Why does white Ferguson keep shooting itself in the foot? First, they ran a well funded, very hard fought campaign against our county councilman, Hazel Erby. White Fergusons candidate, a dreadlocked black guy who is city attorney for one NoCo muni, and municipal judge for another, ran up a 600 vote win in Ferguson township, but went down to a resounding 2,300 vote defeat in the district overall, with a final tally of 54-40 for Erby, with remaining votes to a third candidate. Now, the same people are pushing a write-in effort to Elect Christine LaPorta - MO State Senate / District 14, against state senator Maria Chappelle-Nadal. Now, to be sure, Maria has been coarse in some of her statements, and has certainly taken the protesters side in the #Ferguson situation. To the anti-protest faction, which is certainly what you see in Ferguson Proud, the latter is an unforgivable sin. As for the coarse language, well, I would imagine she hasnt used any words which most members of that group have not also used. More importantly, its not as though any of this is a sudden change in her personality. Maria is Maria, and has been for as long as Ive known her. She hardly takes a position with which I agree, but there is no question that she is sincere in what she does, and that she represents the great majority of her district in so doing. If somebody wanted to run against Maria, the August primary was the time to do it. It is a waste of peoples time and money to invest so much in a write-in candidacy against somebody who was unopposed in both the primary and general. From an election standpoint, consider that the senate district is similar to Erbys council district, but skewed somewhat more favorably toward Chapelle-Nadal than the council district was toward Erby. And, of course, LaPorta is white, in a district that is probably 80% black. That alone would almost guarantee a win for Chapelle-Nadal, if both candidates were on the ballot, it was an evenly funded race, and both started with equal name recognition. But none of these are true, and in each, the advantage goes to Chapelle-Nadal. As a Libertarian, I am very familiar with the desire to run a candidate who has no chance of winning. But in this case, there are real consequences. By backing an opponent to our popular county council representative, the mayor and city council of Ferguson placed our city in a less advantageous position in terms of county government. By pushing a white Ferguson candidate in a hopeless state senate race, theyre doing the same thing in Jefferson City. I understand that many of them do not like Chapelle-Nadal, but this was not the time or manner in which to express that. Why does white Ferguson fail to understand the need to act in their own political self-interest? I guess they are so accustomed to having their way in Ferguson municipal elections that theyre unable to grasp the need to compromise when it comes to officials who serve a larger constituency.
Posted on: Thu, 30 Oct 2014 13:56:30 +0000
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