[Peace-discuss] More on election

Wed Apr 18 12:10:52 CDT 2007

I agree with Mort. 16% of the voters is a minute quantity of voters. A
very knowledgeable person told me that the Democratic Party barely did
any work for either city. Could that be because of the split in the
Democratic Party here? Or because the Democratic Party thought the
candidates too left for their taste? I know not.
      Whatever the case, I know that when the turnout is so very low,
it is all within the reach of whoever campaigns the hardest....money
concerns aside. I can speak for the case of Tracy Heilman running
against John Dimmit and Andrew Wilke. Germaine Light, another person
and I went out together (splitting up addresses) for three hours on
Sunday in precinct 21. Among other results, we got about ten very
strong positives to vote for Tracy FROM PEOPLE WHO DID NOT KNOW THERE
WAS AN ELECTION and otherwise would not have voted for anyone. These
way outnumbered the couple of people we ran into who were committed to
the 20-year-incumbent for the school board, John Dimmit, a Republican.
African-Americans were very happy to hear about Tracy because she has
a multi-race picture on her brochure, has an Equity for Children plank
in her campaign and her own child in kindergarten at Thomas Paine
School.
     On Monday night, I and two other people did a calling campaign
for a couple of hours and had the same experience - got maybe half a
dozen each, of people who were very happy to go and vote for a good
person, but otherwise had not heard of the election. On Tuesday, the
day of the election, I personally took four people from the retirement
home around the corner to vote for Tracy and these were all people who
would not otherwise have voted because they needed a ride. I figure
that my personal efforts over about 48 hours accounted for around 15
direct votes for Heilman.
    The vote was 266 for Dimmit and 186 for Tracy Heilman. This is
hardly a neck and neck race, and yet I cannot help but do the math and
say to myself, all we needed was 6 more people in the last three days.
I did not reach out to any of you because I assumed, perhaps wrongly,
that progressives were all working on the Champaign election. Not
everyone in Urbana was able to vote in the Dimmit/Heilman race, just
District 7.
    Point is that in a race that is purely local, turnout is always
relatively low, and in such cases, the amount of work (as opposed to
campaign money) is the key factor, and especially in a non-partisan
race as the school board elections are - Tracy was not running as
either a Democrat or a Republican although the Democratic Party was
nominally supporting her.
   Well, here's to next time. Living and learning always, Barbara Kessel

On 4/18/07, Morton K. Brussel <brussel at uiuc.edu> wrote:
> It strikes me that when so few, of those eligible, vote, no firm
> conclusions can be made about the reasons for failure or success,
> except that more effort has to be exercised to get more (favorable)
> voters out to vote.  ---mkb
>
> On Apr 18, 2007, at 10:54 AM, Linda Evans wrote:
>
> > It is also backlash because of the perceived Urbana
> > influence on Champaign politics.  I grew up in
> > Champaign and there has always been a war between the
> > two cities.  It is insane.  The progressives in
> > Champaign need to stand up and be a force on their
> > own.  I appreciate all the Urbana people who come to
> > city council meetings and such, but I don't think it
> > helps for you to speak up if there are Champaign
> > residents who will do the speaking.  People in
> > Champaign will not listen to you, just because you are
> > one of "them".  I know it isn't right, but we have to
> > get more politically savvy.  Things run differently in
> > Champaign.  We can't use the same tactics.  We also
> > need to be careful about throwing the AWARE name
> > around.  There are a lot of people who came to the
> > last city council meeting who do not come to AWARE
> > meetings...AWARE is perceived as a splitter group
> > and/or "cult" (run by Carl Estabrook no less...when
> > will they blame some of the women in the group for
> > thinking for all the rest?).  We need to get organized
> > in Champaign, we need to get smart, and we need to
> > look NOW for someone to run against the mayor.
> >
> > I'm sure everyone saw this article and pay attention
> > to Bruno and Deb F-F's comments:
> >
> > http://www.news-gazette.com/news/local/2007/04/18/
> > voting_trend_conservative_for_champaign_city_council
> >
> > Annette did very well for being an unknown.  I
> > personally think using your religion would help you in
> > future runs for office.  I don't mean for this to
> > sound crass, but we need to start strategizing and
> > playing the cards which work.
> >
> > Linda (who is sooo glad she couldn't find a house in
> > Urbana now...Champaign needs the votes!  I am equally
> > glad that my brother doesn't live in the city limits
> > and didn't vote yesterday because he is the exact
> > opposite politically from Karen/me.)
> >
> > --- Brian Dolinar <briandolinar at gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> >> Don't confuse this for what it is:
> >> White backlash to smoking ban/chief/consent decree.
> >>
> >> BD
> >>
> >> On 4/18/07, Bob Illyes <illyes at uiuc.edu> wrote:
> >>>
> >>> Yup, Karen, everything is my fault. As a
> >> recovering German Protestant,
> >>> this has never been less than obvious to me.
> >>>
> >>> On a more serious note, this election was decided
> >> by the ability
> >>> of the parties and other organizations to get out
> >> the vote. Annette
> >>> in particular worked her tail off, but somehow the
> >> rest of us let
> >>> her down. This is a hard problem, with the media
> >> largely under the
> >>> control of the right. But it is not a problem we
> >> can't solve.
> >>> Democracy requires a lot of patience,
> >> unfortunately.
> >>>
> >>> Bob
> >>>
> >>> _______________________________________________
> >>> Peace-discuss mailing list
> >>> Peace-discuss at lists.chambana.net
> >>>
> >>
> > http://lists.chambana.net/cgi-bin/listinfo/peace-discuss
> >>>
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >> --
> >> Brian Dolinar, Ph.D.
> >> 303 W. Locust St.
> >> Urbana, IL 61801
> >> briandolinar at gmail.com
> >>> _______________________________________________
> >> Peace-discuss mailing list
> >> Peace-discuss at lists.chambana.net
> >>
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> >>
> >
> >
> > Linda
> > http://triballife.net/  A Marketplace for a Better World
> >
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