We Won

We Won (I Think)

The last report I saw had me with 53% of the votes and the next candidate at 33%.  However, the results are not certified as fully final until December 5.

One thing that happened in this campaign is that several “IE” (Independent Expenditure) mailers were sent out by an industry organization supporting my candidacy and encouraging voters to vote for me.  I am not an expert on IE campaigns but I have tried to read up on them since the IE mailers started arriving in mailboxes.  I would like to say a few words about that whole process.

The IE mailers basically replicated my website in hard copy form.  They didn't change my basic messaging.  They created a few additional repetitions of the basic messaging I had already been putting out for a while. I'm sure those reps brought in some additional votes, but not enough to account for a 53/33 split.  In short, I believe I would have won handily absent the IE mailers although the spread might have been smaller.

The IE organization did not communicate with me and I did not communicate with them.  They did not give me any money, support, or endorsements.  They acted completely on their own.

I started campaigning somewhat early.  I started walking streets and knocking on doors in August and I managed to walk every street in the district by election day.  If people wanted to talk for a few seconds, I talked to them for a few seconds and then moved along.  If they wanted to sit down over coffee and talk for a couple of hours about streets and sewers or whatever, I sat with them for a couple of hours.  If they were having trouble with a city service, I tried to facilitate an appropriate resolution with city staff.  If the residents weren't home I left a door hanger with a hand-written personal note.  

In my conversations with voters, I tried to stick to local, pragmatic issues and avoid high-level philosophical and strategic ones.  Voters are certainly interested in many of those philosophical and strategic issues, but they look to the state and federal governments to deal with them.  They look to the city for pragmatic local services like streets, sewers, traffic, police protection, fire safety, parks & recreation, and zoning.  So that is what I talked about.

I put out yard signs a month before any other candidate.  My yard signs were high-visibility, easy to read, and placed in prominent locations.  Other candidates had signs that were low visibility, difficult to read, and, in some cases, placed in obscure locations.

I sent 3 mailers of my own to every address in the district that was home to a registered voter, regardless of party affiliation.  The first mailer went out early in the campaign.  The second went out in the middle of the campaign.  The last one went out about 10 days before election day.  Other candidates sent only one mailer which arrived about a week before election day.  At least half of the voters had already voted by that time.  I did the writing, photography, and composition for my mailers myself so I only paid for printing and mailing.  I didn’t pay a dime to experts or political consultants.  I created my campaign website myself (which might be obvious).  I have the website hosted on a free service.

I sent several newsletters by email to voters.  The newsletters weren't sales pitches.  They were "news you can use" about city matters that voters might find interesting.  In other words, I worked very hard on this campaign and put in a lot of personal time and effort.  IMO I ran a very old fashioned "kitchen table/grassroots" campaign. 

Other candidates spent a lot of time getting endorsements.  However, some of those endorsements were from people who had little to do with the City of Belmont.  I don’t think most Belmont voters care about endorsements given by politicians from other places.  I got endorsements, but I focused on people connected to Belmont, including local neighborhood association leaders.

Also, I think of myself as the most centrist candidate in the race.  Accordingly, I tried to run a campaign that would appeal to centrists, left-centrists, right-centrists, and pragmatists of all types.  I didn't try to appeal to either extreme.  I think that message resonated in Belmont District 4.

I serve on 2 JPA (Joint Powers Authority) boards with environmental responsibility:  Peninsula Clean Energy ("PCE") and South Bayside Waste Management Authority ("SBWMA" a.k.a "ReThink Waste").  Those entities have done good environmental work over the years.  I support good, effective environmental regulations and I want everyone to have clean air and clean water.

If the IE mailers had misquoted me or said untrue things about anybody, I would have had a much bigger problem with them.  If the IE mailers had gone negative about me or any other candidate in the race, I would have had a much bigger problem with them.  But, as-is, they just created additional reps of messaging I had been putting out for some time.  They may have nudged the needle a little bit in my direction but I don’t believe they changed the final outcome of the race.

-- TMc