Signing Up and Writing In

Dear Readers,

A campaign-sign counting drive through town reveals a number of things.

The mayoral race is so tight it squeaks, but as best as I can tell, the squeak belongs to Mayor Porter. As I said last week, Ward 2 is a Porter stronghold, and the vote will likely be heavy in that ward due to what was the city's only contested council contest. I suspect this will give Porter an advantage.

A late-breaking development is the announcement of a write-in campaign for Dan Robinson for Ward 3 council seat, currently held by Bruce Williams. Dan is a cofounder of Sustainable Takoma, so it is fair to suppose he is on the Seth Grimes "slate". Dan was on the ballet in 2003 and lost 183 to 337 to incumbent council member Williams.

Although mayoral candidate Grimes and Ward 2 candidate Colleen Clay have formed an alliance recently (as evidenced by their letter in the recent Gazette), that alliance is not reflected in Ward 2's front yards. Nearly half of the dozen households posting signs for both a mayoral candidate AND Clay's opponent Eileen Sobeck, favor Grimes. One of the three households posting signs for Clay and a mayoral choice favors Porter.

Ms Sobeck appears to have slightly more support in Ward 2 than Ms Clay.

The low-income, disenfranchised areas that in the 2001 election showed fervent support for mayoral challenger Terry Seamens show very little interest in this election. Somewhat curiously this is also true in the moderate-income areas where one would think Seth's pocketbook issues would be of interest to homeowners of low-, moderate- and fixed-income. But, there is little evidence of support for either candidate in these neighborhoods, nor in the northern parts of the city, nor Hodges Heights, nor the newly annexed sections, nor large parts of Ward 3. There were many blocks and neighborhoods where there were no signs of an election at all.

This is either because of apathy or because there are so few council contests - or both. Interest is highest in parts of the city populated by well-off home owners. It seems that the campaign issues amount to little more than a difference of opinion between groups of Takoma Park's upper-middle-class homeowners.

- Gilbert