early results leaning to an Orange win in the special election

[Anonymous]

You heard it on DCUM first:

http://www.dcboee.us/2011_special/results.asp

[Anonymous]

I honestly didn't consider this a possibility-- I really thought we had all moved beyond Orange. Biddle was status quo guy, but I never thought absolute regression guy could still win a citywide election. Oh dear.

[Anonymous]

I wonder the the 70 people were in ward 8 that voted for Mara.

[jsteele]

Orange raised over $250,000, most of it from out of the District. Right now, with all precincts reporting, he has 12,216 votes. That money didn't go very far.

A couple of observations that I have:

1) In Ward 4, I have seen the same group of activists go from being Fenty supporters to Gray supporters to Orange supporters. They supported Fenty when he was the populist reformer, Gray when he opposed Fenty the aloof autocrat, and now support Orange. I guess they see Orange as the anti-Gray. Something tells me in a year they will be supporting an opponent of Orange's.

2) Biddle's decision to challenge Jacque Patterson's nominating petitions looks pretty stupid now. Patterson would have taken votes from Orange. Perhaps that would have just meant that Mara would have won, but it would have at least saved us from Orange.

[Anonymous]

I am unable to refresh the boee website. What were the final #s?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I honestly didn't consider this a possibility-- I really thought we had all moved beyond Orange. Biddle was status quo guy, but I never thought absolute regression guy could still win a citywide election. Oh dear.

That's the reason I never even bothered voting today. Orange was always going to be the winner unless reformers coalesced around a single candidate. I couldn't have cared less if that was Mara, Weaver, or Biddle. But since that didn't happen, there was no point in even showing up. Checkmate V.O.

[jsteele]

Anonymous wrote:
That's the reason I never even bothered voting today. Orange was always going to be the winner unless reformers coalesced around a single candidate. I couldn't have cared less if that was Mara, Weaver, or Biddle. But since that didn't happen, there was no point in even showing up. Checkmate V.O.

No, forfeit you.

If you are simply going to sit around and wait for things to happen, you will always be disappointed. If you want things to be different, you have to do something about it. You will never be on the winning side of an election if you don't vote.

[Anonymous]

jsteele wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
That's the reason I never even bothered voting today. Orange was always going to be the winner unless reformers coalesced around a single candidate. I couldn't have cared less if that was Mara, Weaver, or Biddle. But since that didn't happen, there was no point in even showing up. Checkmate V.O.

No, forfeit you.

If you are simply going to sit around and wait for things to happen, you will always be disappointed. If you want things to be different, you have to do something about it. You will never be on the winning side of an election if you don't vote.

And yet, in the real world adults live in, not voting is a rational act in the face of a dysfunctional system. If DC had IRV, or there were a single reform candidate rather than 3-4 perhaps more people voting would have made a difference. There's no evidence a higher turnout would have done anything to budge the final percentages.

As far as *my* personal vote making a difference...it makes about the same difference as clapping and shouting "I do believe in fairies!"

[Anonymous]

Jeff. How bad is Orange? Honestly.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Jeff. How bad is Orange? Honestly.

I guess that depends. If you're into race-baiting PEPCO lobbyists who argue that same-sex marriage supporters "aren't morally fit to run this city" you might like him.

[Anonymous]

My personal favorite Vince Orange moment:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EIrJfyT8p3I&sns=em

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Jeff. How bad is Orange? Honestly.

I guess that depends. If you're into race-baiting PEPCO lobbyists who argue that same-sex marriage supporters "aren't morally fit to run this city" you might like him.

Where does he stand on taxes, business, government size, school reform etc?

[jsteele]

Anonymous wrote:
And yet, in the real world adults live in, not voting is a rational act in the face of a dysfunctional system. If DC had IRV, or there were a single reform candidate rather than 3-4 perhaps more people voting would have made a difference. There's no evidence a higher turnout would have done anything to budge the final percentages.

As far as *my* personal vote making a difference...it makes about the same difference as clapping and shouting "I do believe in fairies!"

Then why do we bother to have elections? Why don't we just ask you who is destined to win and call it a day? If your vote doesn't count, I guess nobody else's vote counts, right?

I'll tell you about the real work where adults live. In that word there are people who sit on the sidelines and talk a lot. Then, there are people to do things. Guess which group gets better results? Change doesn't happen overnight. If you want IRV, you need to start explaining to people what IRV is and why it would be better than what we have now. You need to help build coalitions to support IRV. This may take a long time. But, doing nothing more than using the lack of IRV as an excuse not to vote will never help get IRV. And, you can also support and vote for candidates who are likely to support IRV.

As for your personal vote, it may be one vote. But, any individual has the ability to influence others. You could have advised one or two people who were willing to vote but didn't know for whom to vote. You could have encouraged one or two others who were not planning to vote, to go to the polls. Orange's margin of victory was only 1120 votes. It wouldn't take that many people to get motivated and motivate a few others to have made up that difference. But people with defeatist attitudes end up defeated.

The day that I chose to support Bryan Weaver I knew that he had a slim at best chance of winning. But, I was looking to the long term. I was looking to be part of a reform movement that can eventually change how politics in the District works. You have to start somewhere and I chose to start with Bryan Weaver. The day that I handed Weaver's campaign manager a check for $500.00, I told him that I believed Orange would win. But, I said that I saw this election as one step. Tomorrow I will start planning the next step. Maybe that step will fail and I will have to work on the third step. But, maybe it won't fail. Either way, you can't win if you don't enter the game.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

jsteele wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
That's the reason I never even bothered voting today. Orange was always going to be the winner unless reformers coalesced around a single candidate. I couldn't have cared less if that was Mara, Weaver, or Biddle. But since that didn't happen, there was no point in even showing up. Checkmate V.O.

No, forfeit you.

If you are simply going to sit around and wait for things to happen, you will always be disappointed. If you want things to be different, you have to do something about it. You will never be on the winning side of an election if you don't vote.

And yet, in the real world adults live in, not voting is a rational act in the face of a dysfunctional system. If DC had IRV, or there were a single reform candidate rather than 3-4 perhaps more people voting would have made a difference. There's no evidence a higher turnout would have done anything to budge the final percentages.

As far as *my* personal vote making a difference...it makes about the same difference as clapping and shouting "I do believe in fairies!"

How is it rational? You lose your influence and no one even notices your absence, so you aren't making a statement. Maybe there are thousands of people who think just like you. After all, how many people voted and how many are registered?

[jsteele]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Jeff. How bad is Orange? Honestly.

I guess that depends. If you're into race-baiting PEPCO lobbyists who argue that same-sex marriage supporters "aren't morally fit to run this city" you might like him.

Where does he stand on taxes, business, government size, school reform etc?

I believe that Orange will be a pro-business Council Member. He opposes raising taxes and supports "big box" retail. He hasn't said much about government size, but one of the center pieces of his campaign was talking about how to get the government to collect the money it is owned. He didn't say anything about school reform to make him stand out from the others.

In contradiction to all of this, he was endorsed by the Washington Teachers Union. He also received other union support. How he will reconcile that with his pro-business nature is anybody's guess. I think he will throw the unions under the bus. I suspect the WTU picked the candidate they thought most likely to win who wasn't Biddle or Mara and probably have few expectations for Orange anyway.

One thing to keep in mind is that this election was simply to fulfill Kwame's term, which ends in 2012. The primary is in April. So, campaigns will start this coming Fall. Orange will have to be thinking about how each vote will affect his current base of support. That's going to make life a little difficult for him.

Orange is a smart guy and a decent politician. He is not going to make the Council worse. He just doesn't make it better. He will be a strong personality and will probably lead to some fireworks in the Wilson Building, which is not a bad thing. But, ultimately, he will be just another member of the club.