By Whitney Cheshire
ABQ voters just said “no” to a mayoral takeover. Now, can we get some of these anti-Winter, cranky pundits a cup of coffee, please?
I had to laugh today when my traditional post-election Wednesday morning sleep-in was irritatingly interrupted by my pest-control guy… at dawn. After years of working campaigns, I expect the world to stop for “The Morning After,” and I get a little cranky when somebody reminds me that it hasn’t.
Anyway, when the doorbell rang this morning I threw my hair in a ponytail and let in my long-time critter-killer while reminding myself to be pleasant. Which wasn’t hard to do since he came through the door with a smile and said (entirely unsolicited), “What do you think about the election last night? I am sooooo glad that all of Marty’s candidates got beat.”
He was of course talking about yesterday’s Albuquerque City Council elections. Despite Mayor Chávez’s best efforts, the exceptionally low-turnout election saw council incumbents Debbie O’Malley and Brad Winter re-elected by astounding margins, Councilor Don Harris survive a bitter recall campaign and former Chávez spokeswoman Joan Griffin finishing third in a four-way contest for District 6.
My pest-control man went on to mumble something about red light cameras and a “council takeover,” and then went to work. So I stood there in the hallway, coffee in hand, and thought about that for a minute.
Mostly, I was amazed that someone not involved in the insider goings-on –the blogging, e-mailing and Starbucks-drinking underbelly of these little local races – could come to the same conclusion about the results as someone who was involved.
Because I was glad that all of Marty’s candidates got beat, too.
Voters saw through the smoke
Like others, I saw and heard a lot of things that the general public never knew about.
How many people saw the infamous “honey bee” e-mail where Albuquerque Transit Director Greg Payne was said (repeatedly) to be calling the shots in de Pascal’s campaign against Winter? How many people knew the quickly formed Committee for Responsible Budgets that attacked Councilors Winter, Harris and O’Malley was funded by a couple of key Chávez people? Did the voters know that Chávez’s chief of staff probably wrote the radio advertisements himself? Or that the same “volunteers” were collecting petition signatures for all of Chávez’s candidates? That the printing and design vendors on most of those races were the same?
The voters were exposed to some of the information through the mainstream media, but, always, the coverage was coupled with “reasonable” explanations from Chávez’s political operatives.
But my pest control man, along with an unexpected and exceptionally large number of voters across the city, figured out that this year’s council elections were not normal. This year, it was all about Marty.
Chávez’s candidates had the full weight of his political operation behind them, but they lost anyway. Period. Zero out of four. That’s a heck of a failure.
Why would Chávez waste his time and our tax dollars trying to defeat Winter, a popular incumbent?
Yes, most of you know that I helped out with Winter’s election this year and that I worked with him during the mayoral race of 2005. That’s why I might actually vomit if I hear one more uneducated pundit criticize Winter’s political strengths, strategies or tactics in terms of his attractiveness to Republican voters. To say the least, the Chávez-Payne-Bitzer driven banter is more irritating than a door bell ringing at dawn.
Rewind to 2005…
During the 2005 mayoral race, polling showed that the political environment in
Wrong.
Between May and September, Winter’s name identification among Albuquerque Republicans went from 60 percent up to a whopping 93 percent. His “favorables” among Republicans, right before the election, had gone from 24 percent to an excellent 69 percent. And the number of Republicans who had an unfavorable opinion of Winter had dropped to a minimal 5 percent.
Winter’s favorable-to-unfavorable ratio was about 2-to-1. By contrast, Congresswoman Heather Wilson is normally 1-to-1, or even upside down, depending.
Even though Winter lost the race for mayor, he strengthened his position among Albuquerque Republicans, incredibly. Winter entered this year’s re-election campaign from a position of strength, not weakness as some have inaccurately opined.
Winter and council are stronger than ever
This year, Winter survived some of the nastiest attacks he’s faced. His opponent falsely claimed he had voted for council pay raises (which he never did) and that he voted against a tax cut (which he also didn’t do). Like on the
Yesterday, Winter won re-election to the Albuquerque City Council by the largest margin anyone can remember. The voters saw through the mayor’s attempt to restructure the council and they chose, overwhelmingly, to stay with the representative who has served them well.
In my humble opinion, anybody who second-guesses the strategy behind the largest victory on record is in more dire need of a cup of coffee than me. Or maybe a little more sleep and a fresh perspective.
But whatever the remedy for post-election crankiness, one point cannot be argued today. Councilors Winter, O’Malley and Harris have seen their stock go through the roof. The council is strong. And we’ll all be watching for the fast sell-off from the 11th floor.