Election 2009: A couple of thoughts

Work, homework, laundry, and more have occupied my time the last couple of days. My son is working on a five-paragraph essay for his writing assignment. He decided to write about Saul Alinsky and the ongoing influence of his Rules for Radicals.

(Had a birthday, too. Got a DVD collection of 1960s Peanuts TV specials, which included a documentary about Vince Guaraldi, the brilliant jazz pianist behind the Peanuts soundtracks. Interesting fact: Guaraldi was my age when he dropped dead of a heart attack.)

And as I sit down to write, I hear the nails on a chalkboard sound of CNN's Nancy Grace from the other room. So this may be a bit disjointed.

I'm thrilled with the City Council and City Auditor results. Things went my way in eight of the nine council districts. My candidate won the four contests where the daily paper and I endorsed different candidates (Turner over Patrick, Barnes over Gomez, Mautino over Troyer, and Christiansen over Lakin).

Tom Adelson was hurt by the same thing that hurt Steve Largent in 2002 -- the lack of a serious primary challenge to smooth out the rough edges of the campaign and the candidate. If a populist or more centrist Democrat had challenged Adelson, the alternative might have won the primary, or else Adelson and his campaign would have been improved by the process.

Adelson's mail piece -- showing Reagan, Inhofe, and Coburn, and saying Dewey Bartlett Jr doesn't measure up as a conservative -- was too easy to rebut. The Bartlett Jr campaign could simply put out a recorded phone call with Inhofe praising Bartlett Jr. If you're going to try an ad like that, pick people who are dead and can't contradict the way you use their image and name.

I'm amazed that none of the three candidates ran against Kathy Taylor's record as mayor. Bartlett Jr couldn't, having endorsed her before she stepped aside. But Perkins or Adelson might have, and if they had, there was plenty of news in the course of the last few weeks that would have reinforced an anti-Taylor campaign theme: To name two examples, the high cost of operating the new City Hall, and the mismanagement behind Tulsa's street problems, as revealed the report last week of the Public Works performance review.

Was it an anti-incumbent mood that gave us the first new City Auditor in 21 years and the return of three populist former councilors? Was it a feeling that the current leadership had failed to confront difficult choices, failed to prepare the city for the future, failed to subject public spending to proper scrutiny? For whatever reason, none of the major mayoral candidates gave the voters an outlet for that sentiment in the mayor's race.

It was great fun to be part of the KRMG election night team once again. I was in studio with news director Dan Potter. Paul Crockett was at the KOTV studio, and he relayed results from key precincts via Twitter as runners called them in to KOTV. We were able to call the mayoral result very early, as it became apparent from the key precinct results that, while Bartlett was running slightly behind LaFortune's 2006 numbers, Adelson was far, far behind Taylor's result. Adelson even lagged behind Barack Obama and Andrew Rice's 2008 percentages in those precincts.

Former Mayor Rodger Randle's Twitter feed of results and analysis was a help as well; hope to see it again in the future.

I made two bum calls: (1) My observation of Adelson's yard sign edge in midtown Money Belt precincts led me to believe that Adelson would win narrowly. Yard signs in yards (not just thrown up on the right-of-way) are an indication of support and enthusiasm. The tendency of voters in these predominantly Republican precincts to cross the line in local elections are the reason why this city has had Democratic mayors for all but four of the last 20 years. Despite the yard sign deficit, Bartlett Jr won most of those precincts. (2) I said on Twitter before the polls closed that observers beyond Tulsa shouldn't read a national message into the outcome. Upon reflection, I think Bartlett Jr won precisely by successfully nationalizing the election and hanging Obama around Adelson's neck.

Given that, it's notable that Bartlett Jr didn't have coattails. I looked at most of the results in District 6, and Bartlett Jr was consistently the lowest vote-getter in each precinct of each of the three Republican candidates on the ballot. Typically Preston Doerflinger was the most popular, followed by former-councilor-turned-councilor-elect Jim Mautino, followed by Bartlett Jr.

And now I'm about to fall asleep at the keyboard. More thoughts, maybe, later. Add yours below.