I'm giving this some thought because of a comment from one of the volunteers from the recount who had also volunteered on Madore's campaign; he assured me that Mielke won because of Madore's coat tails.
I wasn't so sure. And in viewing the numbers, I'm now convinced that, if anything, it was the other way around.
Here are the final tallies for the commissioner races in Clark County:
Mielke 91,139 51.72%
Tanner 84,859 48.16%
Madore 84,382 53.34%
Boldt 70,521 44.58%
I believe that Marc Boldt was a political dead man walking for the past year. While Madore's victory over Boldt was decisive by percentage, it's of some note that he received over 500 fewer votes than the losing democrat running against Mielke.
So, did Madore win because of his political strength? Or was this the result of Boldt's obvious political weakness?
We had two incumbents. One was over-the-top opposed to the CRC scam, one was over-the-top in support.
The one who was over the top opposed spent a little over $20k in his campaign. The one who was over the top supportive of the CRC rip off spent almost 5 times as much.
Directly, 7,000 who voted for Mielke refused to vote for Madore. This is critical. And it shows, I believe, that Tom won because he was Tom, and what put him over the top was the number one issue confronting this county for decades to come: the CRC scam and everything that goes along with it.
The one who was opposed to the CRC scam received just over 91,000 votes.
The one who turned into a rabid supporter received almost 21,000 fewer votes.
It's hard to see where the candidate who took home 7,000 MORE votes than Madore rode in on Madore's coat tails.
Just sayin'.
4 comments:
Interesting and compelling logic, however, another take:
Madore was a One Issue Candidate who won on one issue. He essentially made that issue (in fertile ground), and it spilled into other campaigns. Meilke got the additional anti-CRC votes Madore brought into the race, which added to his established base. Without them, I suspect he would have lost.
I don't know, Martin.
If we look at the 49th, which is very pro-CRC, Democrat and elects people like Jim Moeller repeatedly, Madore ended up defeating Boldt.
In the Tanner Mielke campaign, Tanner defeated Mielke by nearly 7,000 votes within the 49th.
And even with that, Mielke received almost 400 more votes than did Madore.
There wasn't much of a spill over in the senate race: Benton was also well known for his opposition to the CRC, though he allowed himself to be knocked off that message, foolishly, I might ad, his opposition, as known as it was, didn't help him.
I'd be willing to bet that Benton got at least 75 votes because of his CRC opposition.
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