News-Record.com

Anti-bond effort fizzled: Even an 11th-hour news conference by three black school board members who opposed the school bonds made no appreciable dent in the bonds’ success.

Precinct-by-precinct results showed especially strong support for the school bonds in largely African American communities, nearly 58 percent in school board member Deena Hayes’ district. Most predominantly black precincts favored the bonds, some decisively.

Which is to say that voters deserve credit for thinking for themselves and realizing how monumentally ill-considered this ploy was.

One of those board members, Walter Childs, said the news conference was more symbolism than anything else. “I did not oppose the bonds for the bonds’ sake,” he said Thursday. “I was trying to make a statement on what the real focus is: children.”

Childs said the schools have not adequately addressed the needs of poor and inner-city students. When asked if, in that case, he’d voted for the school bonds, Childs said, “I voted for the bonds. Yes.”

School board Vice Chairman Amos Quick would not go that far, but he’d clearly, and justifiably, had second thoughts.

“I was wrong,” he said Thursday. “And I’ve never been happier to be wrong in my life.”

Hear her roar: Female voters in particular were the bonds’ unsung heroes, and made their presence known elsewhere on the ballot, says Bill Burckley, a campaign strategist who worked for the school bond effort. Among the groups the school bonds campaign targeted in its mailings were women ages 34 to 59, Burckley said.

“Women have a tendency of not wanting to say no,” he said.

When warned that his remarks might be construed as, um, politically incorrect, Burckley added, “It’s just a fact of life. That’s just the way it is"

Burckley also cited women’s voting power in the at-large school board race, in which Sandra Alexander led the field, and in Laura Wiley’s razor-thin victory over George Ragsdale in the state House District 61 race, which she won by only 260 votes.

“Ragsdale should have won that one hands-down,” said Burckley, who worked for the Ragsdale campaign.

Simkins PAC losing luster? The George Simkins Memorial PAC didn’t hold much sway with black voters either on the bonds. Despite its endorsement only of the bonds to rebuild Eastern Guilford High School, black voters said otherwise at the polls. Also counter to the PAC’s recommendations, black voters supported the GTCC and jail bonds.

Two factors may have contributed here: a generational gap in which some younger voters may have no idea what the PAC is and what it does; and substantial numbers of voters who simply disagreed with the PAC.

Burckley says it’s more of the former than the latter: “They (young voters) don’t know who they are,” said Burckley, who has done work for the PAC in the past. “They’ve got some work to do.”

Parking the parks: The parks and recreation bonds failed because they should have. Every project in that package would have been a nice amenity. And every one of them can wait, too. Some people argue that more parks would help address the county’s obesity problem. With all due sensitivity to that issue, anyone who want to walk or exercise in Guilford County has plenty of convenient options already.

He'll be back: County Commissioner Bruce Davis may have lost solidly to incumbent Katie Dorsett in the race for her District 28 state Senate seat, but he says he's undeterred. Davis cited last week as his toughest obstacle the Simkins PAC's endorsement of Dorsett. He, in fact, said he was "running against the PAC." Davis also dismissed any notion that he was running merely to establish his name for state office. "I was in it to win it," he said. He said he fully expects to run again.

Friends don’t let friends who run for office blog: Among those who finished in the rear of the pack for an at-large school board seat was blogger Erik Huey, whose campaign tactics included an online forum with voters. Huey, who received an endorsement from the Rhino Times, placed dead last. "That’s why I tell my candidates not to blog," Burckley said. But this was not a referendum on the wisdom of blogging. It probably exposed Huey's inability to connect to voters beyond the Internet. While the blogosphere still reaches a relatively small audience, its influence is growing. It ought to be a tool used in addition to face-to-face campaigning, not instead of it. As for the power of a Rhino endorsement, Huey and the other Rhino choice, Alan Hawkes, both finished at the bottom of the at-large race.

T-A-X spells T-R-O-U-B-L-E: Although few of us like to say yes to taxes, the proposed quarter-cent sales tax increase was actually a good thing. It would have spread the tax burden, which now draws primarily from property taxes. For instance, people who visit the county, or who work here, but live somewhere else, would have contributed to those extra tax revenues.

The increase could have generated nearly $16 million for the county budget. But voters likely saw the word “tax” on the ballot and reacted instinctively. As counterintuitive as it might seem, this tax increase would have been a relatively painless option — a penny for every $4 spent — and would not have applied to food and medicine purchases. It also likely would have eased the size of expected property tax increases.

Joseph M. Bryan Foundation President Jim Melvin, a proponent of the sales tax increase, said he and others likely concentrated so much on pushing the school bonds that they neglected the sales tax. “Obviously, we did an extremely poor job of explaining the sales tax,” Melvin said.

So, in the end, it had no champion, and no chance.