The Beginning Of The End For Brooks? - Updated
How about I go right out on a limb here and ask that question. It occurred to me when I saw this in the D&C today:
County Executive Maggie Brooks, a Republican, easily won re-election, but the subplot was the fact that she faced only token opposition because the Democrats failed to even field a candidate. According to unofficial results, Brooks tallied about 74 percent of the vote in her race against Working Families Party candidate Patrick Christopher.
(snip)
Brooks’ margin raises the question of whether the victory was resounding, or instead a mild rebuke of her controversial plan to use sales tax revenues once earmarked for schools to help offset Medicaid costs confronting the county.
What was evident from the polls is that many people simply chose not to vote in the county executive’s race. More than 25,000 more people voted in the district attorney’s election than pulled the lever in the race between Brooks and Christopher.
And many people simply chose not to vote at all. Tuesday’s election was apparently the lowest voter turnout since 1964, the last year for which the Board of Elections had records.
So let me get this straight. 122k people voted on the countywide DA’s race, a “downticket race” from the top of the ticket, the County Exec race. 98k people voted in the countywide County Exec race. And of those 98k, people, 26k voted for comparatively unknown quantity Patrick Christopher on the Working Families Party line.
So, let’s take into account the folks that left it blank, that is, the folks that didn’t like Brooks enough to vote for her, but didn’t know Christopher enough to feel comfortable voting for him. The percentages then look like this:
Brooks : 72011 (58%)
Christopher: 25653 (21%)
Blank : 25636 (21%)
In other words, in a race with a massively outspent, 3rd party challenger, Brooks only managed to get 58% of the vote. That’s a mere 8% away from losing. She’s gonna have to do a lot of photo ops to get back onto voters’ good side.
Update: stlo7, in the comments, makes my unspoken point: that this is an opening. It has been made clear that the emperor has no clothes, there is a little man behind the curtain, and people need to be reminded of it. Frequently, and constantly. Kind of the antidote to Brooks’ feel-good “2 photo ops/day strategy”. Even the corporate media, grudgingly, is coming around to thinking about sort of kind of saying something about it. It is an opening, however small.
58% in a race that on paper should’ve been a 75%+ blowout is a big step down from “Wow, she’ll make an awesome Lt. Governor!!!”
But, she’s got another 4 years to do it. It’s a nice thought, but I’m afraid this doesn’t matter.
That’s right, Andrea. No matter how you spin the number, Brooks is the County Executive for another four years. While it might be nice to speculate that a serious Dem challenger would have won, or that a Dem challenger will win in 2011, I simply don’t see good news from the County Exec race.
Also, in 2009 or 2011, the FAIR plan will have been absorbed by the public. Fortune favors the prepared. The Dems had some good fortune in the form of FAIR, but they weren’t prepared. Perhaps in 2-4 years, it will be more of an uphill climb.
The moral of the story is that fielding candidates is job 1, and party leaders who can’t do job 1 should be voted out.
Or Perhaps it won’t. Idle speculation here.
Conventional wisdom says an anti-republican tide next year. There are more Dems in Monroe County.
Fortunate favors the prepared. Sure but the Schools are leading the fight here and frankly are doing a great job getting out the message. One doesn’t screw with suburban schools or at least successfully.
The fight against Maggie’s plan will be visible and public for the foreseeable future.
Two points:
1. It’s great that the schools are leading the charge, but that just shows how weak the Dems are on this issue. If the Dems weren’t so dysfunctional, they would have led. Now, they’re following. This is critical, because FAIR is an issue tailor-made to help the Dems make gains in the suburbs, where they are weakest.
2. FAIR will not be around forever. I will be surprised if some sort of grudging accomodation between the county and the schools doesn’t happen this year or early next.
So, maybe things will be better in 2009/11, and maybe they’ll be worse, but right now, as Andrea and Paige point out, yesterday’s election is bad news.
It’s great that the schools are leading the charge, but that just shows how weak the Dems are on this issue.
I don’t think anyone will disagree with you on that.
I might disagree .. what if .. just WHAT IF .. the schools are working WITH the Dems????
Um, what is missing here is that the Dems are actually now stronger on this issue.
Let’s look at Dem Strength - in 90 mins Maggie/Minarik rammed through the plan. The Dem opposition didn’t even amount to a speed bump.
The Dems picked up 2 additional seats starting in January. This means that someone on the Republican side of the aisle has more leverage within their party and against Minarik than prior to this cycle. They can flip potentially.
The opposition to the FAIR plan isn’t going away anytime soon especially next year. The bigger question is who is running next year and what is being done to flip them. A combination between school action and Democratic party could make a difference.
Now - I’m not a Morrelle apologist here. He should have and failed to find a candidate for Exec. However - that race is over and Brooks won. I’m not close to the leg races but one of the reasons Beebe won due to a tremendous effort by the WFP. I don’t know what support Nixon got from MCDC.
I would have also expected Joe to be out in front of all the issues in terms of Press Releases and all that.
The bigger question is what is Morrelle, leader of the Monroe county Democratic committee to do going forward.,
If it is more gold standard youtube videos - then we need to do something else.
Here’s a thought I haven’t seen discussed: if there had been a serious Democratic challenger, would FAIR have been presented as it was? Perhaps the intercept portion, with accompanying cuts to services (and maybe even a small county tax increase?), but I don’t think the cuts to school districts would have been proposed if there had been an opponent who could have made it into a public debate. And if that were the case, she wouldn’t have been running from such a weakened position.
You raise a good point. I don’t think she would have done it if she feared for her job. Because screwing the suburbs would have been a job-ending move if she had a decent opponent.
But she didn’t have one.
Would FAIR have been presented? Well - not in the manner it was. Certainly not.
She would have actually had to treat the minority party as more than invisible speedbumps. Maybe actually reach a compromise among raising the Sales Tax or property taxes.
Regardless - she was on the clock for the intercept as well as the Sales Tax vote.
I’d also like to add that if the decision was made not to run a candiate against Maggie, because it was thought that Maggie might present a terrible legislative package like the unFAIR plan, since she wouldn’t have a strong opponent, and that this might result in a better political climate for the Democrats, such decision-making would be terribly dissapointing to me.
I know I am bit of an idealist, but I think everyone should be in politics to improve the quality of life for our community, not just for political and personal gain (convincing yourself that by selling your soul now will somehow improve things in the distant future). Otherwise, you might consider yourself a mini-Minarik.
Unfortunately, I think that IS overly idealistic. On the local level in particular, politics seems to be about nothing more than petty power plays. Very few people run - or win! - based purely on selfless interest in their community.
Incidentally, the first thing I did when I heard about Maggie-Minarik’s unFAIR plan was to fire off an email to Morelle asking if he thought she would have done that if they’d fielded a candidate. I think not.
Bob Duffy in 2011.
I have to tell you, I am seriously upset with the lack of support candidates in critical leg races got from Duffy. As far as I know, he may have recorded robo calls for some candidates, but I think it was strictly city candidates. How hard would it have been to get some media coverage of Duffy walking with some of our guys, or even publicly endorsing them. What’s more, when Sen. Robach implies he is endorsed by Duffy (by sending lit with Robach and Duffy) the Mayor doesn’t say anything. What’s up with that, Bob?
Don’t get me wrong, I think Duffy is an amazingly qualified politician, but he needs to use that to help the party set up shop outside of the City, especially if he has 2011 county exec aspirations. It will be to his benefit anyway.
I wonder if maybe he’s not interested? He’s a city guy, grew up there and lives there still. Duffy loves his city, and maybe he’s not ready to leave it.
Take my two cents for what it may be worth, two cents, but I think he’s remained on the sidelines, when he knows that he’s going to have to continue working with an individual. He knew Joe was going to win. He knew Maggie was going to win.
Even if he would have only campaigned for leg. candidates, he would have been pushed by the media, and others in the Party, to take a hard line against Maggie. I’m not agreeing with his decisions, I’m just posing another explanation.
I think that totally explains why he didn’t involve himself in any of the lej races.
He made calls on Mike Nolan’s race - Pittsford Town Justice.
Good post - I just discussed this with a friend at lunch, my guess was 56% of voters actually pulled the lever for Brooks. So you stole my pm post!
Just focusing on the point of this post for a minute.
There is a great deal of dissatisfaction with Brooks. The numbers in the post are correct. People elected not to cast a ballot for Brooks. Would they all have voted against her. I don’t know but that they didn’t vote for does indeed say something.
It shows that there is an opportunity to unmask the ugliness that is the Monroe County Executive via the hollow facade of niceness or “looks great on TV”.
It presents an opportunity. An opportunity to break the voters and local media of the aw shucks Maggie is wonderful she is so nice. Bunk I say.
There is a concern that the FAIR plan will be “absorbed” in 2009 and won’t matter. Bull.
The unFAIR plan will just start kicking in with higher taxes. The school lawsuits will be in the news, and with additional town scrunity from new places Chili, ER, , expanded voices from Irondequoit and tried and true leadership from Brighton - additional voices will rise showing the affect of County policies on Towns.
The COMIDA hearings should be very interesting now as tax dollars are alloacted w/o local representation. Something your average voter simply has no clue about.
Sure i’m disappointed in the obvious - we didn’t truly flip the legislautre nor did we - through lack of a DEM candidate win the Exec race.
However - failure to see cause for hope for 2009 is wrong.
Oh - I would not be surprised if a Rep flips.
We want it all overnight - we can’t get it all over night - but we are moving in the right direction. I’d like it faster but we are moving forward not backward.
Blast away if you disagree.
I agree 100%. Of course it’s disappointing that we’re not in control of the Lej, but look at Brooks’ numbers!! 21% voted for an unknown with no campaign, and an additional 21% couldn’t even bear to pull the lever.
That’s huge.
Think of it as a referendum on her popularity - like a poll. She’s not as popular as conventional wisdom says, at least not among core voters.
I wish we’d done better, but I’m also pleased with the progress we made (especially in the Towns) and I think we’re in a really good position for the next election.
So stop complaining and get to work. Talk politics with everyone you meet (Yes, be THAT GUY)
Write LTE’s. Call in to Wease, Bob Smith, and even Lonsberry if you’ve got a good, quick point.
Oh, Blog. That too.
We can do it.
I don’t have a whole lot to add to what has already been written, except to say that George Bush was re-elected, and was starting to experience large pockets of deep dissatisfaction at the time. Look where he is now. It takes time for people to soak in what’s going on.
This somehow doesn’t make me feel better.
Andrea,
Well - change does indeed take time. We are contributing to change - albeit slowly, much slower that we would like but we are moving forward and enabling those behind us to continue.
The broken sectors reflected are a direct result of lack of true leadership in creating a united force. Candidates left floudering for funding and support and shocked I’m sure and dismayed at the lack of a County Executive candidate.
And the WFP comes forward and brings it home for Beebe, and racks in 26% of the vote in the Exec race on $6,000.00 and a whole lotta moxie. I think the political party climate is changing right before our very eyes. And I think the WFP deserves massive kudos for showing the strength, courage and commitment it took to accomplish what they did - all this from a new organization with only 1,000 or so registered voters locally.
Labor defined has always meant hard work, and these people live up to every inch of respect they earned this election.
Perhaps the other party bosses should take note and realize that “the times, they are a changin’…”
And for the record - it’s Sandy Frankel who is most qualified to run for County Executive. Stick a big “S” on her - Superwoman who has more class than can be measured, a record that’s incredible, a barrier-breaking, honest and straight forward leader who I think would be perfect.
So Sandy…if you’re watching - TAG - You’re IT!
[...] sure those 58% who voted for Maggie thought so too.ÂÂ Wonder how much of the vote she’d get today.ÂÂ Hurry! More photo [...]