Kevin Roden – 05.17.10

It’s been over a week since the May 8 city elections and it is certainly time for a little analysis of the results.  Check out all the stats below.  I was able to get the County Election office to get me break-downs of the votes by district, something that is not published anywhere else online.  Consider this a thinkdenton.com exclusive of sorts:

HOW THE HECK DID ELI GEMINI GET 515 VOTES?
Much can be said about the above results, but let’s first dispense of the elephant in the room.  Earning only 16 total votes in his last election bid in 2009, Eli Gemini somehow managed to find over 18% of the vote against Pete Kamp in his race for Place 5.   Despite a campaign that centered entirely on a paranoid conspiracy theory, despite his tendency of walking out of or boycotting the candidate forums, and despite the fact that he frequently  “heard” the voice of Robert Redford on the other end of his telephone, people still voted for him.  How are we to understand this?

Here are the options:
A) There are actually 515 people in Denton who think he would do a good job on city council.
B) Because of Eli’s eccentricity, he developed a sort of cult following and won votes from these new fans.
C) There are 515 people who are so upset with the current Denton leadership, that they voted, not for Eli, but rather against the incumbents.

Giving the benefit of the doubt to my fellow citizens, I am inclined to do away with option A.  I did meet a few people who voted for Gemini for the reasons in Option B, but I have yet to see a fanpage for him on Facebook, so it doesn’t seem this sentiment is too widespread yet.  We are left with Option C – it seems it doesn’t matter who Kamp ran against, by voting for Eli Gemini, 18% of the voters are saying that they would vote for anything but her.  This doesn’t mean Kamp has reason to worry – anti-politician sentiment will always be present against any incumbent.  And if anyone reads the comment feed beneath any story related to Denton city politics on the online version of the Denton RC, they will know that there are plenty of folks in town who will always have something negative to say (I guess that’s what happens when you are holed up in your mother’s basement all night, writing online comments with only a big bag of Cheetos to keep you company).

This also helps us understand the votes for Bob Clifton – any challenger of incumbent Mayor Burroughs would have gotten that automatic 18% protest vote (remember, Eli is our control group for this).  Therefore, with Clifton getting close to 21% of the vote, we can safely conclude that he earned for himself (beyond the automatic 18%) only about 3% of those votes.  Not much to be proud of…

THE RACE TO WATCH – PLACE 6
The real race of the day was in Place 6 – a field of four candidates with no incumbent, all vying for Joe Mulroy’s at-large seat.  This race quickly become a choice between the those who were satisfied with the direction of City Hall and those who were looking for a change and an alternative voice.  Early in the campaign, James King and Hatice Salih became the front runners of those two perspectives respectively.  Hatice, unfortunately, had to share her perspective (and ultimately the votes) with all the others in the race – the “we need a change” vote was necessarily split from the beginning, making her chances of winning difficult from the start.

Eric Mach had difficulty defining and communicating his message from the first time he spoke publicly at the Firefighter’s Association Forum.  He frequently pointed to the recent annexation controversy as motivating him to run for a council seat.  He could be found online showing his support for the Tea Party movement and former gubernatorial candidate Debra Medina.  Perhaps the wave of outside candidates gaining so much attention in the Republican Party as of late inspired a sense of confidence and boldness in Mach.  But at the end of the day, he couldn’t break 3% of the vote.

Phillip Kregel, who previously ran as a write-in candidate against Chris Watts in the 2009 District 4 race, came in third with only 7.5% of the votes.  Kregel, who has not been shy to reveal his political ambitions on a national stage, seemed to strategize that what works in campaigns for national office, works in campaigns for local office.  Toward that end, he spoke often with witty, yet general soundbytes against the errors of the current politicians and naively promised to be a force that would change the culture of City Hall.  At the end of the day, his strategic miscalculation was to bring focus to his young age and inexperience by making harsh claims against those who have been “in the game” for a while – drawing out the obvious question: “what have YOU ever done?”  He calculated that rhetoric was more important than substance in this local election.  Where he goes from here in the days to come will test this.  Will he seek to find places to volunteer?  Will he seek appointment on a city board or commission?  He would do well to earn some stripes in some of these roles before venturing off again for the highest of city offices.

James King, on the other hand, at times lagged behind in rhetorical skills, but showed with his win what is often at the heart of local politics: a long-standing reputation.  During the time I followed this campaign, I had the opportunity to talk to many people throughout Denton.  I couldn’t find a single person who didn’t have the utmost respect and admiration for King.  Most of the voters will never attend a candidate forum and many will not necessarily follow the coverage of them in the local papers.  For King, it seems it is not as much what he did during the last few months as much as what he has done over the course of his personal and professional life in Denton that earned him the favor of the voters.

But there is still more to say about this Place 6 race, and it seems Salih might have foreshadowed this narrative when she spoke early on about the “two Dentons”.  Whatever Salih might have meant by pointing to this divide, an analysis of the results broken down by voting district seems to point to the possibility that there are two distinct competing visions for this town…

THE POWER OF DISTRICT 4
Salih actually beat King in 2 of the 4 voting districts in town.  She received 46% to his 38% in District 1, and she beat him 48% to 40% in District 3.  And in District 2, King barely topped 50%.  Had the election been decided solely on those three districts, the Place 6 race would have gone into a run-off between King and Salih.  District 4, however, displays a very different picture – there King earned nearly 68% of the vote to Salih’s mere 21%. Taken collectively, the votes in Districts 1-3 resulted in King getting 44% of the vote to Salih’s 40%.  What is emerging, at least from the perspective of this race, is a unique voter outlook for those in District 4 compared to the rest of the city.  What accounts for this difference in perspective?

Consider a remark that came from Phil Kregel during his Interview in the Attic with me early on in the race.  When asked for examples of cities that served as models of what Denton could become, Kregel was quick to point to Frisco.  Frisco… really?  Frisco serves as a punchline for many in town.  It is farmland turned suburbia overnight, complete with cookie cutter housing developments and every big business box store you could want.  Filled with its plentiful mega-churches and mcmansions, it’s a model of everything that is wrong with modern American suburban life.  For those who point to the uniqueness of Denton as its greatest asset, a politician that has Frisco as its model will not fare well.

Kregel, however, is a resident in District 4 and seems to have no problem pointing to Frisco as a model worthy of emulation.  This tells me that the young professionals he interacts with on a day to day basis – those he claims to listen to – share this perspective.  And why not?  Much of District 4 shares a similar resemblance to those thriving suburbs to the South – it has the latest trends in housing developments, the newest shopping complexes, and most every big business you could want.

Contrast this with with the perspective of Districts 1 and 3 (where Salih led King in votes).  This is home to central Denton: the two universities and their surrounding neighborhoods, Fry Street, the Square, two of the three neighborhood historical districts, most of the city’s historical landmarks, and just about all of the city’s cultural, arts, and music venues.  It is here where you will find a constituency whose biggest fear is that Denton will go the way of the suburbs.  They’ve watched Fry Street torn down in capitalist fervor.  They’ve seen the razing of Rayzor Ranch and gas wells and Walmarts going up where longhorns used to graze.  They’ve had to fight developers and slum lords intent on turning beautiful, historic neighborhoods into land that is “open for business”.  Unfortunately for this part of Denton and its perspective, however, their numbers (and thus their influence) are dwindling.

According to the Denton County Election Office, here’s the breakdown of registered voters per district (click on each one to see a corresponding map of that district):

– District 1 – 9420
– District 2 – 15,112
– District 3 - 11,133
– District 4 – 22,537

Districts 1 and 3 combined have less registered voters than District 4.  Combine this with the high number of rental properties in Districts 1 and 3 – many of these registered voters are college students or others who have no long term future in Denton and, therefore, have less interest in city affairs and elections.  If we were simply talking about elections for District seats, this wouldn’t present a problem.  But in the case of at-large seats, District 4 and its perspective runs the show.  What this means is that this sole District in effect controls its own District seat as well as the three at-large seats, giving them 4 council members who must be cozy to their perspective of Denton in order to win and retain their seats (and it only take 4 council members to get anything passed on council).

To qualify this a bit – I am not saying that our current at-large council members are set on turning Denton into Frisco.  Mayor Burroughs and Mayor Pro-Tem Kamp have shown themselves in many ways to be defenders of Denton’s unique identity and history.  But this trend of difference of perspective between District 4 and the rest of Denton, combined with their large and ever-growing numbers, ought to be cause for alarm as to a significant change in voting demographics that is potentially harmful to the interests of the core of Denton.  City Secretary Jennifer Walters tells me that city redistricting will be examined following the results of the 2010 Census.  This will be a process to watch…

LOW VOTER TURN-OUT
Voter turn-out across the city was 5.37%, with District 3 coming in best at 6.4% and District 1 coming in with the lowest at 2.79% (and with only 9420 total registered voters, that means District 1 had only 263 voters this time).  Contrast this with a 56.8% voter turnout nationally in the 2008 Presidential Election.  How do we interpret this pitiful level of involvement?

It is true that it appears as if politics on a national level is more important than the issues of a local city government.  After all, they deal with wars, human rights, health care, economic systems, and environmental disasters – everything that aims right at our sense of justice.  On the other hand, we have city government which deals with potholes, street signs, traffic lights, and zoning.  But it seems a fresh case can  be made for local politics being more important than national politics.  In a day when the federal government is everyone’s helicopter parent taking on every issue it can, local governments are becoming increasingly emasculated to deal with what is properly within their domain.  Recall the constant passing of the buck to Austin and Washington during the Rayzor Ranch drilling controversy – “we are constrained by laws that we don’t control.”  We are watching local control of everything from welfare to education being happily given over to the state and federal levels – and every time we show up for their elections in great numbers, while neglecting our own, we are telling them that is exactly what we want to happen.

A fresh case for the value of local government needs to be made – stay tuned for that.

And for all the election geeks out there, here are the results as provided by the Denton County Elections Office per district – this also includes stats on early voting and election day voting:

– District 1 results
– District 2 results
– District 3 results
– District 3 results
– All City results