September
2006
Understanding the Clarke victory
In the Star Wars movies, Senator Palpatine played the well mannered diplomat who was later revealed to be the plotting and evil sith leader known as The Emperor who was the leader of the dark side of the force.
Tuesdays election for Milwaukee County Sheriff had a similar scenario where Republican talk radio show host Charlie Sykes encouraged his disciples living in Milwaukee County to cross over and vote democratic for faux-dem David Clarke against real dem Vince Bobot. Clarke won by just 52% of the vote.
Sykes argued that there was little difference between the two Republican candidates for Attorney General, JB Van Hollen and Paul Bucher and that either would do a good job so why not vote in a democratic primary where they could make a difference?
It was looking grim for Clarke back when Milwaukee County Executive Scott Walker was still taking on Congressman Mark Green in a fight to see which republican would earn the right to take on Jim Doyle this fall. Walker, a republican who is popular in Waukesha County and popular among Milwaukee County republicans, would have motivated many republicans to stay in their own primary to cast their vote for Walker. This was not good for Clarke who, as we see from the numbers, would have likely lost to Bobot had only dems voted in the dem primary as Bobot hoped.
This was expected to be the race where a real democrat would win but there was little to keep Republican voters voting in their own primary. With the race hinging on just the 4% spread between the candidates, it is easy to see how Republicans were successful in hijacking the democratic primary.
Add to that the fact that the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel, our only daily, chose to continue their lovefest for Clarke throughout the campaign and even went so far as to bury key stories the public deserved to know. (See our Clarke Watch category for stories that were buried.)
Perhaps the Star Was analogy is a little off. To shift to a Harry Potter analogy, Sykes was more like Lord Voldemort and his listeners who followed his orders were like the Death Eaters.*
*Fixed, per comment below. Thanks — ed.
Jim McGuigan
Jim McGuigan, Watchdogging Campaigns
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How about Bobot as Boss Hogg from the Dukes of Hazzard?
It couldn’t possibly be that Milwaukee Republicans have more of a vested interest in the Sheriff’s race than they do by a nebulous position in Madison where the candidates were busy talking about issues that predominately affect out-state Republicans, i.e. methamphetimines and random sobriety checkpoints?
You give more credit to Sykes than is perhaps deserved.
If you don’t like the system, perhaps you should be calling for closed primaries and we can all register a party well in advance, but then you’d lose same-day registration.
Which is worth more to you: closed primaries or same-day registration?
DEATH EATERS!!!!!!! not dark walkers.
No, you were right the first time with the Star Wars metaphor They’re stormtroopers. And they embrace it.
Change same day reg to close primaries? No way.
There\’s not been any talk here of changing the system because of the Clarke vote. We\’ve simply been pointing out what happened and why. No, there wasn\’t much interest from Republicans in the AG\’s race, a factor that kept them home across the state. We pointed that out yesterday.
ALL I GOT TO SAY RIGHT NOW IS — RECOUNT THE VOTES — HAHAHAHA — DEMOCRATS GET THERE REVENGE —- Lets all help Bobot make that ultimate decision in should he press the issue of a recount because of the ballot error or if he shouldn’t. I plan on sending him a check for a significant amount of money to help him in that thought process. 35,000 more ballots than registered voters. Things that make you go HMMMMMMMMMM. Evil never prevails!!!! Remember Star Wars, I sense the good in you, let go of your hate. Bye Bye Dark Side and crossing fingers Bye Bye Clarke.
I’m not convinced that party cross over voting occurs at the level often claimed. I do think independents are more likely to participate in primary races that interest them. I assume conservative independents may have been motivated by Clarke and voted in the Dem. Primary. However, I believe partisan strategic cross over voting is largely overblown talk among political insiders. Maybe I’m wrong here. However, I think the burden of proof lies with you on this, since all solid quantitative looks at this theory show little for support it.
Speaking of race saliency, I don’t buy that the local sheriff’s race was a high profile race that motivated lots of voters as local insiders and bloggers are speculating. Both candidates spent very little, no TV was aired. Yet the AG race had a significant volume of TV - even if it was all VH. His TV hit on white hot conservative GOP issues (immigration included) that surely motivated and engaged the average GOP voter
Unfortunately, TV matters a lot. Just ask Falk who did a high volume strategic TV campaign.
And I’m with JD on open primaries.
361,551 votes were cast statewide in the Dem primary for AG, only 241,851 votes in the GOP primary.
Barring the unlikely event of major changes from the Milwaukee recount and the Bobot countywide recount to come — the numbers still spell a lack of interest from Republicans in the Bucher vs. Van Hollen race for AG.
In the Green Bay area 8th Congressional District, where Republicans John Gard and Mary McCormack ran, there were 56,000 votes cast in the GOP primary — about 5,000 more than were cast in the Democratic Primary won by Dr. Steve Kagen. So — there would seem to be no sudden shortage of GOP voters in the state, just not much for Republicans to get excited about outside of District 8. In Milwaukee County, Scott Walker bowing out of the guv\\\’s race, as Jim pointed out above, was a major factor in what happened Tuesday.
Bobot\\\’s not a liberal, either, so I question whether informed independents would find Clarke engaging.
As far as proof of cross-voting, the Journal Sentinel reported it both Wednesday and Thursday, and people called in to Charlie Sykes confused about why they couldn\\\’t vote in the GOP AG primary and also vote for Clarke.
And remember that the black vote is a factor that likely went to Clarke\’s advangage. Still awaiting the city recount and more detailed breakdowns to get a better idea of how exactly all voter equations seemed to have worked for Clarke.
Calling on Bobot to step up and demand a county-wide recount!