The Roanoke Times is absolutely glowing this morning in the wake of the victory of the TMD trio. Ostensibly Independant canidates, the trio struck gold with voters in certain areas. Areas which previously voted heavily for Mayor Harris in the past, so it's not much of a suprise.
Our newly minted City Council members; David "And how does that make you feel?" Trinkle, Gwen "Middle Management" Mason, and Alfred "Carlton Banks" Dowe are now claiming not only victory, but a mandate from the voters.
Of course, lets not even bring up that the working-class neighborhoods of Williamson Rd. and Garden City suprised everyone by going mainly for the Republican ticket. They have a mandate.
And a positive message. Pretty river, getting rid of the ugly stadium, pretty library, and free lollipops and kittens for all.
Although once again, the Times misses the mark in its analysis, but that's to be expected when your canidates just won. You tend to get a bit giddy.
Kudos to the Times though for absolutely marginalizing the Republican canidates, making them sound just as redundant as the Democratic slate, if they allowed for any real difference at all.
Total number of Votes counted: 40,062
Total number of Registered Voters in the City: 53,000 and change.
Claimed turnout percentage: 25.8%
Total number of votes/claimed turnout: 13,674 (approx.)
Interesting how these numbers work out.
Besides all that, The Times notes that Mayor Harris might push to erase Party Affiliations from elections after this one.
Why? What does the Mayor have against affiliations? What does this city have against identification of ones ideals?
Regardless, life goes on - we all still have to get up, go to work, eat-sleep-do it all again. In 2 years time, when the next cycle comes up, if there is still a Victory Stadium standing, it will be no suprise. If they level the Stadium, it will be a beginning. But in 2 years time, I can assure you - nothing will be done with the land. It's not in this crews best interests.
Although I feel I must say this, and say it loudly: The Young Adults Roanoke so wishes to to attract and retain, they have just lost a voice in the council. Many more Roanokers have lost that voice as well - and come July 1st, you will understand what I mean by that.
2 years and counting before everything changes, again.
We need to keep this City Council in check so they do not so horribly wreck the future of this city, it is beyond quick repair.
Congradulations DMT: You now have the power you wanted, use it wisely.
10 comments:
What I always find interesting is that people think of the paper as some single entity with one groupthought, which couldn't be further from the truth.
When you meet reporters and other writers, you find them to be some of the most creative, don't-care-what-the-pack-thinks people around. So to say the paper 'glowed' over the elections is kinda silly.
Did Todd Jackson, the author of the front-page story glow? I'm sure he was happy that the election had a newsworthy ending (first indy candidates in 30 years). Did Kyle Green, who shot the photo, glow? It was a nice shot, so maybe.
How about the copy editor who wrote the headline? No idea who he or she voted for. How about the layout guy who designed the page?
The whole "everyone at the paper is on the same page" thing is tiring, as is the whole "blame the media" thing.
Pick ANY story in ANY newspaper and you can pick it apart to find "proof" of bias of some sort -- it's like the Bible Code (look, it predicted 9/11!).
But the fact is that among the reporters we have liberals and conservatives, people who like NASCAR and people who like chess (and people who like both), religious people and atheists, Christians and Jews, Northerners and Southerners, SUV drivers and bicycle riders, and so on.
So enough -- enough of the conspiracy theories, the "every Times employee has the same agenda" theory, and all those things. It's simply and unquestionably wrong.
Oh, and:
Kudos to the Times though for absolutely marginalizing the Republican canidates...
You mean the candidates that refused to speak with us? Hard to write as much about people who refuse to be interviewed. (And who then say they refused to be interviewed because of "bias." Incredible!)
And I'm not sure what your point is with the voting numbers.
40,062 votes counted, divided by three is 13,354 -- about 25.8 percent of registered voters. What's the issue?
I'm so glad of the outcome of this election, I'm proud of the Roanokers who saw through the smokescreen of nostalgia for an aging relic in a flood zone to progress for this city. A city either grows or it stagnates, looks like maybe Roanokes ready to do some growing again.
Andrew, it was blatantly obvious there was an Independent slant to the elections on the part of the Roanoke Times. Sure there were articles which spoke of Dems and Repubs. But almost everything printed about the election on Monday was pro Independent.
Why is Kantor all defendy of the Rke Times?
I'm not pro or con the Rke Times, but why is he seemingly taking it so personally? or perhaps phrased, Kantor why are you taking the comments about the R'Times so to heart?
My point with the numbers is: you cannot divide the entire electorate by 3, they did not vote en masse for the 3 winners. So the 40,062 votes vs. the estimated 54,000 registered voters is not 25.8%
The bias is not so incredible. The bias is obvious. Yes the Repubs would not talk with the Times, and I don't blame them. Since the ForTheCity group was announced, according to the Times - ressurection itself had occured, and our savoirs were revealed.
Im sure the mail was not leaning towards the ForTheCity canidates by pure chance. Not that they had a letter-writing campaign aimed at the Times (oh yes, they did...). So in reality, if the letters were overwhelmingly FOR DMT, the campaign worked - and the Times was played.
And you can tell me about bias, and how the paper is made up of individual personas - but thats all irrelevant unless the staff chooses the stories that make it to print. The Editorial Staff does that, and lays the course for the papers outlook. I never intended to claim the workers were lockstep with the bias, if I did then I was wrong. What was intended was that the paper itself - as an entity, is biased.
I would love to see the day that another paper launches in Roanoke. Until then, I can only say that the Times needs more local stories, and less filler from the wires in order to state its case against bias.
Perhaps if the Times were truly a local paper, and not just local in parts - people would have more articles to base judgements on.
Sorry if you find any of my writings ON the Times to be too personal. I have had good experiences with those at the Times I have dealt with before. But the paper as a whole leaves much to be desired.
Roanokefound, I'm really really sorry to read that you are one of the Roanoke Times bashers, like Revercomb and RoanokeSlant and From on High and Roanoke Journal. I think we are damn lucky to have a paper of that quality in a town of this size. I think the Wall Stree Journal is a great newspaper, even if I think the editorials head off the rails sometimes.
There were tons of great reasons not to vote for the GOP ticket in this race. Mr. Revercomb is a hothead who doesn't play well with others-- did you see any of the emails he sent around during the campaign? Plus, he is likely the first "Republican" candidate in history to have managed the campaign of a Democrat (Wishneff) for the same office in the previous election. That's some quality GOP credentials.
Mayor Harris (who I have never voted for) is 100% right in saying that party politics have no place in local politics. If a democratic strategist can run on the GOP ticket, you can see just how meaningless those labels are.
Mr. McConnell is a very capable and smart architect; however, he does not play well with others either. Read this. http://www.bizjournal.com/content/article.php?id=96
Somebody who can't share the credit is not going to be effective in a deliberative body.
Bowers fiddled on Council for 16 years while the stadium crumbled and a couple of incompetent Superintendents ran the schools. McFarlane also had his chance.
TMD was by far the best option in this election. I share your love for Roanoke and its history. I think this ticket was the best we could have done, and I hope you come around to seeing that as time passes.
Perhaps if the meanings of Democrat and Republican were not so blurred (here specifically, which for a city this size speaks volumes) the party affiliation WOULD mean something. But, much like heritage and religion - these are things not to be spoken of in Roanoke.
Theres one problem with that. The invading hordes of retirees. They live and breathe this stuff in the larger cities they are moving from. Italian-American, Irish-American, Jew, Korean Baptist... thats how communities are in the cities Roanoke aspires to be.
Defining yourself against the backdrop of the place you live. Not blending into one homogenous blob. That does not work. People are empowered when they find those of a like mind, and are allowed to form affiliations. When those affiliations are not allowed to be brought to light, as in the fact one cannot register as a Democrat or Republican locally, the point of even having such options is missed entirely.
I have met Revercomb, and know people who have daily contact with McConnel, and not once has the term Hothead been applied. I did not recieve those e-mails, although had I, I surely would have asked the "source" about them.
This amorphous blob, where Democrats are Independants, even though they have the backing of the Democratic Mayor, does not play in modern cities. This is exactly what I mean when I say Roanoke needs to find a new way of doing business.
And as for the Times, the NY Post is of a higher caliber, as they run more local news. And thats not saying much.
Maybe your negative energy will get you somewhere in life. Grow up, calling the candidates childish names really doesnt show your maturity.
As for the source of the "hothead" emails, the candidate actually had the nerve to threaten a local businessman with economic consequences because of placing a poster in favor of TMD on its property. That certainly isn't the voice of reason that one would expect of a candidate. Why not just give it a rest and let the elected members of council do their job.
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