A few thoughts after Saturday’s mayoral extravaganza:
• I need to read what I write. It seems silly to predict that two Anglo conservative candidates will finish first and second when I’m also writing that turnout will be low. There were enough North Dallas votes for one of those guys, which turned out to be Tom Leppert.
• How bad a candidate was Don Hill? Mary Poss got more votes in South Dallas when she ran for mayor in 2003 in the couple of precincts I checked, and my feeling is that when I look at the results by council district I’ll find that she ran ahead of Hill overall. Why didn’t anyone know Hill was such a bad candidate? Sloppy reporting, as well as continuing to believe that African-American voters in Dallas will vote for black candidates the way black voters do in other cities. They never have (save for Ron Kirk, who was backed by the Anglo establishment), and I’m not going to make the mistake again that they ever will.
• Rudy Guiliani and Pete Sessions have no coattails. There were almost 8,000 votes cast in the District 9 council race, and Gary Griffith got just 6,600 votes citywide.
• Can Ed Oakley beat Tom Leppert in the runoff? Almost certainly not. Griffith has already endorsed Leppert and Max Wells probably will. Assuming 50,000 turnout in a runoff, that’s more than enough to get Leppert in. Oakley, somehow, must convince those of us in the neighborhoods whom he alienated with his campaign, his support for the Trinity toll road and his general arrogance that we should vote for him. Plus, he carried just 10 precincts north of Northwest Highway (one of which he got 13 votes in), while Leppert won 20 precincts south of I-30.
