Big Money, Small Turnout Wins Another Election

We were hoping it would turn out differently this time, but at the end of the day big money won another Dallas election. The percentages look remarkably similar to other elections where big money was a factor, like the 2007 Trinity Toll Road vote. Big money candidate Mike Rawlings, who outspent David Kunkle 10-1, raising an estimated 2.2 million, won 55 percent of the vote to Kunkle's 44.

Part of the money, apparently, went toward putting up signs in every vacant lot in the city. Looks like that strategy worked.

Of the 543,458 registered voters in the city of Dallas, only 55,694 cast votes, just a little better than 10 percent. Compared to Dallas County, that's good news--at least we polled in double-digits. Countywide, there are 742,434 registered voters and only 71,981 voted, a voter turnout percentage of 9.70%.

We're always on the 44% end of the 55-44 split, so naturally we have a theory about it. We think 44 percent of voters get their news from Dallas Observer and actually think everything through about how certain issues and candidates will affect life in our city. The 55 percenters, in our opinion, are impressed by big shiny things, follow the recommendations of Dallas Morning News, and pretty much follow the crowd. Our theory was proved by comments about the candidates in this Dallas Morning News article (subscription required): Dallas voters list menu of reasons for favorites in mayoral runoff:

"Kunkle is largely responsible for Dallas being a safer city," said Karen Newton, a retiree who ate breakfast recently at Barbec's near White Rock Lake. "A safe city will attract businesses. There will be economic growth and people will want to live in Dallas..."

...Lynne Gauss, A DISD substitute teacher agreed...Gauss' son, Steven, who is also a teacher, agreed..."Kunkle wants to focus on the basics."

The Rawlings supporters mostly parroted what they'd read in Dallas Morning News about Rawlings being good for business, and were strangely personality-driven:

"He's a bright businessman, and that's what the city of Dallas needs right now," retired Lakewood resident Lyle Noah said. "He wants to put people back to work. If you put people back to work, you won't have the problems we're having in Dallas."

What th--? We've had a "bright businessman," Tom Leppert, in the mayor's office since 2007! Just about every mayor we've had was supported by the big business community. If we're having problems in Dallas, maybe it's time to go in a different direction, right? Nope. Not according to these folks. And, it seems, personal associations trump ideas, anyway:

Mike Hartnett, a salesman from Dallas, said Rawlings is not a politician..."Plus, he's supported by Roger Staubach."...Roger Hubbard [said] "I never liked Laura Miller. She helped us lose the Cowboys; now she supports Kunkle."

So we predict more of the same from our new mayor, a continuation of the Leppert years, big-business as usual.

We predict that within the next year, our mayor will be mentioned in the national news, but not in a good way and that he'll back off from supporting the Trinity Toll Road after finally finding the facts he's been looking for.

We really do wish him all the best, and we hope he'll make good on his campaign promise to support neighborhood projects as well as big-ticket items. We live here, after all, and it's no fun at all to see mayor after mayor make the same expensive mistakes while we stand by on the sidelines yelling, "We tried to warn y'all!"

And, we hope the first order of business for our mayor-elect is picking up all those damned signs!

Nice guys finish last (and first)

Early voting starts today for the runoff election for the mayor's race, and voters have a choice between two nice guys, Mike Rawlings and David Kunkle (who has earned Real Dallas' endorsement). Over the weekend, Gromer Jeffers of Dallas Morning News wrote that the election was a "dud" because the candidates are so friendly to each other in debates, but we think the decorum of the debates is a model for the country. The two candidates have differences of opinion on the direction of the city, but they've been able to express those differences with intelligence and humor, without resorting to the ugliness we've seen at the national level.

At one point in a debate at Cathedral of Hope, for instance, the debate was about to turn nasty over an audience question to Mike Rawlings, asking why the gay community has issued a warning about his stand on civil rights. According to reports, Rawlings seemed "unbalanced" by the question. Most candidates we've seen at the national level would smell blood in the water and go in for the kill if an opponent faltered on such a question, but not David Kunkle:

At that point, Kunkle asked to respond and defended his opponent as a decent man.

"I've had the opportunity to be with Mr. Rawlings 60 to 70 times and one of the venues we went to was at the Stewpot. There wasn't single vote to be had in that room. We each did it because we thought it was the noble thing to do...I think Mr. Rawlings is a very noble, honorable man," he said.

The cathedral broke out in applause.

When it quieted down, Rawlings joked, "I'm voting for Kunkle."

That demonstrates one of the qualities we like about David Kunkle, his ability to smooth over differences and build a consensus among opposing sides.

Over the weekend, the two candidates worked the crowd at a "beer poll" designed to get younger voters interested in casting actual votes on Election Day. At Real Dallas, we don't think that kind of candidate interaction is dull, we find it as refreshing as a Blue Moon (Kunkle's favorite beer) on a hot summer day!

On Saturday, Linda's letter endorsing David Kunkle was published:

Whenever a mayoral candidate claims to be "pro-business," I think of all my friends who've started businesses in Dallas and have had to jump through hoops to follow the city's conflicting Certificate of Occupancy requirements, vague parking ordinances and rules that do not apply to their particular business.

A chocolatier in Oak Cliff, for instance, was told she would have to install a grease trap in her kitchen to make chocolate on site, even though no grease is produced in the process of making chocolate. She ended up renting an off-site commercial kitchen just to satisfy the city, even though her on-site kitchen is perfectly suitable.

David Kunkle gets my vote, because he's actually been a customer of many of Dallas' small businesses close to residential areas. Kunkle seems more likely than his opponent to be friendly to all of the city's businesses, not just the ones with the deepest pockets.

The business Linda referred to is Cocoandre on Davis Street; we talked to the owner shortly after the business opened and she told us all about commercial kitchens, grease traps, and the making of chocolate. The same night, we talked to the owner of From the Ends of the Earth about her problems getting the city to approve her move to a larger space two doors down from her first location. She had to go through the parking ordinance paperwork all over again, even though she was moving to a different location in the same strip shopping center!

Small businesses create jobs, when they're allowed to flourish, and we want a mayor who understands that and will take time to hear from everybody, not just the richest corporations wanting to relocate headquarters to Dallas.

In our opinion, David Kunkle is best suited for the job. But they're both nice guys, so whoever you like best, get out and cast your vote!

Early voting runs Monday, June 6 through Tuesday, June 14. For a list of early voting dates, times and locations, go to Dallas County Elections.

Election Day is Saturday, June 18. For a list of Election Day polling locations, go to this link: Dallas County Elections--Election Day polling locations.

Some "Real Dallas" wins, and a runoff

Our city council representative, Delia Jasso, has done such a fine job on the Council that she had no opponent in our recent election. (Last time, there were a slew of opponents campaigning for the open seat left when Elba Garcia was term-limited; Delia ended up winning her seat in a runoff election). Delia grew up in what would become her city council district, and knows the needs of our community better than anyone. She always votes to support funding for "Real Dallas" issues like schools and local arts groups. So with her victory "in the bag," we concentrated on getting David Kunkle elected.

David Kunkle ended up in a runoff with Mike Rawlings, so it's back to work helping him get over the finish line on June 18. Watch for us in our Kunkle shirts, coming soon to your neighborhood to ask for your vote!

Besides our own Delia Jasso, our favorite council member is Angela Hunt, who researches everything the council votes on, making sure the taxpayers aren't going to get stuck for some expensive boondoggle. Supposedly, she's for "raising taxes," which isn't true (ask James to explain the math--since our property values went down, the latest "tax increase" wasn't really an increase, it just kept our tax payments the same. Plus, the people asked for a tax increase at one town hall after another, begging council to let us pay a few pennies more per year to keep the libraries, rec centers and pools open!)

This year, Angela Hunt faced four challengers, but won with 67% of the vote! Because of term limits, this will be Angela's final term on the Council, and we wish her all the best in her continual quest to protect Dallasite from gas drilling, toll roads and expensive things taxpayers shouldn't be paying for.

And last, but certainly not least, there's Scott Griggs, a Real Dallas hero, who surprised everybody by beating incumbent Dave Neumann, taking 58% of the vote.

When we think of Scott Griggs, we think of dumpster diving--if the dumpster has been scraped clean, lined with a protective sheet, and filled with cool clean water on a hot summer day. I hadn't heard of dumpster pools until a local magazine ran an article about it, so I thought Scott Griggs invented the unique solution to beating the summer heat in underserved communities. Not so! Turns out, it's a national trend, and dumpster pools can even be found lining Park Avenue in New York City! So while it's not unique to Dallas, the dumpster pool trend is certainly the kind of "Real Dallas" solution we're looking for, especially as the city seems hellbent on closing all the recreation centers and pools every summer. We welcome Scott Griggs, problem solver and pragmatist, to the Dallas City Council, and wish him a long, productive tenure on the Council.

David Kunkle: A Mayor for Real Dallas

(by Linda Coleman) When James and I started this on-again-off-again blog, it was our intention to highlight the "real" parts of Dallas, like the funky art galleries, cool independently owned shops, and diverse neighborhoods that you didn't see on a certain TV show of the same name. Now, we finally have a mayoral candidate who embodies the sprit of "real" Dallas. When David Kunkle first announced he was running, James and I decided to vote for him, even before we'd heard a single campaign speech because he's one of us--an advocate for neighborhoods, homegrown businesses, good schools and pothole-free streets.

Ours is not an impetuous sight-unseen endorsement. We first met David Kunkle in 2004 when he became Police Chief and actually made the rounds to all the neighborhood crime watch groups. He was patient with even the most long-winded and pushy crime watch activists, taking time to hear from everybody without making up excuses for a hasty exit. David even managed to navigate the turbulent, toxic political waters of our city and come out of it unscathed, a remarkable achievement highlighted in this article by Tanya Eiserer at Dallas Morning News: Outgoing Dallas Police Chief David Kunkle reflects on a long ride.

Tonight, we attended a dinner in David Kunkle's home for the Democratic Party Precinct Chairs (a similar function was held for Republican Precinct Chairs last week). His East Dallas home, just off Lower Greenville Avenue, reflects the kind of person he is. It's a new home, but not one of those horrid "McMansions," rather a Tudor-style house that looks amazingly like the original houses in the neighborhood; from the outside, it's hard to tell the difference between his house and the original 1920s era home next door. This care for neighborhood aesthetics is a quality we look for in city leadership.

David was introduced by former State Representative and Swiss Avenue resident Harryette Ehrhardt, who--without naming names--compared David with his opponents in the mayoral race. One of them, she said, has promised to spend his time as Mayor contacting CEOs, asking for their input in running our city. David, she said, will spend time contacting us--which, of course, he spent six years doing as police chief, going to neighborhood meetings, listening to the concerns of real people who live in Dallas.

David began by enumerating a few reasons he decided to run for mayor: the way the Trinity River toll road was misrepresented to the public, how the Convention Center hotel threatened to put taxpayers at risk, and tax abatements for corporations for which there are few benefits to the citizens of Dallas.

Then, there's the issue of former mayor Leppert's hyper-partisanship. As we've already seen from David Kunkle's demeanor as Police Chief, partisanship is not his thing. "I believe the mayor should be non-partisan and reach out to every voter's group," he said, citing his enjoyment as Police Chief representing every kind of group from Stonewall Democrats to the Republican Women's Club.

David Kunkle likes to poke fun at himself for his reputation as being "socially awkward," but enjoys talking about being featured in the documentary "Good to Great," which cited his non-charismatic personality as the mark of leader who genuinely cares about people.

"I've never been motivated by money as a primary driver," said Kunkle, distinguishing himself from his opponents who are definitely driven by profit at the expense of everything else. Which brings up another point--money. The other candidates have it, and David Kunkle doesn't. So what he needs is word of mouth advertising. The other candidates will be stuffing your mailbox with oversized glossy postcards, David Kunkle will be relying upon all of us to put up yard signs, talk to neighbors, and help turn out the vote for Early Voting and Election Day. For more information on helping David Kunkle's campaign, visit his website, Kunkle for Mayor; for information about Early Voting and Election Day polling times and locations, visit Dallas County Elections.