The Day After the Election

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.