Newcomer candidate Bill Russell pulled the upset Tuesday night in Ashvegas City Council elections and knocked out Councilman Bryan Freeborn, a candidate looking for his first election victory after being appointed to council two years ago.
By a slim 84-vote margin, Russell won in unofficial returns. Russell, nervously watching returns all night, had been running in fourth and fifth place until returns came in that shuffled the deck about 9:30 p.m. Suddenly, he was the Golden Boy. Bill “Balance” Russell held on despite a late-reporting Montford precinct. Everyone thought Montford would catapult Freeborn to victory, but it apparently wasn’t enough. We’ll have to study the results more to determine what happened.
A shell-shocked Freeborn sat in his chair at the Westville Pub Tuesday night surrounded by grim-faced reporters. He spoke little. He didn’t look at returns on a laptop. About 10:30, he packed up the kids for home and awaited a visit from fellow council member, friend and supporter Brownie Newman, who waltzed to re-election. Freeborn refused to give a statement to the media. One of his campaign people said the Freeborn camp would likely call for a recount.
Here are the raw numbers:
Jan Davis 7,639
Brownie Newman 6,613
Bill Russell 5,568
Bryan Freeborn 5,484
Dwight Butner 5,367
Elaine Lite 5,009
On whether City Council elections should be partisan:
Yes 2,346
No 9,568
So what does this all mean? First, it means Freeborn has a personality that’s rubbed a lot of people the wrong way. He’s come across as immature and whiny, despite his knowledge of the issues and his good answers to tough transportation issues Ashvegas faces.
Second, it means Russell’s message of “balance” resonated with voters. Nobody really knows what that means, but voters like to hear it and they like to think they’re voting for it. That’s why we see presidents of one party and a majority in congress of another party. Voters want parity.
Third, it means that the progressive wing of the Democratic Party in Ashvegas isn’t as strong as some would like to think. After a lot of work at the grass roots level to get progressives in place in precincts and in party appartus, such as county and state delegations, the progressives have yet to find the right formula for a winning candidate. They just haven’t broken through.
Finally, it means that the coalition of conservative Democrats and Republicans in Ashvegas remains viable. Here’s who we spotted at Magnolia’s in support of Russell: former City Council members Chris Peterson, a registered Dem, and Carr Swicegood, a Repub; businessman Jerry Sternberg; Mike Plemmons of the Council of Independent Business Owners; state House Rep. Charles Thomas, a Repub; Buncombe County Board of Commissioners Chairman Nathan Ramsey, a Repub, and his wife Robin, active in the local Republican Party; City Councilman Jan Davis, a Dem; former City Council member Joe Dunn, a Repub; etc.
This group knows how to energize its base and get people elected. One way to look at this election is to look at how the vote on partisan elections went – nearly five to one, people said no to partisan elections. One could argue that the it was Republicans saying no to the Ashvegas City Council majority of Democrats that had pushed the issue of returning the city to partisan elections.
Well, that’s it for our analysis tonight – or should we say, this morning. Time to sleep on it and look at everything again in the morning.
9 Comments
I didn’t know that Bill! Weird!
But here’s something you don’t know about Freebie:
He had an army of unpaid interns run his campaign last year, doing everything from flyers and signs to designing his website and newsletters…and he flunked almost all of them when his campaign failed and he had a hissy fit.
My roommate got an incomplete on his college internship because freeborn started pouting and lashing out like a child.
I did not agree with the tactic…but the need for "balance" argument was very resonant for many people that did not support the progressive majority on the last council. Elaine Lite had several sound ideas but she was too granola…even for Asheville. And Freeborn’s cockiness was a big turnofff. As other posters have said the liberal/progressive camp or whatever it is needs to work on running candidates that hew towards progressive thinking but have mainstream pragmatic mindsets like Brownie Newman.
I have this to say about Freeborn, he actually takes mass transit.
Routinely.
Can any other politician say that?
Sweet! I actually got a prediction right! It takes some of the sting out of all those march madness bracket failures.
But Freeborn got the brunt of the partisan election backlash, which is what I expected.
People aren’t that dumb, and most everyone realized that it was less about the elections and more about keeping the powers that be in power.
And Since Jan voted against it, and Newman has served several terms and is fairly well respected, it had to be Freeborn that took the fall, and he did.
And besides his website PDF file, Freeborn hasn’t done anything for asheville transit besides approve the free bus faire experiment like almost all the other candidates.
I mean, is that he greatest virtue? He thinks we should have more public tranist? No shit, who doesn’t think that? The question is, who will do anything about it, and the answer is not Freeborn.
Anyway, Freeborn was a lot of talk and very little substance, so he got the boot.
Just wanted to let folks know that there’s a really good conversation going on at Scrutiny Hooligans about what it all means:
http://www.scrutinyhooligans.us/?p=4361
Although I did not vote for Jan Davis yesterday I’ve never thought of him as a Mumpower clone. Sure, they do align a lot when it comes to development issues, but in other areas the seem to part ways at least as much as they agree and in observing Council meetings I often get the distinct impression that Davis often seems embarrassed by Mumpower’s self righteous, sanctimonious grandstanding and drama queen theatrics. It was sort of telling that Davis did not come to The Mump’s defense over the migratory birds discussion of the Ellington, either at the meeting or in statements issued.
I seem to recall at some point during the campaign (it may have been during the primary) that Jan Davis would joke about how people on the left would gripe that he voted 80% of the time with Mumpower, while the right complained that he voted 80% of the time with Jones, Newman, Cape, and Freeborn.
There is no magic bullet for progressives, just as there really isn’t one for conservatives. With all the money Bill Russell raised from developers and spent on his campaign he still could only manage a mere 84 vote win over Bryan Freeborn who, like the defeated Jim Ellis before him, was a weak incumbent who was never actually elected. Having said that, it is key that progressives learn to find candidates who have broader appeal. Asheville may not be your typical Bible Belt town, but its reputation as a progressive’s haven is often overstated. It isn’t the "San Francisco of the South." It isn’t Santa Fe or Burlington, Vermont. It isn’t even Chapel Hill. It certainly has a strong progressive community but that alone is not enough to win elections. Progressives have found candidates like Holly Jones and Brownie Newman who can broaden their appeal so it is doable. But sometimes they are going to have to form alliances with people outside the community. Progressives insist in ideological purity only to their determent.
I like your take on this.
I don’t know what the magic bullet is for the so-called Progressives (I prefer to call myself a Liberal…), but the current formula is Just. Not. Working. And this is coming from me, a big-time Kucinich fan.
Obviously, the work has to start years before the actual election and there is a need for a great deal of patience – and compromise. Brownie’s loss in his first try, when he and Holly ran in tandem and she won without him, somehow tempered and matured him.
He has been able to display "Progressive values" that aren’t as offensive to middle-of-the-road Democrats as some against whom he’s run. This time it was Freeborn and Lite. Although Freeborn is not really that much of a hard-lefty. Few of them would ever tell the police chief at council meeting that, "I support you 100 percent." (Of course, he turned around and said the APD may need an oversight board when it appeared to be more politically expedient. I believe that his vote against the Ellington was bred from a similar notion.)
I wrote the C-T stories on Brownie’s initial races (and Jan’s and Carl’s and Holly’s…). That guy and the guy he is now are not quite the same animal. But he was always smart. Almost as smart as Brian Peterson, who was one of the most brilliant, albeit horny, council members this city has ever thrown under the bus.
During the water negotiations with the county, Brownie earned respect on both sides, taking a reasoned, balanced stance.He is truly committed to bi-partisanship and regionalism, not just to saying it.
This is why I wasn’t surprised when on the Citizen-Times "Issue Meter," Brownie and Jan Davis were more similar in their responses to each other than to any ofthe further right or further left candidates.
It’s also why I never bought the argument that Jan is in lock-step with Mumpower. If someone has the council vote records to support that, however, I’m not too proud to eat crow.
Ash: Today…..the day after the Asheville City Council Election …
I AM JUMPING IN THE CYBER-POND ….inspired by YOU & ‘your ILK’.
Thank you!
-Twain 🙂
http://ifeveratwainyoumeet.blogspot.com/
*****
I guess now that the developers got the "balance" they said was needed on Council they will support Robin Cape for reelection in 2009 so as not to tip it, huh?