The margin of Mick Cornett’s victory took me by surprise.
Yesterday when I began formulating this post I was imagining
a very tight Cornett victory. I did not believe the polling. I thought that the
Shadid campaign could easily mobilize 10,000 or so “unlikely voters” that the
pollsters’ models were ignoring. I thought it was going to be close, and when I
saw the extremely low turnout at my polling place I began to think Shadid might
even win on voter mobilization alone.1
So, imagining a tight Cornett victory, I was planning to
write a hand-wringing post about how Shadid’s vision for OKC is what we need,
but what a shame it was that he ran such an angry, disingenuous campaign or
else he might have won it all. The long and short of it was that if Shadid’s
campaign rhetoric was such that it turned off a guy like me (bike and
walkability loving, interested in social justice, pro-transit, concerned with
mental health issues, having numerous friends in common with Ed, etc.) than it
was no surprise that he lost. But if only he had managed things a little
differently, been more positive, more honest, maybe he could have eked one out.
Sigh, what might have been...Like I said, hand wringing.
But late last night, seeing the huge margin for Cornett, I
am not sure that a different Shadid campaign (or any Shadid campaign) could
have won. But why? What explains the lopsided victory? What follows is an
immediate reaction, not informed by any precinct-by-precinct analysis2.
It is not all about the money. While Cornett doubled Shadid’s
campaign take, the most recent publicly available information suggests both
sides spent about the same amount of money (~$360,000) by March 1.
It is entirely possible that Cornett spent hugely in the last few days of the
campaign, but I am not sure. And of course there was Catalyst, an organization
I’m not sure did anything effective for Cornett beyond proving that Shadid’s
warnings of dark money entering the race were correct.3
More than anything I think that this election turned quickly
into a referendum on the direction of the city and of MAPS 3. This came from
both sides. Cornett of course was eager to run on OKC’s renaissance. What was
curious was that Shadid seemed eager to fight the election on these terms as
well. To listen to him and his supporters the situation of OKC has never been
worse, more unfair and inequitable. I suppose this was a classic (shall I say
Rove-ian) technique of directly attacking your opponent's strengths4.
But I just don’t think it rang true for most people.
The thing that surprised me as a novice to OKC politics was
the depth of vitriol that some people have for Mick Cornett. This did not
become apparent to me until after I wrote my previous post. Put quite simply,
some folks really, really dislike Cornett. Sure, you browse the OKC Talk boards
and you’ll find some serious anti-Shadid vitriol, but I’ve never seen it in the
wild. You talk to the right person about Cornett, though, and you can feel the
temperature of the room change. And this, as much as anything. Is what I think
did the Shadid campaign in.
Ed Shadid has an obvious personal dislike of Mick Cornett.
As inspiring as Shadid is (and he is quite inspiring), my sense is that his
entire strategy was based, deep down, on the electorate feeling the same way as
he did about Mick Cornett. Take his slogan, “A Mayor for All of Oklahoma City.”
This slogan does not make any sense without a corollary that the incumbent
mayor is not for “All” of OKC. So simply by crafting a slogan Shadid was
invoking Cornett. This obsession with Cornett came through in nearly every
mailer Shadid sent out. Don’t get me wrong, I think that Shadid has a definite
vision for the city, but I think that that message got obscured by the campaign’s
intense negativity. What it reminds me of is the 2012 Romney campaign, built as
much as anything on counting on people hating Obama. They built their entire
convention message around an Obama gaffe, for example. They disliked Obama so
much that it was inconceivable to them that others don’t feel the same way. See
how that one turned out.
So, cue the handwringing. As I said, I feel like I should
have been an easy Shadid “get.” But he didn’t get me. What would it have taken?
More acknowledgment of the things going right in OKC. Less scapegoating of
downtown. An emphasis on completing MAPS correctly rather than ending it. The
same emphasis on improving services in impoverished areas, mental health and transit.
Could a less disingenuous, more positive campaign have won
this thing? The anti-Cornett people would have turned out either way. The public
sector unions would still have been on board. He could have easily won the downtown
vote5, and maybe some other young urban types in the inner core who
were otherwise turned off by Shadid.
But ultimately, no, I don’t think he had a shot. The people
of Oklahoma City just like OKC’s momentum and Mick Cornett too much6.
1 The fact that Mick’s margin of victory legitimately
surprised me might as anything illustrate the weird little bubble of inner OKC
that I occupy, who I know on Facebook, etc.
2 Although I anxiously await such an analysis by
Ben Felder.
3 The question of whether Mick or Catalyst would
have gone negative had the race been closer is beyond me to answer
4 For more Rove-ian tactics see the obvious, but
clumsy attempt at attacking Cornett from the right and suppressing the conservative vote, which
was later disavowed by Shadid http://www.thelostogle.com/2014/03/03/ed-shadid-accidentally-mailed-the-wrong-negative-campaign-postcard/
5 Although, as Shadid never got tired of pointing
out, would have only won him 2000 votes.
6 And, in spite of the Red Dirt Report’s florid predictions,
Mick isn’t going anywhere. He’s so popular Mary Falin herself made sure not to
miss a photo op with Mick at his watch party.
