Matt Pulle’s mayoral overview in the current issue of the Observer is lengthy, but worth working through. It’s especially intriguing toward the end, when he discusses turnout:
"In 2003, when a polarizing [Laura] Miller was up for re-election, only 94,000 people turned out to vote. The number looks to be even lower this year. Although the race for mayor is crowded, there is not a single candidate, other than possibly [Don] Hill, whom people feel strongly about. The math for the upcoming election is startling. There are seven candidates in the field who have a decent chance to win. If turnout is less than 80,000, which some observers predict, someone can finish in the top two and move on to the runoff with 15,000 votes."
Only 80,000? That’s an astonishing number, if only because it assumes that Anglo North Dallas will not vote. One the one hand, this would not be surprising, since that bloc has not voted in its usual numbers this decade. The strong mayor referendum failed in 2005 and all those Republican judges lost in 2006 not because of any huge ideological shift in Dallas, but because the people who would have voted for them didn’t vote.
On the other hand, it’s almost impossible for the cranky, cynical ex-newspaperman in me to believe that Anglo North Dallas will let Don Hill get anywhere close to the mayor’s office. Former state Rep. Bill Keffer, who blogs for our Lake Highlands Back Talk, is part of a group that meets tonight at Prestonwood Country Club to find a way to get those voters to the polls — to take back Dallas County, he wrote. If Keffer’s group, called Grassroots Citizens, can actually affect turnout, who knows what will happen?
