Precinct Captains, Absentees and Turnout
One commenter, presumably a Stone precinct captain, mentions that he/she is out there passing out absentee ballot requests for the April 17th run-off. This is a classic machine tactic that didn't work so well last time. Stone supporters gathered 2,000 absentee ballot requests for the February election, but only about one-quarter of those were voted absentee. More than 500 votes, presumably for Stone, but 500+ is not 2,000.
My dad was interested in my question whether 50th Ward precinct captains were more loyal to Daley (who controls the jobs) than Stone. He ran his own analysis of the percentage of Stone votes to Daley votes precinct by precinct. I think he was surprised by what he found.
Dad found 13 precincts where it is clear that their precinct captains are loyal to Stone first, and effective in what they are doing: 34, 31, 12, 16, 39, 38, 11, 40, 14, 30, 45, 44 and 33. Ald. Stone received 2004 votes from these precincts. Precincts 25, 10, 41, 27, 5, 3, 23, 24, 1, 28, 17, 18, 26 and 2 all had above average performance when Daley votes are compared to the number of Stone votes in those precincts. They accounted for abother 1925 votes for Stone. There is no way to know why these precincts, all but two of which had a majority of votes for Stone, gave a significant amount of more votes to Daley than to Stone. What we can say is that the precinct captains in the first set of precincts were more effective in delivering voters to Stone than those in the rest of the ward.
But there's another way of looking at this. When you compare the precincts where Stone won more than 50% of the vote to those where he did not, you see that the Stone majority precincts had a higher turnout percentage than those that didn't (45.9% to 39.65%). Conventional wisdom says that run-off elections always see a tapering off in turnout. The question becomes, which side is more motivated: Stone's or Dolar's?
We will see how motivated Dolar is when she files her next disclosure. We will see how convincing she is if and when SEIU and the CFL get behind her and throw their considerable resources into this race. And we will know how united the anti-Stone forces are when we see Brewer and Aftab signs replaced by Dolar signs, and pictures of the three candidates together. The organizational advantage rests with Stone. Momentum rests with Dolar. At least it did, until they paused the campaign. Now it's anybody's guess!
Labels: Naisy Dolar Alderman Election Chicago 50th Ward Bernard Berny Stone
posted by Jay @ 9:04 AM
6 comments
6 Comments:
Oh please. I hope Naisy Dolar doesn't listen to what you have to say about strategy. You were dead wrong when you were running Brewer's campaign and you're dead wrong now.
Get a life! And a real job! And take a shower!
Wow! Do they have p.c.'s that can actually detect scent?? Gotta get one soon....
> Dad found 13 precincts where it is clear that their precinct captains are loyal to Stone first, and effective in what they are doing:
> What we can say is that the precinct captains in the first set of precincts were more effective in delivering voters to Stone than those in the rest of the ward.
you may be reading too much into the numbers
WHY people voted is hard to say
you may be overestimating the effect of "precinct captains"
do you even know what precincts had "precinct captains?"
Hugh, I assume that all of Stone's top precincts have precinct captains. It would be bizarre if they didn't. But I can't say for sure. What I see in those numbers is that precincts that should have gone strong for Stone didn't. I know they have precinct captains.
Willow, Stone's people are trying to intimidate me. I know that's a surprise. But it benefits all of us in the 50th if they assume what they assume. This is a place for open discussion. If prior comments tell us anything, it's that Stone wants this blog shut down.
Intimidation is the worst form of campaigning. I post what I know to be facts and some things I won't post because I consider myself above that sort of garbage, even though I know it to be true. I will say this...voting for Dolar is the right thing to do, and as some posters can see it has brought the ire of the Stone camp to every one of my posts. I won't use "anonymous" (although those who know me have suggested it) since that is cowardly.
I firmly stand by my posts.
SEIU may very well stick to their standard negative mailing tactics, but I've seen no sign of labor in Naisy's camp. They played the best hand they could and bet on their hole cards; having seen the flop there's no way they make a bad bet and stick around for the turn, no matter how much they want to beat their opponents. Unions have been around long enough to know that to win the tournament sometimes you have to fold a hand.
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