Wednesday, November 7, 2007

Part 2: DeSantis


Mark DeSantis:

On the margin of his 2-to-1 loss in Tuesday's election:


• "To get one-third of the vote in a city where it's 5-to-1 democratic is actually quite an accomplishment. Apparently we got one of the highest vote totals as a republican candidate since 1965. So these are accomplishments. We're disappointed. We wanted to win. This race from the beginning was about getting 51 percent."

His role from this point forward?

• "I need to think about that. I'm always going to be involved in public affairs. I love this city. I'm going to be deeply involved in the future of this community, and personally involved. As to whether or not that's political office, I don't know yet."

If he doesn't run again, what would be his advice for the next republican to run for mayor?

• "Start sooner."

• "...I would say, if you are a republican and you're going to run in the city, you can win. It's just going to take more than five months. It's going to take a year of effort."


5 comments:

Mark Rauterkus said...

A number of points above need some clarification.

First, the real goal for winning should NOT be to get 51%. As in sports, the goal is to get more points than the opponent.

In a four way race, and often in politics, the winners do NOT have 51%.

The victory point is to get at least one more vote than second place.

Elections have been won with 40% -- if there are a bunch of candidates who each take part of the votes.

This is key -- as Peduto can win in a busy field. But, when it comes down to a one-on-one race, then it gets to be more like impossible.

For example, in the 2007 controller's race primary, the victor got 41% of the D party vote.

In March 2006, in a 9-member race, I (Libertarian) was sunk as soon as the GOP, Greens and an Indie got into the race. There were four dems with their hats in the ring. Had four Dems plus one Lib gotten into the race and onto the ballot -- then outcomes can be different.

Competition matters.

Mark Rauterkus said...

Quote: It is going to take more than five months.

Of course it is going to take more time. But, to say it is going to take a year is just as silly.

It is going to take a lifetime. And, it is going to take a large crew of people a lifetime of experiences to leverage a campaign for a slate of candidtes that have all made full-time commitments.

This is why there needs to be a viable party operation. The base of support with the party can't be so up-and-down from feast to famine.

Stability at the base is mandatory.

The County and City Republicans have been anything except stable with the base of its party. In-fighting, canceled Lincoln Day events and such -- just years ago -- hurt the DeSantis race in 2007.

Mark Rauterkus said...

Quote: To get one-third of the vote in a city where it's 5-to-1 democratic is actually quite an accomplishment.

Humm... How many Libertarians are in the city? There are only a couple hundred Libertarians.

So, to get ten percent (or 7,000 votes) from a couple hundred in the party is quite an accomplishment squared.

Furthermore, DeSantis was helping my opponent.

Anonymous said...

We would be much more inclined to suffer your endless dissertations on how to win an election, Mr. Rauterkus, if you had ever close to winning one yourself.

Bob Mayo said...

To anonymous 11:42 AM:

In fairness to the prolific Mr. Rauterkus, even though he's not won an election, he's certainly gotten more votes than any of us have (unless there are elected officials commenting here, which they are welcome to do).

He's also the only person who released polling results on the mayor's race. His figure for Mayor Ravenstahl (63%) was within a fraction of the actual result (63.23%).