Wednesday, April 6, 2011

The reason for Shadid's landslide

I think there are a lot of interesting reasons why Dr. Shadid won in the runoff by a margin of 62-38, especially after trailing by a good margin in the primary election. In no particular order, here are my guesses...

1. I think the negative campaigning of Swinton was getting ridiculous. Accused of being a vegetarian?? Wow.
2. I think people realized that Shadid did represent a fresh, more progressive perspective, and I think people liked that.
3. I believe people (esp in Ward 2) are growing more and more interested in crazy ideas such as sustainability.
4. The most important MAPS project to the people is the streetcar. They want that project in hands of an advocate, not an opponent.
5. I think more urban voting demographics are tending to gravitate toward younger candidates these days.
6. Shadid was always incredibly succinct and well-worded when he spoke. Swinton relied more on Okie euphemisms a lot.
7. Shadid laid out exactly how he felt about all the issues facing the city. He had positions, he articulated them. He wasn't wishy washy, unlike his opponent.
8. And of course the specter of OKC Momentum didn't hurt..

Any reasons I missed?

2 comments:

David said...

First s great candidate with a clear message. Biggest factor, having lots of excited advocates that were motivated to help roll out a huge ground game. Ed knocked 100's of doors went to lots of meetings and was authentic and connected. Campaign manager Dwight marshaled a large group of volunteers. We saw fairly early that mailers and phone calls were causing voter fatigue and switched to a one on one neighbor talking with neighbor focus. Really lots of hard work won out over $. It appears momentum threw in the towel a week or 2 before the election. They were doing non stop polling and determined that they were just throwing money down a rat hole and like the good business people they are decided to cut their losses and left Swinton to fend for himself.

Jay said...

Because he stood up to interests and spoke the truth and nailed it on the head. He tapped into something that was pent-up.