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January 21, 2007
Chico Says "Super-Size" That Council
 |
| For those of you that didn't yet know
it, the liberal candidates won big in the last local election. A couple
of
days before the vote they had a giant burger barbecue on the CSU Chico
campus where they gave away free food to our starving students (I assume
veggie
burgers
were
an option). I was told they served up 400-500 tasty slabs of cow. I recently had an opportunity to look at the precinct-by-precinct votes that were forwarded to me. The CSU Chico votes are amazingly lopsided. CSU Bell Memorial Votes Gruendl - 715 Flynn - 681 Nickell - 482 Sorensen - 276 Herbert - 263 Dailey - 212 I think students must have been asking "Can I have a Gruendl Garden Burger and some Flynn Fries on the side?, Oh, and add an order of the Nickell Nachos, please." |
| If you expand the area to include precincts
in the CSU Chico vicinity as well as the ones on campus, the trend continues. Downtown and Campus Precinct Votes Flynn - 3181 Gruendl - 3083 Nickell - 2403 Sorensen - 1525 Herbert - 1291 Dailey - 1063 Finally, as a comparison we should look at the more conservative 3rd Supervisor District to see how the rest of the city compares to those "nuts" downtown. 3rd Supervisor District Precinct Votes Flynn - 6521 Gruendl - 6118 Sorensen - 5541 Nickell - 5437 Herbert - 5095 Dailey - 4342 Hmmmm.... closer, but it looks to me like the liberal candidates also fared well out in the working class sticks. Since Gruendl and Flynn were so far ahead of the pack I might as well talk about why I think they did so well. You could chalk their victory up to sophisticated support networks, union backing, dirty pool, or a number of other things. But I think you'd be wrong. Gruendl did a good job as mayor and is likable. The fact that he takes some pretty liberal stances on defining issues wasn't lost on the populace (for example, the Enloe union comments). They seem to be OK with that, or willing to ignore it in light of his other traits. Flynn on the other hand had three things going for her... 1. Tattoos are very popular, and her yard signs were similar to tribal rune tats. 2. Chicoans have a deep love of high school math. 3. Flynn's friends have a strange capacity for writing letters-to-the-editor at regularly timed intervals. Mary came from a good profession (politically speaking), was benign during her campaigning, and had a pre-existing and functional support network. I once compared her campaign filings (the ones that list financial donors and amounts) to some of the other candidates. Hers were 3 times thicker than the some of the others, which to me represents grass roots support (side note: congrats to Flynn for an ER "hit" today. I noticed the same thing during the council meeting referenced in that article). For what it's worth, I think Nickell got pulled into office on the strength of Flynn and Gruendl. But he also had some of Flynn's traits, and I'm sure he'll do a good job. |
| Summary: From the
results I've seen I think the liberals were given a mandate from the voters.
As a fiscally conservative guy, I don't want to see a lot of "Bidwell Ranch's" in the future. I'm still processing the "Gold Line" and am not yet vehemently opposed to the idea (more on that later). As a Chicoan, I'd rather see time spent securing property along the northern edge of upper Bidwell Park, as opposed to relentless efforts to stop growth. This council, which is decidedly liberal, will follow it's heart. It will have opportunities to be both responsible and irresponsible in the arenas of spending and land use. I would point out to my fellow Chicoans that with the latest appointments to the Planning Commission we've yet to see how far left the political pendulum has actually swung. A reasonably moderate, left leaning council may the best hope a fiscal conservative has. I'm willing to give this council the benefit of the doubt in the next two years. They earned it last November. |
Posted by Lon at January 21, 2007 12:00 AM
Comments
It’s not as if the liberals had a lock on Chico voters. Here are some interesting facts: conservative candidates running without PAC support, Keene, Aanestad and Herger all won Chico. Aanestad and Herger didn’t even bother to campaign! Yet conservative candidates with PAC support all finished last in Chico.
You have to wonder if those candidates could have still finished last without PAC support? Or if that PAC money would have done more good sent to Africa to fight hunger?
Posted by: pypr at January 21, 2007 10:56 AM
Hey Pypr,
One of them did have a PAC.
I wouldn't call Keene, Herger, or Aanestad's competition too significant. Didn't one of them complain that the democratic party wouldn't return his phone calls? You could also say Jane Dolan doesn't need a PAC. It seems to me that all of the people mentioned had other infrastructure and assets of a political nature.
I'm guessing that if you asked the local candidates that lost they wouldn't say they had too much support. But they probably would have rather had the PAC money to put into their own campaigns (which they couldn't have done with all of it because of campaign limits on some of the donors).
Of course when I show up at a fundraiser put on by a candidate, and there's only a dozen people there, it's kind of hard to blame a PAC for fundraising shortfalls.
At the end of it all I just need to look at the vote counts to recognize that Chico selected a liberal majority. I don't think the voters were so stupid that they did not know what they were doing.
Lon
Posted by: Lon at January 21, 2007 03:35 PM