Journal Gazette Doesn't Know Politics

Much has been said about the lack of fact checking in today's Political Notebook (see FWOB). Ben and the Journal don't seem to have an understanding of local politics either.

It is not uncommon for Democrats to have an uncontested ticket in the primary. When this happens some party members will vote in the Republican primary to try and influence their primary. The best example of this was in 2002 when Helmke took on Souder.

Karen Goldner wasn't alone in crossing lines in 2002. Several thousand local Democrats crossed party lines to vote in this race (including some notable figures connected with the Richards-Henry administrations).

Today's Political Notebook just emphasizes that the newspaper's competency in political matters is questionable. But what should we expect, Ben has only been voting locally since 2004 and wouldn't have the institutional knowledge to cover anything from this community before Bush's second term.

The Over Under

The title suggests that the content of this post would fit in with Melissa Long, Tracy Warner, and their desire to have a casino downtown. Sorry to disappoint. This post is about the under vote.

The under vote is a calculation of the difference between the top of the ticket and other candidates/ races on the same ballot. It gauges the effectiveness of candidates and their campaigns.

Historically, the under vote in FW municipal elections is between 4 and 5%. In 2003 and 2007 it was 2.5% and 2.0% respectively.

In the case of the 2007 election, the under vote tells us that the Kelty fiasco didn't keep people away from the polls. It just kept them away from the mayor's race.

End of an Era

As this week ends so does that of the marathon tenure of FW city councilman Don Schmidt. Last night he gave an interview of retrospect covering his terms of service, and his last campaign. It shed light as to why he lost his race.

He said that this would have been his last election and that he had contemplated not even running this year. He thought that the Kelty debacle might have caused him to lose the twelve votes he needed to beat Karen Goldner. When you talk about a margin such as this there usually isn't just one thing to point to as to that can point to and say "this is why I lost".

The Kelty problems didn't affect candidates as much as one would think. It appears that the overall undervote was smaller than normal (more on this in a later post). The smoking ban might have hurt Schmidt a little but was offset by his Harrison Square stance. I think the deciding factor was passion. From what I observed Karen worked harder in her campaign than Don did.

Is Anybody Home?

The answer to that question is "Yes". Early reports of my demise have been greatly exaggerated.

Look for more posts over the holidays.

Merry Christmas to All.