Electoral observations in no particular order:
- Pat McCrory had Craig Madans running to his right on fiscal and transit issues, but hammered Madans on his support of benefits for gay partners of city workers and the possibility of Democrats passing a living wage law without McCrory around to stop it. The result, along with GOP inertia, was evidently enough for McCrory to coast to a win.
- Ignore any and all spin that the school bonds were defeated by this voting bloc or that voting bloc. Of 243 precincts, “yes” carried only a handful, places like Davidson Town Hall. The school bonds were trounced across South Charlotte and Meck, precisely the places the package was designed to win over. There is no way to read this result as anything other than a complete and utter rejection of the status quo and the tax-and-spend mentality.
- The CPCC and jail bonds passed, again a reflection that taxpayers are not marching blindly behind any pro or con view, but are looking to past performance for a guide to future behavior.
- So much for tight, contested races boosting turnout. Larry Gauvreau edged Rhonda Lennon in the Dist. 1 school board race with 19 percent turnout, a smidge less than the county as a whole.
- Democrats tallied less than 500 more total votes than the GOP in the city council at-large race, a reflection of how evenly split the city remains politically.
- Is that buzzing noise the sound of the CMS Task Force report being shredded? What can this collection of insiders expressly put together to try to bleed down upset with CMS and thus “manage” the change the public demands say now?
- And let’s remember that the school bond defeat looks an awful lot like the 2001 anti-arena vote, with all that implies both good and bad. Good in that the voters made a clear choice for fiscal responsibility and accountability; bad in that they were ultimately ignored by the local power brokers.
