Monthly Archives: March 2014

As I described in my first look at the City Commission races, based on the electability scores I came up with over two decades ago, it’s highly likely both incumbents–Todd Chase in District 2 and Susan Bottcher in District 3–will continue in office. 

Chase has done almost nothing that would have eroded his initial support, while his opponents have mounted only token challenges.

Bottcher faces a well-funded opponent in Craig Carter, but if he were to prevail it would represent an almost unprecedented upset for someone with so low an electability score.  Even if you take the 2010 Cynthia Chestnut/Susan Baird County Commission race as comparable, it should be noted that Chestnut actually carried the precincts that make up Bottcher’s district.  A Carter victory would be a strong message for change, but it’s more likely Bottcher will at least squeak by.

That brings us to the at-large race, effectively a two-person race between first-time candidates Annie Orlando and Helen Warren.  With neither having a decisively higher electability score, there’s no strong indicator favoring either candidate.

Therefore, any prediction has to be based on other factors.  Drawing on my own experience studying precinct voting patterns over the last five decades (I’m not going to speculate on the mood of the electorate), I’d give the edge to Orlando.

How did I arrive at that conclusion?

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Ropen Nalbandian.  Zabel Thur de Koos.  Star Wars characters?  Maybe PK5 is their home planet?  And maybe Buick-El is their colleague from the planet Krypton?  Or comet Jee-Em? Well, even if they are aliens, at least they register their multiple identities with the state of Florida.

Without multiple identities, our shape-shifting masters of the muni-verse wouldn’t be able to endow the hopes’n’aspirations of their chosen enamorati.

In Follow the Money #3, I’ll look at the campaign reports filed February 28 and March 7.  They cover the three weeks from Feb 8 through Feb 28.

But first, let’s get an overview of the entire campaign’s big spenders who spread their generosity around.  Except where noted, all this municipal munificence accrued to the three “anti-establishment” candidacies of Chase, Carter, and Orlando.

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It was all so predictable–the local Democratic party sends out a mailer endorsing their favorites in the three City Commission races and depicting their main opponents as favorites of the local Tea Party.

“A flat out lie,” Craig Carter calls it.  The Tea Party does not formally endorse, insists Tea Party president Laurie Newsom [emphases added].

(Here’s a link to the Gainesville Sun article, “Democratic campaign mailer causes a stir at forum“.)

It reminds me of an old country saying and an old joke.

The saying: If you throw a rock into a pack of dogs, the one that yips is the one that was hit.

You see, as I described elsewhere, the first thousand dollars that came into Carter’s campaign was from Tea Party activists Kathy and Tom Benton and Republican State Representative Keith Perry. (See Carter’s campaign  report here.)

Other Tea Party notables among his contributors include Carolyn Yoho, Annette Armstrong, Laurie Newsom, Rod Gonzalez, and County Commissioner Susan Baird.

The joke is about the senator who’s off campaigning in his home state.   He gets a frantic call from someone on his staff in D.C., “Senator, you gotta come right back to Washington–they’re tellin’ awful lies about you up here!”

And the senator says, “I got a bigger problem than that, boy – they’re telling the truth about me down here!”

(And here’s the link to Laurie Newsom’s post on gainesvilleteaparty.org where she says “please plan to attend this meeting for Annie Orlando… If you cannot attend then please donate to her campaign.”)

(Likewise, here’s the non-endorsement of Craig Carter.)

But there’s no endorsement! It’s all just a coincidence…

Who says lightning doesn’t strike twice?

According to his campaign report filed on February 28, Craig Carter received the following contributions on February 9:

• Ropen Nalbandian $250
• John Pastore $250
• Mitch Glaeser $100
• John Martin $50
•  Laurie Newsom $50
• JoAnn Whitworth $50

Also, according to her campaign report filed on February 28, Annie Orlando received the following contributions on February 9:

• Ropen Nalbandian $250
• John Pastore $250
• Mitch Glaeser $100
• John Martin $50
• Laurie Newsom $50
• JoAnn Whitworth $50
• Betsy Whitaker $35 (in-kind, for snacks and beverages)

So, I’m thinking, maybe somebody had a little private fund-raiser and said, “OK, folks, let’s get out our checkbooks.”  If that’s the case, it amounts to more than a 4,000% return on investment, which means Betsy is the financial genius that a lot of people have long suspected.

Or as Carter and Orlando might say, “Thank heaven for coincidence!“