Wednesday, May 07, 2014

Primary Campaign Hangover

1. Watauga Conservatives PAC, the outfit behind the Kanoy/Trivette/Cornett yard signs, registered with the State Board of Elections on April 27, with Janet L. Woods listed as treasurer. They reported $1,000 raised, all of it given by Paula Medley who was herself present at some polling stations yesterday promoting the conservative School Board candidates. The PAC appears to have spent most of that $1,000 on those yard signs.

2. The State Board of Elections website last night was error-ridden and prone to crashing. News outlets in major cities were reduced to calling local county boards of elections to get accurate polling results. Heck of a job, SBOE.

3. In the 24th Prosecutorial District Attorney primary, also-ran third-place finished Nathan Miller (who got 19% of the vote district-wide) told the Watauga Democrat, "I'm disappointed that Watauga County Republicans did not show up at the polls." Well, they did show up in what may well turn out to be record numbers, eclipsing the Republican primary turnout of 2010. But unaffiliated voters also showed up, and the majority of them chose a Republican ballot to vote:
Republican ballots pulled: 3,832 (59.12%)
Democratic ballots pulled: 2,547 (39.29%)
Unaffiliated ballots pulled: 81 (1.25%)
Libertarian ballots pulled: 22 (.34%)
We don't yet have the total number of unaffiliated voters who showed up, but anecdotally we can conclude that they were not coming in to vote for Mr. Miller. Although he carried Watauga by -- what? -- some 46%, more votes were cast against him in Watauga than for him. #NathanMillerismFail

4. Before we leave the statistics directly above, and even without knowing how many total unaffiliated voters went to the polls in this primary, one thing is pretty clear: the local Republican Party has a big problem with independent voters. Supreme Court Justice Robin Hudson won Watauga County easily, Nathan Miller lost, and three progressive School Board candidates were in the top four finishers in that race. Unaffiliated voters don't tend to like the direction that the local GOP has been heading, especially perhaps in the matters of cronyism, voting rights, and the mismanagement of the local Board of Elections. #FourEggersismFail

5. The turnout of Appalachian State University students was de minimis. The local conservatives dependably blame student voters for their electoral failures, but they can't hide behind that lame excuse in this present case. #AnneMarieYatesismFail

4 comments:

brotherdoc said...

A retired homemaker puts up $1000 in the school board race--no one else contributes to this PAC. Well, that counters the rumors we had been hearing, I suppose. Does anyone know Ms. Medley personally? Or know what her educational concern is and why these particular candidates appealed to her?

Deborah Greene said...

I love the "isms". Thanks for shedding light on the obvious Yates Party dysfunctionalisms: Yatism, Foureggerism, Nathism, cronyism, nepotism, etc.

I had a great time socializing with your buds. We actually had something we could agree on (the "isms") and laugh about (the "isms"- it is either laugh or cry; it is out of my control so laughing makes more sense).

And, of course, the college students will be blamed for the outcome.

Looking for to some more "ism" reporting.

brotherdoc said...

Whose job is it to take down all the campaign signs still lining our roads and streets--most with Tillis's name and the threesome Ed Board slate? Is Ms. Medley personally required to go around the county and retrieve the signs she paid for? As for Tillis, does he have some local flunky to do that for him?

Cyclops said...

Correction: Last time I checked, a conservative was in third place and two of the three conservatives were outpolling Henries.