Wednesday, May 05, 2010
Why Carlos May Lost In The Seventh District Congressional Race
Carlos May lost in yesterday's 7th District congressional race not because Marvin Scott was on the ballot but because former Ohio parole officer Wayne Harmon was on the ballot. May lost to Scott by less than 2000 votes by a margin of 44%-37%. Completely unknown, under financed Wayne Harmon won 19% of the vote, or 4,727 votes. Harmon is a former parole officer from Ohio who was unceremoniously separated from his job because of some serious psychological problems. His appeal in that case was posted online at the State of Ohio's website at one time. I posted it at the time, but he dropped out of the race and I removed it from my blog. Harmon refused to answer questions I posed to him about it at the time. I know members of the media knew about the case but ignored it because neither May nor Scott raised it as an issue. It's too bad May's campaign didn't raise the issue with him before the close of filing for office in this race. Now the party is stuck with a perennial loser who nobody in the party can stand.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
24 comments:
I hear you.... but at least you can be consoled in teh fact that no matter who the GOP nominates.... the 7th is a Dem district through and through. The GOP, when it redistricts the state, will keep it that way in order to avoid ACLU lawsuits about race discrimination. The Congressional district representing Indianapolis is and will be the black district..... which means Dem since blacks vote 95% or more in lockstep for Dem candidates.
Just the way it is.
I hear you, Michael, but if 2010 proves to be a watershed year for Republicans like 1994 was, that race could be in play. Hell, Marvin Scott came within a few hundred votes of knocking off Jacobs. If the GOP had ran a decent candidate that year, we would have defeated Jacobs.
AI... I was involved in GOP politics in the 80s. From Joe Watkins through Marvin Scott to Jonas Horvath to Rick Eynon to Brose McVey to some chick that escapes me to etc etc etc.....
That seat is NEVER in play. NEVER.
But there are ALWAYS GOP types who think it is. And that is fine. I am not ragging on you or anyone else for that.
You need to keep the RINO vote up in Marion County to help with other races.
But seriously, dont kid yourself about this district. vbg.
'94 was the best result, as I recall. Scott got 45 or 46% of the vote. That was a GOP year. And Scott's opponent was an old white guy who had been there forever. So what does that tell you? (Scott was far from a few hundred votes away)
This disctrict has become a LOT more Democrat since then.
You are correct, Michael, it wasn't quite as close as I indicated, but Scott did win 47% of the vote.
Incidentally, we did have the opportunity to run Hudnut in that race post-Jacobs and the party (Steve Goldsmith) slammed the door in his face. I think he could have won the race.
1994 results...
Jacobs 58,573
Scott 50,998
Scott got 46.5%
The next time, Blankenbaker got 44.8%, so not bad.
But the general ceiling for GOP candidats is about 40%. Probably less these days.
Man we have run everybody at that thing. Crazy people, serious people, rich people, poor people, every color, every gender.....
lol
Has anyone considered that the corrupt Carson dynasty had the democrats vote republican in this primary to vote in Scott because they know they will beat him in November and Carlos scared the hell out of Carson?
Michael,
The 7th district is NOT a majority-black district...not even close. It's about 30% black, maybe 35%. The Voting Rights and case law says whenever possible you have to create majority black, majority-Hispanic districts. Even though they use the term "majority" the bench line is about 60%.
Since there is no way possible to get to 60% in the seventh district, they could redistrict dividing up Indianapolis. The reason they don't do it is that they're try to put as many Demcorats into the 7th to create Republican districts in the suburbs. It has nothing to do with race.
That didn't happen, Flipper. Carson's people were working to get out the vote in the Democratic primary yesterday. He had some opponents as well who collected 12% of the vote.
There seems to be a number of factors why Marvin Scott won:
1. Scott certainly had strong name-ID and residual goodwill among GOP voters from his 2004 run against Evan Bayh.
2. Anti-Latino (immigration) prejudice. "Charles Andrew May" or "Chuck May" would have gotten more votes.
3. The sole Indpls Star story on the GOP race in the 7th focused on "gay marriage" and May came across in that story as "soft on gay marriage". GOP voters tend to be hardline against Adam and Steve.
4. Little media coverage in general left voters ignorant. I suspect a lot of Harmon's support came simply from his leading position alphabetically. Republican voters in Indianapolis don't take the Congressional race too seriously and just picked the top name on the list.
5. TeamCarlos was a hardworking and dedicated bunch who were running an underfunded General Election campaign appealing to the general public instead of the much smaller subset of likely Republican Primary voters. I was flabbergasted and confused when May bought a bunch of billboards last December. What a waste of money!
Scott certainly had a name ID advantage going into the race, but a clear majority of GOP voters want him to go away, Wilson. I don't believe either the gay marriage issue or the ethnicity of May played any role in the outcome, although Scott was backed by an extremely anti-gay bigot who posted trash on the Internet about May. You are correct in that the race got virtually no media coverage. It's unfortunate that the county party had three days of mass mailings trashing Bart McAtee instead of boosting May and Fishburn.
May works for Ballard and was slated by Tom John. Given the above, I felt pretty happy to vote for Scott.
The money is in the Sheriff's race, Gary. That's why it was so important to nail that one down. controlling the Sheriff ensures everyone gets paid and stays out of jail.
You have it all wrong, Cato. Ballard did not want May to quit his job and run against Carson. Ballard is supporting Carson's re-election and has proven that at several joint public appearances with Carson singing the praises of his efforts in Congress.
Cato,
I'm with AI on this one. May was slated, but he was I believe the only candidate at slating and Tom John never lifted a finger to support him.
I'm sure Ballard wasn't behind May's campaign. I, like Gary, thinks Ballard will probably support Carson if not openly, behind the scenes.
Well, too bad. I distrust the Marion County Republicans so deeply that I can't trust anything about them.
I abstained in the uncontested races just so I wouldn't vote for one of their candidates.
Marvin Scott is a terrible politician but an even worse academic. I had the misfortune of working with him (briefly!) on some research. All he wanted was data to support his hypothesis, and was furious that we turned up NOTHING to validate it.
Ballard will order his appointee to the Water Works board, Scott, who also chairs the board, to pass the largest tax increase in modern Indianapolis history in the form of water rate increases associated with the utility sale. That will stick yet another nail in his aging coffin.
Scott attributes his win to his hard work. The useless SOB didn't do a damn thing and complained to people about how much it cost to run for office. May worked his butt off to win this race.
BTW, Marvin, I know you read this blog. I will not give up until I find out what your conflict of interest on the water works board is. You know, the one you conveniently forgot about when I asked you at the Downtown Republican Club meeting a couple of months ago?
Being independent like I am, I was going break my straight Libertarian voting plan this November, and strike a vote for Carlos May.
Now, it's easy to vote for the Libertarian the fall!
Paul,
It would not surprise me if Ballard supported Andre Carson's re-election behind the scenes.
Did you forget about the press release between Ballard and Carson's office which lied and stated there would be 11,000 jobs created for completing 4.5 miles of the cultural trail, yet neither office could tell me what those jobs are going to be or where the will be posted.
That's one doozy of a joint-lie they told!
Okay, this is old, but I'll state I actually voted for Scott in that race. And I think he did a terrible job running against Andre, but let's look at how this perennial loser fared: I believe he wasn't slated when he won in '94 (I moved here in '95), '00, and '10; when he was slated in '96 he lost the primary. I heard Scott at a straw poll debate with Hofmeister and Blackenbaker and thought he was the strongest candidate, but in the primary I voted for Hofmeister because I wanted Blackenbaker defeated. And let's look at the people who defeated Scott in general elections: Jacobs (in a district that always voted Democrat), Julia Carson (same district), Evan Bayh, and Andre Carson (in the above district). How many Republicans could defeat the Jacobs/Carson/Carson machine in the district or Evan Bayh in any election? In perspective, any Republican running the races Scott had would be a perennial loser. So let's show Scott some respect. (BTW, Scott's near win may be why Jacobs encouraged Carson to run.)
Post a Comment