Myth of the Swing Voter and CLT's Misspent Youth

Anyone else get the feeling that the UPoR’s demographic breakdown of the vote for mayor of Charlotte was meant to be a little meatier, but the facts could not sustain it?

I mean, when the info clearly shows that independent voters (16 percent turnout) did not give two shakes about the race and that voters under 30 couldn’t tear themselves away from the EpiCenter — or sending out resumes — long enough to vote, that’s two big storylines kaput. Even the racial breakdown did not go according to script, with 26 percent of white voters turning out to help elect a black mayor, compared to 22 percent turnout for black voters.

Still it was all probably worth it just for this clip-n-save quote from Team Lassiter:

More than a third of the city’s 114,600 unaffiliated voters live in the two southeast City Council districts that Lassiter carried.

“I think that definitely is a factor,” said Perry Lucas, Lassiter’s campaign manager. “Our strategy was clearly to turn out independent voters in high numbers … The disappointment was the overall low voter turnout.”

Why? Why would that be your top-line campaign approach? Given that independent voters are all over the map issue-wise, how does one construct a coherent pitch to them? Oh, that’s right. You are John Lassiter running on an issue-free “leadership and experience” platform, only ever so slightly to the right your opponent on a few issues, in lockstep on the vast majority of them.

Is it any wonder that most independents looked at their choice and said, “Flaxxiter it is then” and stayed home? Clearly building your campaign around independent voters does not work for Republicans in Mecklenburg County. This does not mean you try to run independents off, it is just that making sure that you excite and motivate your base to turnout comes first. And how does one do that? By drawing distinctions between yourself and your opponent.

Assuming there are any. One more time: The 2009 mayor’s race demonstrated that voters do not turn out for campaign cost, name ID, or Uptown predictions. They turn out for ideas. Period.