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Barack Obama  |
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Rob Kailey is a working schmuck with no ties or affiliations to any governmental or political organizations, save those of sympathy.
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Thu Nov 08, 2007 at 13:14:44 PM MST
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| There's been a lot of hubbub about the "progressive" victory in this year's city council elections - from the Missoulian, New West, and 4&20 blackbirds -- which, IMHO, is an awkward way of describing council members as disparate in personality and beliefs as, say, Pam Walzer, Jason Wiener, and Ed Childers, as if somehow they are all prefabricated council members spit out for this election. They're not, of course.
But what's clear is that a majority of forward-thinking candidates on this year's ballot were rewarded with council seats, running on a platform of smart growth and housing opportunities for all, while preserving Missoula 's unique wilderness areas. Missoulians love their new swimming pools and newly protected wild spaces; Missoulians like the housing opportunities smart infill brings - or at least understand the infrastructure and market advantages that accompany it.
In short, it was a clear choice between planning for the future, and saying no to growth. Don Nicholson, in the Missoulian:
[Nicholson] said both he and Walzer ran vigorous campaigns, showed clear differences and let the voters decide. The voters did, and Nicholson said he told people all along he would be OK, win or lose. He plans to catch up on some chores, such as yardwork, and participate in some family activities. He plans to remain involved in city life as well. |
| Jay Stevens :: On the city council results, Missoula's future, voter turnout, and Forward Montana |
| And then there's the issue of voter turnout. Molly Moody of the Missoula County Democrats believed (as quoted in the same article) that the high turnout favored the progressive candidates, and New West attributed, in part, that turnout to Matt and Forward Montana:
During the weeks and months running up to the election, Forward Montana registered more than 1,000 voters-more than one-third of all the city's new registrants. It launched the Pink Bunnies get-out-the-vote campaign, organized events such as Candidates Gone Wild, made hundreds of phone calls, and in general, worked to rouse a demographic often apathetic in the realm of local politics.
"I think it's cool we had an impact without telling anyone what to do," Singer said.
As New West's Matthew Frank noted, "that's not to say Forward Montana's effect wasn't partisan," [Oop - typo'd out a key phrase from that quote -- JS] as the organization turned out a lot of young voters, especially in ward 2, likely helping Pam Walzer upend Nicholson.
It's likely our community's conservative activists will again cry "foul" for Forward Montana's work on voter turnout, but the real lesson to future conservative council candidates is spurn Forward Montana's voter outreach activities at your own peril. After all, Nicholson and Ballas both failed to participate in "Candidates Gone Wild" and refused to answer Forward Montana's candidate questionaires, and I suspect did so out of very partisan motives. They turned down free advertisement and promotion from a group who registerd 1,000 new voters and whose registration campaign was featured in both our city's local newspapers, and apparently opted to rely on Missoula's conservative blogs to inform their dozen or so readers that the whole thing was a George-Soros-funded scam.
Good luck with that tactic.
My advice to Missoula conservatives is to find a way to effectively communicate your ideas to young voters and address the problems that, say, young families are having with housing or university students with affordable rentals. Apparently ignoring those concerns isn't having much of a positive effect. |
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| Purely Hypothetical, of course, but - The best candidate for the Republicans for US Senate is: |
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Results
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