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As you already know, Theresa Smith won yesterday’s special election in District 2. Turnout was an anemic 10 percent, which was unsurprising. I was actually more surprised to see that Smith, the endorsed candidate, didn’t get a majority of the vote, finishing with 48 percent while her three rivals split the balance between them.
There’s good election analysis out on the interwebs already. Matt Hogue, while an avowed partisan for Smith, provides a useful look at the ward-by-ward breakdown. And as always, Internet Philosopher-King Chris Briem crunches some of the same data and presents it in handy map form here.
Briem also observes that Smith’s support came despite the fact that “Blotzer seemed to have a lot of support on the web. News accounts say she did well at fundraising and had some notable endorsements.” And yet it was all in vain.
Actually, the Web was a mixed bag in the race. The aforementioned Hogue backed Smith, as did The Huddler. And I’m not sure there’s anyone who really thinks the internet represents the vox populi.
Anyway, I’m not one of those people who thinks the “Democratic machine” is some all-powerful juggernaut. (I mean, have you seen some of these committeepeople?) But in a special election like this, the endorsement is the shooting match. And whereas Bram of the Pittsburgh Comet suggests that this run is just an “audition” for the real action in the May primary, history suggests it’s pretty tough to reverse a result like this in a couple months.
So what does this mean for the main event — the municipal primary coming up in May?
Well, I’m not sure it’s any sort of bellwether. It’s pretty tough to deduce any kind of mandate from a race in which only one-tenth of the voters in one-ninth of the city show up. And reformers can nurse a bit of hope for Smith’s independence. Some people seem to be reading much into the fact that Ravenstahl henchman Yarone Zober showed up at Smith fundraiser … but that the fundraiser happened after the party endorsement. Smith’s victory was assured at that point — it would have been astounding had Zober not been there.
But I guess there is a larger lesson to be had from this race: All politics really is local. Local politics especially.
Blotzer was popular in some circles because of her principled stand on campaign-finance reform. And she earned the Post-Gazette‘s endorsement, it seems, because of her position on financial oversight. But those issues are pretty remote for many voters — indeed for most voters outside of a fairly small group of good-government reformers. Smith didn’t just have the party endorsement: As Matt H. suggests, she also had more credibility with a larger swath of the district.
The reformers are making a valiant effort to connect issues of governance with stuff like, say, plowing roads. But even that stuff doesn’t translate as well in a council race, since road maintenance is an executive-branch thing.
This is sort of hard to explain, but while we talk about wanting candidates who have a “vision for the city,” there are lots of races in which having vision (or at least talking about it) is not particularly helpful. On the council level especially it may even hurt … if the candidate can’t keep one eye on the need for constituent service.
I’ve said before that it’s possible for reformers to make some real headway even if Ravenstahl coasts to re-election. There’s a chance for a genuine sea-change in council. But the candidates themselves would be crazy to talk about that. (With the possible exception of Bill Peduto’s district — where so many good-government types live, and where Ravenstahl’s support is radioactive.)
I guess that’s an obvious point, and it’s one the candidates themselves seem to get. Witness District 4 candidate Natalia Rudiak’s avowed willingness to work with anyone who helps the district, and witness the District 2 folks talking about their own desire to maintain Pat Dowd-like independence.
So the stakes in this election are high … but to win the hand, reform-minded candidates would be wise not to call attention to the size of the pot.
This article appears in Jan 29 – Feb 4, 2009.
“So the stakes in this election are high … but to win the hand, reform-minded candidates would be wise not to call attention to the size of the pot.”
It’s a balancing act, obviously. Something about advising reform-minded individuals to keep their reformishness quiet strikes me as not just cowardly but fundamentally unwise. Sort of like Democrats running as ‘Republicans Light’ in 2002 and 2004.
I think one big take-away is that District 2 is a tough laboratory for reformers to conduct their experiments, but I also think *some* media coverage of the conversation between candidates — possibly buttressed by a city-wide conversation — would have helped.
Plus, being the only D on the ballot was HUGE. I wouldn’t read too much into whose “message” the voters chose; I feel like a good third of the electorate may have stopped reading after a single letter. That obviously wouldn’t apply in the general.
I agree that it’s dangerous to read too much into District 2 results — I said as much in my original post. And I’m not advising candidates to conceal a reform agenda, exactly. (Though I wouldn’t FOREGROUND it either; see below.) The point of my gambling reference was more limited: While the outcome of council elections could have a real impact on the balance of power on the 5th floor, there is NOTHING to be gained by making a campaign issue of it. The vast majority of people don’t give a shit, and rightfully so.
More broadly, though, the idea that candidates can run successfully on issues of good governance — or even issues at all, the way bloggers and journos talk about them … as time goes on, I just find less and less evidence for it.
Most voters want to know, “what are you going to do to fix my problem, and why should I believe you?” And I suspect the second part of the question is more important. Answering it usually has much more do with questions like — “who do you know? do you know what’s important to me? have I seen you in my neighborhood?” It’s trite, but true: voters don’t elect issues, they elect people.
Over the years, I’ve been to a lot of candidate forums in a lot of communities. I hear endless questions about crime and roads and graffiti. I almost never hear questions about campaign contributions, or government transparency. That doesn’t make them unimportant, of course … just unwise to campaign on. unless, of course, you can find an immediate way to connect them with people’s gut issues. And I haven’t seen a lot of candidates who could pull that trick off.
Well, according to Matt Hoagie, the young Don Corleone of the West End, “reform doesn’t work”, so it seems pointless running as a reform candidate when all voters really care about are things like, “has the candidate ever stepped foot in my neighborhood?” or “can you name any of the streets in our district?” Or how about my favorite “has the candidate paid his/her dues?” In other words, have you sat through hours and hours of boring Democratic committee meetings and are you always helping out at the polls? Smith doesn’t believe in campaign finance reform, but she was more visible in the community than the Georgia Blotzer, who, according to Hoagie, lives in Mt Washington, which all of a sudden is an affluent neighborhood.
I agree with Bram that these next 3+ months are essential an audition. The anti-endorsement vote was more than 50%, which is a lot considering that the others “fringe” candidates. If a single candidate with some decent financial supporter, maybe it’s Georgia Blotzer, were to challenge Smith in the primary there just may be an unhappy Hoagie in the burghosphere come May 20th.
Just to make sure we’re on the same page … I’m not saying reformers can’t win. I’m saying that on a council level especially, it’s very hard to campaign on reform.
And I think there’s something to be said for being out and about in the community you hope to represent. If Blotzer really DID never set foot in neighborhoods, that does no credit to her. It’s not very progressive to ignore whole swaths of your electorate — and as Obama taught us, it’s sometimes not very good politics either.
CP, I agree with you on both counts. Nothing is wrong with getting out and being involved in the community, but I do think too much emphasis is placed on that and paying one’s dues instead of other things, like competency, or intelligence.
First, I think you are absolutely right, voters elect people, not issues. In the Presidential election, Obama was able to move ahead of John McCain when in the debates he demonstrated himself to be a calm, intelligent man (and John McCain seemed less in control of the issues and flustered by that). I don’t know that I even agreed with all of the issues Obama advocated, but he seemed like the better choice for a decision maker and crisis handler.
But I have to say that Pat Dowd raised my expectations when he came to my living room and talked about debt per capita and transparency in government and so on. Granted, I am not the usual audience for a politician, and he was in my living room early in his campaign, so maybe he decided later that he needed to focus more on people’s usual problems (potholes, snow removal, garbage and getting the cops to crack down on neighborhood kids). In fact Dowd’s website was only somewhat satisfying in addressing City issues. And his performance on Council has left me disappointed (while Bill Peduto’s more recent attempts have left me impressed).
So why couldn’t a candidate run a campaign where (s)he knocked on doors and attended candidate events and talked about people’s real problems, but had a campaign website (with lots of donation options and) that first identified what (s)he thinks the problems, short term and long term are for the district and the City, and then made concrete and/or hypothetical suggestions for solutions, preferably several for each. The website could demonstrate transparency by placing pointers to internet site that track campaign donations, and the candidate could voluntarily institute donation limits from individuals or corporations (if they hadn’t been written into law). In other words, the candidate could discuss serious issues in person if pressed, but otherwise could work to win the popularity contest. Meanwhile, for the policy wonks among us, (s)he could show they are serious about running a good government by explaining it all on their website. That would be refreshing.
Ed —
I hear you. I actually think both Dowd AND Peduto have taken steps in that direction. As the guy who compiled campaign finance data for a while, manually entering it into a database entry by entry … Dowd and Peduto were great about furnishing this stuff electronically.
I’ll also say that one of my favorite Peduto moments of all time was back during his 2005 mayoral campaign, when he had a P-G reporter tailing him as he went doorknocking in the South Hills. It wasn’t Peduto country — and I recall him making a joke about wanting to kill his campaign manager — but the guy was walking like he talked it.
I think on the council level, though, people are more likely to support someone who didn’t just show up on their doorstep for the campaign. They want somebody they’ve seen around before. And I think this is where it can get tricky sometimes, because to make a name for yourself sometimes requires miring yourself in the same web of relationships that many reformers want to cut through.
It’s not easy. But it can be done, as we have seen. Bruce Kraus, for example, has lined up with Peduto and Shields on almost every other good-government issue that’s come up. And yet his campaign wasn’t about that stuff at all. He campaigned by touting his work on the graffiti task force, promising to crackdown on problems with out-of-control partying on Carson, etc.
I covered both his campaigns, and to be honest I was often frustrated by his hesitance to be pinned down on anything except that sort of issue. But it’s hard to argue with the results.
“So what does this mean for the main event — the municipal primary coming up in May? “
It means that Smith is going to win. She will have even more name recognition and will be the endorsed candidate. Getting in council will also drastically raise her fund raising capabilities.
Winning this special election was very important for the primary.
“Well, according to Matt Hoagie, the young Don Corleone of the West End”
Thanks? ha ha
“reform doesn’t work”
It doesn’t. There is no system in check or that can be proposed that would stop me from getting money to a candidate. For example…if they limit donors contributions to $1,000 per person to each candidate per year I can just go ahead and give another $1,000 to my Grandmother or Uncle to give to the candidate. It would be up to the candidate to accept or refuse those funds. There is a good chance that the candidate would not be able to connect the dots.
How do you propose stopping something like that Schultz?
“all voters really care about are things like, “has the candidate ever stepped foot in my neighborhood?” or “can you name any of the streets in our district?””
Those are very important things in council races. If a candidate hasn’t stepped foot in my neighborhood during a long campaign season why would I believe that that candidate would be for making my community a better place if they thought we were too low for them to step foot in. Blotzer didn’t come to this community and it showed in the results. She focused her efforts into one Ward, 19th, and
the results were that she got crushed because you can’t win election in our district without focusing on the 20th & 28th Wards.
“In other words, have you sat through hours and hours of boring Democratic committee meetings and are you always helping out at the polls?”
Believe it or not there are no such committee meetings like that. When our committee does meet it is a rather quick meeting. Helping out at the polls is 2 times a year.
“who, according to Hoagie, lives in Mt Washington, which all of a sudden is an affluent neighborhood.”
Wrong. Chatham Village is an affluent part of that community and she lives in it. Most of her votes came from that area. She was unable to relate to the voters across the District.
“The anti-endorsement vote was more than 50%”
Getting 50% positive is nice but it really doesn’t matter. Clinton didn’t get to that “magical number”…did it really make a difference? Nope.
I originally posted a reply to Matt’s comment here, but decided to incorporate it into a new blog post, because it was long and I wanted to provide some links. You can find it here if you’re interested:
http://www.pittsburghcitypaper.ws/gyrobase/Content?oid=oid%3A58605
I sort of agree with Matt that there is no mechanism to stop voter A from getting money to candidate A. But what is voter A’s motivation, and how far are they willing to go to get money to candidate A? By the way, in Matt’s example of giving an extra 1000 to an uncle or grandmother, if the candidate doesn’t connect the dots, how do you influence the candidate with your extra generosity? Of course, the answer might be that you just really want to help that candidate. I just don’t see that lasting more than an election or two without the donor deciding maybe they want something for their extra donations. Maybe I am just a cynic.
So, we could imagine Bill Jones who thinks that John Smith would make the best City Council person ever. If there is a campaign finance law, Bill Jones could take ten grand of his own money, and have nine of the Jones family plus himself sign the ten pledge envelopes. Now, that is, strictly speaking, illegal, but if Bill Jones says he gave the money to the family members one second before they put it in the envelopes, it becomes legal. It is also a bit of work, and Jones family members may balk at some point. And that’s kind of the goal of campaign finance reform, to slow down one’s freedom of speech and make it more difficult for one or a few people to influence an election.
Now, Bill Jones may think John Smith is the smartest man he has ever seen, and if John Smith is elected, Jones will live in a city blessed by growth and prosperity. But suppose Jones owns a construction firm (this is where the other Jones’s might think they are part of a conspiracy). Suppose Jones bids on a City Contract, and asks Smith to make some calls for him. This is where having all campaign contributions on an easily accessible and track able database is an advantage. Now voters and even the US Attorney can decide whether something wrong has happened here, and what to do about it. Which is why Bill Jones may decide to give John Smith one grand as a campaign contribution and the other nine in a plain envelope under a table. We hope that comes out in the end.
So, yeah, campaign finance can’t eliminate the possibility of the money getting to candidates. But it can it make it slower by making it harder, and with online databases everyone can get an idea of what is going on. Which in this town seems to make no difference. Sigh.