Partisan lines blur close to home
Roanoke’s mayoral election doesn’t fit easily into partisan molds, despite the red and blue divide.
Maybe it was inevitable that readers of political tea leaves would look for signs in Roanoke’s hotly contested mayoral race of what is to be, this being a particularly hot election year in Virginia.
Both major parties’ presidential candidates view the Old Dominion as a key swing state necessary to take the White House.
May 9, 2012 - 6:15 AM
As a Democrat, it really was not hard for me to pull the lever for Mark Lucas. I had long ago decided I would either vote for anyone but Bowers or no one at all. Along came Lucas. He was articulate, gracious and had a proven record as a business person. He was also not a Tea Party radical bent on reducing taxes and services. So he got my vote. Yet I am left wondering if he could have expanded his appeal had his central plank of ” A vote for me is a vote for more jobs” not been the only part of his plank. What I heard him say was that all of the city’s problems, i.e., the voters problems, will fade away when the jobs come rolling in. That struck me as a bit too much like trickle down economics. It’s really hard to argue against more jobs, but running a city and appealing to a broader base of voters requires more. Should Mr. Lucas decide to run again for Mayor, I would recommend he listen to the voters and bit more closely so he can be more in tune with their concerns.
If you look at the map of the City as a straight Red/Blue, I don’t think the lines are remotely blurred. They seem precise and right where you would expect them for the most part. If you look at the more nuanced map, you can make this observation, but I think that Roanoke, even the tiny pitiful turnout that was, spoke clearly. Lucky for Roanoke, there was no “bad choice”, but still, the lines are there and it does no good to pretend otherwise.
I would love to see more voters show up on election day, any election day. In the recent mayoral race, it seems unlikely that more voters would have changed the outcome. Presumably, everyone who really wanted a new mayor showed up to vote, so most of the additional voters who might have come to the polls probably would have voted for the incumbent.
@3 – That is complete speculation. But I agree more voters, hell any voters would have been nice to have shown up.