The unofficial results are in, and the conventional whiz dumb has laid down its interpretation of the results. The con whiz sez the Toledo Municipal Primary proves the power of Independent candidates. To be sure, this is the first Mayoral election anyone can remember in which neither candidate has officially committed to a political party affiliation, Hizzoner Mikey P.’s endorsement by the GOP notwithstanding.
The field of Mayoral candidates has been whittled from eight to two, and that of Council candidates from seventeen to twelve, but what is the story behind the story? They break down into some obvious winners and some real losers.
Primary Winners
First the winners. The biggest victory goes to the ongoing rift between the A Team and B Team Democrats. Just when you thought it was smoothed over, the division again rears its ugly head. Current Dem Chair Ron Rothenbuhler likes to gloss over the split, but when A-team progressive candidate Joe McNamara refused to step aside for B-team labor’s choice, Anita Lopez, the die was cast. A-teamers like Jack Ford generally allied with Joe Mac, while B-teamers like John Irish with A Lo. Together the Ds garnered nearly eleven thousand votes, a tally well ahead of either of the “Independent” candidates, but the split meant that divided, they finished out of the top two.
A predictable winner was Council District Two – typically with a higher than average vote totals in the Primary, and it has been represented by two people in its twenty year existence. One, D. Mike Collins, finished second in the Mayoral contest, while the other, Rob Ludeman, finished first in the Council race.
Other winners included women and African American candidates. Unfortunately, neither party did a particularly good job of developing candidates that weren’t white males. There were four African American Council candidates and a mere two women, out of a total of seventeen on the ballot. Consider that the current makeup of Council is heavily skewed toward the white male, with only two African Americans and two women on the twelve member panel. In the Primary, all but one of the African American candidates, and both women, not only moved on to the General in November, they finished in the top six, meaning they are well positioned to win and take seats come next year. The times, as they say, just might be a-changin’.
Another winner was the Toledo nonpartisan election system, which means that party affiliation doesn’t appear on the ballot. This, coupled with the Dems foolish refusal to endorse before the primary, means that voters had no clue who the Ds were in this heavily Democratic town. That allowed Rs like Sandy Spang and Theresa Gabriel to skate by as “Independents” with most voters having no clue as to their true proclivities. This is especially true of Spang, who is a decided right winger but plays a moderate on TV.
Incumbency is next to Godliness
Before we move to losers, a word about incumbents. Incumbency was a mixed bag. The incumbent Mayor finished first in the Primary. Four Council incumbents appeared on the ballot, and they basically finished in the order of their length of incumbency. Actually, if you include incumbents from other elected positions, length of incumbency was almost a perfect predictor of order of finish. Only Gabriel and Spang snuck into the incumbent mix, but otherwise you had folks with over a decade of elected experience in Ludeman, Ford and Sykes joining Steven Steel, an eight year veteran of public office, in the top six.
Meanwhile four-year Councilman Adam Martinez and his one-year appointed colleague Shaun Enright finished seventh and eighth, respectively.
Beautiful Losers
Now to the losers. The Jon Stainbrook GOP fielded a full slate of Council candidates. Only five candidates were eliminated this round. Four were from the Stainbrook slate, and two more finished tenth and eleventh. Losers.
More big losers, the two youngest candidates didn’t even make the field of twelve. History shows that the Primary results are rather reliable indicators of the General Election, meaning the top six in September usually remain the top six in November, with but a couple of exceptions. If that holds true, and Martinez and Enright are eliminated, the youngest remaining member of Council would be Lindsay Webb, in her mid-30s. Everyone else would have ages starting with the numerals five, six, or seven, meaning the next youngest Councilman would be over fifty.
But the biggest loser of all—the loser that made all of the above happen—is the silent eighty-five per cent. That’s right, the massive majority of folks who didn’t bother to cast a vote—who let the slim minority decide who was in and who was out—was the real deciding factor in the election. Who knows how it might have turned out if more Democrats, more young people, more working people, more residents of the Central City had cast a ballot?
We’ll never know. Losers.
