I recently heard that Ray O'Connell was going to wage a write-in campaign for mayor, and Ce-Ce Gerlach's Facebook post might be a confirmation. According to Ce-Ce's post, she already has about 2,000 voters interested. If O'Connell will be actively participating in this effort remains to be seen.
Yesterday, I endorsed Nat Hyman, and wrote elsewhere that I believe that the hill is too steep for either an independent or write-in candidate to prevail. While some others might think that the more candidates the better for Pawlowski, as was the case in the primary, in the general I think O'Connell voters will help Hyman. In addition to O'Connell, Luiz Garcia is also being encouraged to wage a write-in effort. Because O'Connell and Garcia were primary candidates, election law precludes them from now running as independents.
Although still only June, the fall election for mayor has begun in earnest.
the following comment is from scott armstrong, who is having some technical difficulty with his sign in.
ReplyDeleteMike,
I respectfully disagree with your thinking that a Ray write in won't hurt Ed's general election opponent. I believe it will. Ed seems to have a solid 30-35% of the voters. They will be there again for him(the fools) on election day, that leaves about 60-70% of those who may show up left. Nat will need to get more than 40% minimum to beat Ed. With this in mind, a well meaning political fool like Ray O'Connell and other assorted political novices/self important fools could prevent him from achieving that number. Remember, Allentown is that stupid! If you doubt me look at the totally insane idiocy of the Democratic Primary. Clearly, the Dems are ready to repeat the foolishness. Ed Pawlowski has to be laughing himself silly and thanking his lucky stars to have stumbled on such a foolish city. Scott Armstrong
I think Garcia was a republican candidate in the primary.
ReplyDeleteAaron, that is correct. I understand why things happened the way they did. Time to move on. Bigger and better things await us. Take care!
Deleteaaron@5:56, thank you for pointing that out. furthermore, garcia claims that he was the only true republican, with hyman having been a convert to the party.
ReplyDeleteI was the only true GOP candidate.
DeleteThis is one of those "anything can happen" years. It will be interesting, that's for sure.
ReplyDeleteI will not be running a write in campaign. I have not publicly or even privately said I was going to do so. When the primary was over my chances this time around were over. I do not have a strong enough name recognition to pull that off.
ReplyDeleteI will say Scott you surely have showed your truly colors with your insults. No need to call people names and act as if you and all your friends are political geniuses. You are just hurting your party with that type of rhetoric. Good luck to all the candidates moving forward. I know who I am voting for and I will tell my friends privately my intentions. Take care!
luiz@9:58, thank you for that clarification. i wish that ray o'connell would do likewise, if not here, at least somewhere. i do assume that ce-ce is too politically sophisticated to make such a pronouncement without some collaboration with ray.
ReplyDeleteMr. O'Connell is a fine man, and Allentown would be well served if he somehow wound-up as Mayor. But shouldn't we be concerned that a write-in for him of any scale might present a Perot-like siphon effect that would further help Pawlowski?
ReplyDeletejeffrey@2:28, yours is a valid concern. my thinking was that hyman would take the entire republican vote, although significantly smaller than the democratic registration. o'connell would weaken pawlowski's democratic returns, perhaps helping hyman upset the democratic advantage. however, other people equally informed think that a strong write-in would help pawlowski. to my knowledge, o'connell has yet to confirm or deny his intentions
ReplyDeleteMichael @4:14, Yeah, it's a tough call. The conventional wisdom is that party lines are much more fluid in local elections (no Republican or Democratic way to pick up the trash, fill the potholes, etc), but I don't know to what extent that's historically true in Allentown -- and it would take a fair amount of database building and querying to find out.
ReplyDeleteIf I wasn't so fearful of a siphon, I can easily see myself voting for the well-respected and time-tested Mr. O'Connell (for a Democrat, he's a really good approximation of a Republican, a la St. Emma), but if I woke up the morning after election day and found that Pawlowski won because I and others did that, I'd have a hard time forgiving myself and not feeling like an idiot in retrospect.
All that said, I hate the idea of voting for Hyman *just because* he's of my party and doesn't happen to be under the shadow of indictment.
Why oh why weren't GOP voters smart enough to pick Det. Garcia in the primary? Now *that* would have been a horse race I'd be really looking forward to.
jeffery@4:45, robert trotner linked to this post on a Facebook allentown page, where charlie thiel commented that the numbers are just not there for a write-in. that seems to dash the progressive's hope that thiel and bennett would come together and work for a o'connell write-in. as i stated in the previous post, i will be supporting hyman. it is my hope that many democrats cross over and vote republican in november. fyi, the last republican mayor was heydt. i believe that the last republican victory in a city election was dave bausch in 2003. assuming that ray doesn't wage a write-in, i hope that o'connell, bennett and thiel put city over party and support hyman.
ReplyDelete