, and the usual odor of incompetence. Especially in a winded -- or is it terrorized? — economy. They needed two-thirds, they got 59%. I'd say they were lucky to get that many, except that they only needed 2,100 more votes to get their $30 million in sorely-needed education funding.
Among their mistakes was hiring out-of-town consultants who didn't know the territory, and squandering a huge sum sending out an oversized four-color, coated-stock mailer to everyone, and it didn't explain — not even if you read it twice — exactly what they were gonna do with the money. Dunno about their broadcast pitch — the radio and television in this market is too painful to attend — but there was, typically, a full-page list of endorsers (contributors) in the local fishwrap. The way to have won the race was to have identified the 30,000 likely voters, and sold them on the idea of children getting a good education locally, or enhancing the quality of life for those who could tell the difference, and giving the community a reason to feel responsible for the future. Alas.
The turn-out was significantly higher than normal for an off-year election, with people probably going to the polls — for and against — over the very idea of spending more money for education. Indeed, a badly-needed district high school construction funding measure which required only 57% of the vote passed by 400 votes. The number of 65+-years-old in Shasta County is much higher than the state average. With many seniors having migrated to the area to retire, it means that a disproportionate segment of the population lives on fixed-low incomes, and.
When I heard how high the turnout actually was, before I received some perspective from the county clerk, I thought, way-cool, they're not just pasting flag decals on their trucks. They're serious about our country. There was plenty of time to register to vote since the attack. Wouldn't it have been a fine show of patriotism had the polling places been crowded with new voters from sea to shining sea?
And that's SetonnoteS...I'm Tony Seton.
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