Primary Day 2007
I spent the day working the polls for the Andy Toy campaign. I started out hanging posters at 6/Lombard, voted at Seger Park and then headed to 10/Ellsworth for a few hours. I ended up back at 6/Lombard for the afternoon shift after a stop off at campaign HQ at 10/Fairmount where I handed out tons of literature. Me and my friends who worked on the Toy campaign (among others) headed up to HQ for the victory party and camped out watching results and meeting many of the other volunteers we met along the way. Above is Andy with his mother two people over to his right and campaign director two people to his left – all watching the results come in.
It just didn't happen. The mark the campaign predicted they needed to win one of the five At-Large City Council seats was 40k. Andy hit that mark and then some. He finished 9th out of 19 far outpacing the other four progressive challengers D. Green, Stier, Ruben and Hunt. Juan Ramos lost his seat by a solid 7k votes while son of former mayor Bill Green raked in 60k votes to land the #4 spot.
It's a disheartening cycle.
But Michael Nutter pulled it out and for that I am very happy. His plurality will likely be a landslide come November. His party at the Warwick looked like fun. We didn't make it over there, we stuck around Andy's party until the end.
It's people like Andy and Pat Toy who keep me coming back to the ugly world of politics. It's people like Kim, Danie, Ryan, Sabra, Liz, Dave and of course Lady who keep me sane and going through it all.
Election results can be found here [judicial results] and the results for the shadow election concerning referendum question #1 can be found here in the coming days. That one is going to take awhile due to all the hand counting and verifying it will take.
To take a quote from Nutter's acceptance speech: Today is a new day.
Explore posts in the same categories: Activism, City Gov, Events, Mayor 2007, Me, Politics
May 16th, 2007 @ 7:35 am
Sad – he had my vote. I didn't stay up to see results, but I was really hoping he'd get it.
May 16th, 2007 @ 1:18 pm
He had my vote, too. I found the widespread losses among progressive candidates to be pretty disheartening.
May 16th, 2007 @ 7:36 pm
Patrick Kennedy said this in 1966 while in South Africa:
It is from numberless diverse acts of courage and belief that human history is shaped. Each time a man stands up for an ideal, or acts to improve the lot of others, or strikes out against injustice, he sends forth a tiny ripple of hope, and crossing each other from a million different centers of energy and daring, those ripples build a current that can sweep down the mightiest walls of oppression and resistance.
Losing this race is hard. But who knows, maybe the ripple effects are what will save us in the end.
May 18th, 2007 @ 10:37 am
I hate it when people that can make a difference don't make it…but he was close!
If he does try again, he's got my vote…and if i have some free time in the craziness that is my schedule lately, he's also got my volunteer hours. I hope he tries again.