Please pass the salt

Alex,

You are right. I stand corrected. He was very active in the party however. No info-malice intended.

If the "go-go-growthers" can rustle up a "few hundred votes," surely other groups (like the Sierra Club) can. Or no?

I'm also interested in making sure rural voters aren't steamrolled. Chatham County's solution is to elect by districts, and you can see how well that's worked out. If anything, it's shown that "rural voter" and "go-go-growther" are not mutually exclusive. I assume that's the reason people have advocated cumulative voting, rather than district division -- certain folks might not be happy with the kind of commissioner who might be elected from Cedar Grove or Little River.

Rural interests are not monolithic, of course. If I lived in a green, energy efficient house on a wooded lot, I might not agree about growth with a fifth-generation farmer no longer able to make a living from her 250 acres because of our culture's blindered consumerism and consequent demand for cheaper and cheaper food.

Even with your correction, I still don't understand this sentence. Are you talking about the candidates or their supporters.....

"Would others agree that the winners in this race were those least identified with those whose approaches are *most* tinged with rigid dogmatism, gross generalizations about those who disagree on individual issues, and presented--obviously with differences--a more pragmatic and well-rounded approach to the issues at hand?"

See above: Need I say more?

PS. Mark, get your facts straight--Keith has never beed Dem. Party Chair. In 1993, Billie Cox was Chair (I was a vice-chair), followed by Mariah McPherson, Jan Allen, then Sharon Worthington, then Yers Truly, and the Party is now in the able hands of Barry Katz. I can assure you that none of us have been involved in any kind of conspiracy or cabal to try to protect anybody. Gaack!

Cheers,

Alex

Oops-Discovered a content error in the 'Oh, Brother.." post:

S/H/B ' MOSTtinged with...' Now it makes sense. Sorry, Y'all.

Cheers,

Alex

But Alex--what about the substance of Mark's message? Do you disagree that there was such a committee and that they proposed changing the way representation is handled?

Joal,

It doesn't follow that because we didn't hear names or pro-go-go-growth positions that it wasn't a factor. Let me put it this way - if you were in favor of a more lasissez-faire approach to growth & development, who would you vote for? It wouldn't be Margaret (obvious reasons) or Pam (endorsed by Sierra Club) or Jack Lamb (ultra-long shot). Obviously the development folks, the Chamber of Commerce, the University developers, etc. identified who they thought were the most promising candidates out of the group. I guarantee you that this is conservatively worth a few hundred votes. I'll bet my front-page picture of Lee Pavoa at Carey's victory party that the go-go growthers didn't all transform into social justice activists just before the election.

On fair representation: This is from my recent CH News column,

"In 1993, in an effort to sweep this problem under the rug, Moses Carey set up a committee to look into the representation issue. He stacked it with Democratic Party activists whom he was confident would find no problem with the status quo. At their first meeting, nearly all of the committee members stated that they expected to find no major flaws with the current system.

Two public hearings later, the committee surprisingly concluded that the county should reform the way it elects county commissioners because the rural minority is not fairly represented. They became aware that the southern urban Chapel Hill/Carrboro population center can dominate the election and there is no mechanism to ensure even one rural minority voice on the Board of Commissioners. They recommended increasing the number of board members to seven and looking seriously at a cumulative voting system. This is a system whereby each voter gets to cast as many votes as there are open seats and is allowed to assign more than one vote to a candidate. This system is utilized in many elections around the country to correct the inequities of at-large voting systems.

When the committee came back with its unexpected conclusion, their report vanished and the commissioners moved on as if the committee had never existed."

By the way, Keith Cook - who was the Dem Party Chair at the time - was appointed chair of the committee by Moses.Also interesting is that Carey purposely racially manipulated the language about this committee to say he was looking to see if minorities were not fairly represented, when all who were familiar with the issue knew that the rural population was the "minority" in consideration. It was also disingenuous because, as part of my independent commissioner campaign, I held meetings in all but one township to explain the rules and possibilities for achieving fair representation. We still need it, if we are serious about democracy.

Re:Mark's 'go-go...'comment:

Oh, brother. Here we go again with labels and gross characterizations. How many times are we going to throw this stuff on the wall to see if it'll stick? Ponder this: Would others agree that the winners in this race were those least identified with those whose approaches are least tinged with rigid dogmatism, gross generalizations about those who disagree on individual issues, and presented--obviously with differences--a more pragmatic and well-rounded approach to the issues at hand?

After a cursory review of the 'discussions' that have taken place in this forum and others during the run-up, it appears that Moses and Val were the candidates who were least directly embroiled--as targets, and as those promoted--in the more toxic and vituperative posts and letters.

One might infer from this, that there may have been a sub-referendum running below the surface on the civility of discourse, and that as a result-- fairly or unfairly--, those more directly associated with the more shrill elements in the debate were not rewarded (for more on this, see my opening post under 'who's on your list') and that those associated with the more tempered messages tended to do better.

In sum, might it be that the voters expressed a level of discomfort with what were percieved as the most toxic and dogmatic elements of the discussion--and chose not to grab any lightning rods? Just a notion for your consideration.

Cheers,

Alex

Maybe Moses and Vall won because they are preceived as reasonalble people who are willing to listen and change their minds sometimes,who are not dogmatic and who work to relate to folks outside of thier inner circle.My belief is that Moses and Vlal won not because of or in spite of merger or race or any one issue but because voters trust them and don't feel excluded from their decission making.

Just a few thoughts from the side lines

Jacquie

Terri:

I can't remember who brought it up, but I remember that post quite clearly.

I've always thought the notion that the town and the county are different constitiuencies with different interests was pretty obvious.

But short of dividing the county up into districts, the solution that post provided was a fairly ingenious solution to the problem.

I'll bite. Just to pre-empt any finger-pointing in the Chamber's general direction.

Our Election 2004 Strategy: We placed personal statements by the candidates in our last Business Today publication (goes out in the Herald and is mailed to our membership). We sent a questionnaire out to the commissioner candidates, and placed their responses up on our website. We then emailed our membership the link and put a link on our homepage. We also emailed out a VOTE TODAY reminder yesterday.

All candidates in the commissioners race, including the Libertarian and Republican, were given the opportunity to participate.

The Chamber does not endorse or support political candidates but can support, and has supported, bond referenda.

If there was a "go-go growth crowd" network in this election, it wasn't in my office.

Hrrumph.

To Mark,

Who are the go go growth crowd? Joal. I did not read or hear anything from any of the candidates that indicated that they were advocates of growth.

Joal.

And I'll add that Brown-Carey carried many merger agnostics by virtue of newspaper endorsements. It's something to behold, watching people carry those into the polling places.

I think the rural/urban split has to be considered when analyzing the meaning of this election. The fact that Foushee won only (approx) 4 rural districts and Hemminger won only 1 indicates to me that county voters saw the race more broadly than school merger (higher taxes, etc.) while the urban voters concentrated more on candidate positions on merger.

Does anyone know what the procedure is for filling Foushee's position on the school board? Appointment or new election?

When does the 'new' BOCC take effect?

Isn't that pseudo-Hartkopf posting bordering on criminal fraud?

"Does anyone know what the procedure is for filling Foushee's position on the school board? Appointment or new election?"

Selection by remaining six members, as I understand it. My guess is the replacement would stand for election in '05.

The Commissioners are sworn in in December, after the general elections take place in Nov.

Cheers,

Alex

Terri:

It might be that rural voters were concerned with merger and that might be why they voted as they did. While I don't have any formal polling samples, I think you might be surprised by the pockets of support for that issue in the less urban parts of OC.

Certainly, in every conversation I had with my neighbors, there was the perception among rural voters that Carey and Brown would be more responsive to the needs of voters outside Chapel Hill than either Ms Foushee or Ms Hemminger. That doesn't necessarily translate into specific issues, but we should never forget that image perception is everything in politics.

Terri:

It might be that rural voters were concerned with merger and that might be why they voted as they did. While I don't have any formal polling samples, I think you might be surprised by the pockets of support for that issue in the less urban parts of OC.

Certainly, in every conversation I had with my neighbors, there was the perception among rural voters that Carey and Brown would be more responsive to the needs of voters outside Chapel Hill than either Ms Foushee or Ms Hemminger. That doesn't necessarily translate into specific issues, but we should never forget that image perception is everything in politics.

No-one bit on my earlier comment, so I'll just come out and say it. I believe the "go-go growth" crowd's votes & network tipped the balance to Carey & Foushee and prevented Brown from getting a few hundred more votes.

Sometime over the past couple of weeks there was a brief discussion about electing candidates as district representatives rather than as county-wide candidates. That idea is what caused me to look at the urban/rural vote. I think the voting patterns demonstrate that the two constituencies have differing needs and interests. I've looked through a couple of the forums and can't find the reference to the district representation discussion--does anyone remember who brought it up?

The other past thread I hope gets pursued is the one on voter-owned or clean elections (buried within Dan Coleman's forum on Single Shot for M Brown). Money was an issue in the last CH town council election, it's an issue with WillR's campaign to adopt a policy on lobbyist registration in, it was a point of contention with the commissioner race, and it was an issue with the Jacobs/Faison race. I don't always see a direct relationship between money and ethics, but the two do seem to run in close proximity with one another quite often.

last post-election observations.

People who would be most heavily impacted by merger voted at higher percentages and if they were in the town (weaver dairy, homestead, cedar falls, patterson) voted for Val and Pam if they were in the county (and had the longer bus rides) (those precincts west of Carrboro) voted heavily for M&M.

In general, it seemed that the rest of the county and towns both didn't vote overwhelmingly either way. (except the AA vote.)

Also, as Anita pointed out there seemed to be a sense of go for the straight shooter -- Keith Cook finished last, Bowser in durham lost and I can not believe the push -polling helped Jacobs.. Please no more pushing polling here .

Pam Hemminger had no "major" endorsements (the CH news was back door) and when all the reports are done and tabulated (1st, 2nd, and 3 rd quarter financials) she will have probably spent less than half of what commissioner Carey did. Her first run for any elected office and she almost made it. If turnout in the Towns matched the County, she spent as much, or flip the Indy endorsement and she may have won. I too hope to see her run again.

NoMerger targeted early voting which went 1 and 2 for Val and Pam. Not bad for forming in late May I'd say...

More analysis:

I avoided following the OCS race, so I'll only comment on Duncan's synopsis of the split result -- it could be the consequence of one-shot voting for candidates with the most pronounced views.

On the Commissioners: Just look at the photos in today's paper, and related things like Anita's post right above mine. Carey won the pro-merger votes (which Brown probably did also, since you could rule out the other three), AND he won votes from a lot of people whose merger views I do not know (at least insofar as how they would vote if they were Commissioners), and whose second votes I do not know -- Pavao, Wilhoit, Seymour, Chilton -- note, too, that this list is all white. That's how Carey beat Hemminger, I think, was by winning the votes of those for whom merger was not an/the issue.

I doubt many pro-merger people single-voted Carey. One precinct was by far, county-wide, the most overwhelmingly pro-merger in its votes, Orange Grove, just outside the CHCSS district, and Brown actually won that with 9% more than Carey (and both of them with a 3:1 advantage over the NoMerger endorsees). So if Brown got the pro-merger vote (plus some merger-agnostics of her own), that shows that neither side in the merger debate has a clear majority, although the merger question probably made things much more challenging for the incumbents.

I'm not disputing that the county is split -- we already knew that. But when it's so evenly split on one issue, it seems like you've got to look elsewhere for an explanation of why one candidate won and another lost.

If you tally up the votes of those who were called the anti-merger candidates, and the anti-anti-merger candidates, the two groups polled so evenly they were only separated by 103 votes out of more than 25,000 cast. (The anti-anti-merger candidates eak out the victory there.) The merger issue, then, can't possibly explain _entirely_ why Valerie Foushee outpolled Margaret Brown by a little more than 600 votes, or why Moses Carey outpolled Pam Hemminger by a little over 700 votes.

The only way to explain it, it seems to me, is to ignore all those straight-ticket voters who cancelled each other on the merger issue (that is, forget that certain precincts leaned "anti-merger" and others were "anti-anti-merger") and figure out why the people who bucked the single-issue voting pattern made their decisions, since _they_ were the ones who made the difference in the election. Single-shot voting for Valerie Foushee? Split voting for Foushee and Carey? Either option (and there are others) would indicate that merger was at best only one of several reasons they pulled the lever.

And that seems to be the way the candidates are interpreting their victories, or at least Valerie Foushee. She's made it very clear on the radio and in the paper this morning that she wasn't a one issue candidate and that she thinks the result was a recognition of that. I'd have to agree.

Not only did Keith Cook not get reelected to his seat--he finished last. I don't think many people expected that.

Duncan, that's the first thing that jumped out at me, too. AH and LB both win seats and someone is quoted: "We would like to know that decisions are being made with even tempers". I'll eat a big plate of Mark's crow if that happens.

And my first thought when I saw Jacobs lost in his bid for the House seat was: At least we don't have go through the naming of his replacement. That would have been controversy redux.

Gaack! Right here at the table wit'cha, Mark. (see comments on Barry's race on 'late breaking' string). I'm sure Chris Matthews, et.al are breathing easier without us as competition.

Besides being steamrolled by Faison's bankroll, anybody got any inisghts on where the wheels came off the cart in Caswell?

Perhaps some f-f-fava beans and a good Chianti?

Cheers,

Alex

I think the vote reflects a citizenry who wants straight answers to straight questions, as well as candidates who are committed to a civil and respectful process. Carey and Foushee may not agree on all things, but they've both demonstrated a willingness to listen to other points of view and weigh those views carefully in their own decision making. They are also both civil and respectful with those who disagree with them.

I'm delighted that Carey and Foushee won the primary, especially Valerie, given that the Indy and other major newspapers did not endorse her. Shows that the voters are listening to something other than the editors of newspapers.

Just because the winners don't reflect one voice on merger, doesn't mean this wasn't a referendum. I need to look at the numbers more, but as Mark Chilton said, it seems that the majority (32 out of 45) of precincts either went strongly with the anti-merger OR the anti-anti-merger (as I like to call it) candidates. 4 precincts split for Margaret and Valerie, 8 split for Moses and Valerie.

This seems to indicate that certain neighborhoods had very strong feelings about it one way or another, but that the county as whole is split. What I've heard of the school board race demonstrates the same thing.

Hey, Mark, at least you looked good in the paper! ;)

d

I'm surprised no one's mentioned the results in the county school board race, other than Keith Cook's defeat. The two candidates farthest apart on the merger issue were the two top vote getters in the at-large race? Sometimes it's kind of wonderful to witness the electorate's perverse, collective, unorganized sense of humor. Either that, or as others have pointed out, as much as we'd like to think the electorate votes single issues, the decision to pull the lever (or fill in the arrow, or whatever) is far more complicated and personal than that. A single issue might have pulled more people to the polls in certain places, but it didn't make them vote a straight single-issue ticket.

I'm intrigued by Jeff Vanke's report, that some people thought that Margaret had lost the rural vote. That's interesting. Mark's breakdown -- that there were Moses/Margaret precincts, and in those precincts they tended to vote Moses a little more often -- might bear that out. Or not. I'm confused, as usual.

I want to give a shout out to my fellow Chatham voters, who voted my way and began the process of taking back the county. I think I'm going to like living here.

And Ruby, re: your sentencing of me to read the M. Brown threads _again_ -- shame on you. That's cruel and unusual punishment. I'm reporting you to the authorities.

Hey, Mark- Save some of that pepper for me! Back in April, I predicted a finish of Brown, Carey, Foushee. Of course, you had three more months of observing the campaign to confuse things. In my own defense, I did srite "unless something drastic happens". That drastic event was a very strong campaign both by Valerie and by the nomerger folks who supported her. I'll have more in my column this Saturday. I join Mark in congratulating Moses and Val and all who worked on their campaigns.

--Dan

If you look at how people voted (either for incumbents or against) in the most extreme cases (only) and pretend you are a parent with kids you may see an answer.... Also, these areas tended to have higher turnouts......

but I also think there is an inclination for voters to go a certain way based on candidate demeanor (look at the durham county commissioner race)..

sorry I'm full of riddles it's way past Daddy bed time....

By the way, did anyone notice that Keith Cook was not re-elected? No suprise there...

A possibly overlooked aspect of this camapign is whatever influence the real estate, development, and business interests may have had. Which candidates would they have supported? Certainly they are happy that Margaret Brown is off the Board.

Hey, Mark- Save some of that pepper for me! Back in April, I predicted a finish of Brown, Carey, Foushee. Of course, you had three more months of observing the campaign to confuse things. In my own defense, I did srite "unless something drastic happens". That drastic event was a very strong campaign both by Valerie and by the nomerger folks who supported her. I'll have more in my column this Saturday. I join Mark in congratulating Moses and Val and all who worked on their campaigns.

--Dan

A quick tabular accounting of county vs. city precincts, based on the Orange Co election pages at 11:00 pm, shows that Valerie won 24 town precincts and 4 county precincts; Moses won 10 town & 14 county precincts; Margaret won in 11 county & 11 town precincts; and Pam won 13 town precincts and 0 county precincts.

Congrats to Valerie and Moses.

I think you need to look at how Margeret did in the forum. You have to think about how Margeret work with other groups. You have to think about whether someone tells the truth or no.

Can someone give nomerger.org some credit? They are NOT the only political action group in this town. They are NOT the only polictical action group that has painted a particular candidate into a corner.

Like I have said and I say again. Democracy and the political process is wonderful thing (even when you lose an election).

Val won from a good campaign, a great message, a good reputation, and a darn good organization. I am proud to part of that organization. I am proud of Val.

:-)

Mark YOU are FUNNY! So nice to have some humor & humility in the author's stories.